RHCT/RHCE Exam CHANGES!!

Well it looks like Red Hat just screwed every person studying for their exam. RHEL6 came out today, which is good since it is long over due. With the release of this new version however Red Hat has also completely revamped their certifications/exams.

The RCHT is gone. Just like that. Now to replace it there is the Red Hat Certified System Administrator (RHCSA), which is a pre-req to obtaining the RHCE (yeah that's total BS), costs $400, and has a whole list of exam prep guidelines that exceed what you needed to know for the RHCT. What this means for those looking to take the exam is that you need to spend an extra $400 now to become RHCSA first, learn additional material for the Red Hat exams (like there wasn't enough already), and do this without any new materials being released aside from Red Hat's official training courses (did I mention those cost about $3000).

The RHCE has been updated to now include new requirements for the exam itself, with an initial glance of it being harder (based on what is listed in the exam prep guide). You still need to pay $400 to take this exam and you must have a valid RHCSA in order to become RHCE (although you can take the test without the RHCSA).

I think it is complete c*** that they just changed the tests/resources/everything without a warning. I know that the exams should be updated with the new version of RHEL out, but come on...a sweeping major change in one day?!

Not to mention that those who have been asking about my book...well it seems half the book is no longer valid because the requirements just magically changed. Talking with the publisher about a course of action at this point.

Thanks for screwing me Red Hat. [Insert smiley face holding up the finger here]

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Comments

Bl8ckr0uter

NightShade03 wrote: »

It's written specifically for the RHCSA/RHCE exams...however you should be able to map what you learn to about 85% of the LPIC-1 series exams. The remaining 15% is stuff I assume you know because it's all entry level linux commands, etc.

Good to know. Thanks!

Forsaken_GA

so far it's a pretty good read, I don't agree with you on everything, but that's the beauty of linux, many ways to skin the cat hehe

NightShade03

Forsaken_GA wrote: »

so far it's a pretty good read, I don't agree with you on everything, but that's the beauty of linux, many ways to skin the cat hehe

This is def true! PM me some of your thoughts if you have time...I always appreciate feedback

Forsaken_GA

NightShade03 wrote: »

This is def true! PM me some of your thoughts if you have time...I always appreciate feedback

My biggest issue, and one that I'll mention publicly because I think it's good info, is the partioning coverage, specifically, the use of fdisk. Unless I missed something and fdisk can now do gpt labels, it should be making it's way out of every admins toolkit, especially with the rate at which storage size is increasing and the cost of acquiring it is going down. Assuming fdisk's limitations aren't going away, everyone should be learning to partition with parted, otherwise the first time you need to carve up a 2TB+ disk, it's going to be a wtf moment.

Now, to follow criticism with praise, I thought the LVM coverage was excellent. LVM used to confuse the hell out of me because all of it's documentation was far from helpful, but I think you presented it in a more practical way that makes it easy to learn. I'm glad you also skipped the RAID-like functions/implementation of LVM, as those can quickly confuse the newcomer.

Oh, and a question - I noticed during your software raid array examples, there was no mention of setting the partition types to Linux Raid autodetect. Is that no longer required? (I'll admit, it's been a few years since I've dealt with software raid)

I'm working my way through the users chapter atm (I admit, I'm doing a fair bit of skimming over the topics I know extremely well). I'll let you know what I think when I've gotten through it all

NightShade03

While I agree 100% with you about the fdisk comment, let me just say this; RHEL6 may be the "new" edition and 2TB might be common in the enterprise, but realistically most companies haven't migrated yet and prob won't till end of year/next year. The *only* reason that I even included fdisk is because I wanted to include utilities and things you can use with RHEL5. You will see other things like this in the book too (while focusing on RHEL6 I included some migration tips and older utilites, etc).

RAID partition type isn't really used anymore and RAID isn't even covered in the Red Hat exams @ all anymore so I just touched lightly on it. Also I feel like more and more people are using hardware RAID vs software RAID with the increasing usage of virtualization.

Thanks for the feedback though!

Forsaken_GA

NightShade03 wrote: »

While I agree 100% with you about the fdisk comment, let me just say this; RHEL6 may be the "new" edition and 2TB might be common in the enterprise, but realistically most companies haven't migrated yet and prob won't till end of year/next year. The *only* reason that I even included fdisk is because I wanted to include utilities and things you can use with RHEL5. You will see other things like this in the book too (while focusing on RHEL6 I included some migration tips and older utilites, etc).

Yeah, I realize it's focused on the exams, it just occurred to me while I was reading that not mentioning the label types was a bit of an omission, and a real life issue that may snag some folks.

RAID partition type isn't really used anymore and RAID isn't even covered in the Red Hat exams @ all anymore so I just touched lightly on it. Also I feel like more and more people are using hardware RAID vs software RAID with the increasing usage of virtualization.

Thanks for the feedback though!

Yup, that's been my case. My old job was still using physical disks in every box, so software raid was a big issue (it cost extra for hardware raid). But even with the hardware raid, I always hated coming in to work to find someone had built a big ass array, and then totally screwed the partitioning and file system scheme up to the point where I had to bust down the array and reinitialize it (and 8TB+ takes a LONG time to initialize) because they weren't paying attention to the 2TB boundary. I hope that one day management at the old place finally gets a clue and realizes that host based storage is horribly inefficient, and decide to pop the cash for a SAN solution.

Now, everything I deal with at work is network based storage, and if a box isn't virtualized, it's almost certainly getting it's storage delivered by an iSCSI LUN, I just got finished converting my home storage over to a Synology DS1511+ (lovely, lovely little box) and now all my personal storage is network based, except for the boot drives in a few systems.

Forsaken_GA

Well, I continue on with the book, and I did find one glaring mistake -

In the security chapter, you state that iptables rules don't take effect until you save and restart iptables.

Oh, how I wish that were true! I've locked myself out of more than one box when I fubar'd a rule and it immediately took effect

The NAT section also has a mistake, you have the ip_forward being set to 0 in sysctl.conf to allow forwarding across reboots.

Your technical reviewer needs to be shot

NightShade03

Forsaken_GA wrote: »

Your technical reviewer needs to be shot

Technical reviewer?! What do you think I have you guys for

I actually made a Tip/Warning about the iptables issue in there and how to use the at command in order to prevent locking yourself out.

Thanks for the catches though I have a running list of mistakes that will be updated for the digital copy quickly. Keep em coming

Bodanel

Chapter 4 GnuPG

in the book it is gpg —key-gen but the correct version is gpg --gen-key

NightShade03

Bodanel wrote: »

Chapter 4 GnuPG

in the book it is gpg —key-gen but the correct version is gpg --gen-key

Caught that. Thanks.

penoi

you might also check page#337 .htaccess file

AuthUserFile /etc/httpd/userfile
AuthGroupFile /etc/httpd/groupfile

also suggest to create new thread for the book errata

linux_anarchist

Damian,

I just picked up the hard copy of your book here at Barnes and Noble after reading it on Safari for the last couple of weeks.

Great job, very readable and has the right amount of verbosity. I surveyed the competition as well, and in my mind this is a much more digestable choice, even if Jang version 6 was out now. Not too concerned about the minor errata issues.

I am hoping for your success in the training/publication world.

goll

Great book!

penoi wrote: »

also suggest to create new thread for the book errata

Second that

NightShade03

I have an errata page coming that will be available from my training website or available as a PDF download. I'll let you know as soon as it is available.

Thanks for all the praise everyone

NightShade03

Looking to see if anyone that has purchased the book would be willing to post a review on amazon??

ironlung

Question about your book. The lab exams at the end are to test yourself for the RHCE correct? The lab goes beyond the scope of the RHCSA right?

NightShade03

ironlung wrote: »

Question about your book. The lab exams at the end are to test yourself for the RHCE correct? The lab goes beyond the scope of the RHCSA right?

Correct. Covers both RHCSA and RHCE

varelg

NightShade03 wrote: »

Looking to see if anyone that has purchased the book would be willing to post a review on amazon??

Still reading it (and oh I wish I had more time on hand for it), my thought is that one writes a review only after the book is read and not review it based just on first impressions. Or in this case at least read the RHCSA part.
First impression is that it is a good move to give a brief intro into necessary commands to know before diving into more specific topics of the actual exam, which makes those less experienced Linux users more willing to jump onboard and explore the book further (hence, more copies sold). But that goal is then defeated by not explaining the syntax of config files that are mentioned to be of importance. So you are tending to the less experienced audience but then drop them off at the very next chapter.
Maybe reading further would change my initial impression...

NightShade03

varelg wrote: »

Still reading it (and oh I wish I had more time on hand for it), my thought is that one writes a review only after the book is read and not review it based just on first impressions. Or in this case at least read the RHCSA part.

Fair Point.

varelg wrote: »

First impression is that it is a good move to give a brief intro into necessary commands to know before diving into more specific topics of the actual exam, which makes those less experienced Linux users more willing to jump onboard and explore the book further (hence, more copies sold). But that goal is then defeated by not explaining the syntax of config files that are mentioned to be of importance. So you are tending to the less experienced audience but then drop them off at the very next chapter.
Maybe reading further would change my initial impression...

I have found after writing the book that it is VERY difficult to write a book that works for everyone. I can either include the less experienced and annoy the more experienced or vise versa....very hard to do both. Hopefully your overall impression of the book will be good though.

thedude666

anyone here passed the rhcsa/rhce exam for rhel6 using this book and can tell me if it is enough if you have the knowledge discussed in this book?

Forsaken_GA

NightShade03 wrote: »

Looking to see if anyone that has purchased the book would be willing to post a review on amazon??

I'll be happy to once I finish it. I got up to the ntp chapter, and then got seriously side tracked by a few other things.

NightShade03

Forsaken_GA wrote: »

I'll be happy to once I finish it. I got up to the ntp chapter, and then got seriously side tracked by a few other things.

Awesome Thanks!

(NTP huh? You are almost done!!

)

Forsaken_GA

NightShade03 wrote: »

Awesome Thanks!

(NTP huh? You are almost done!! )

I finished the book a few days ago, and left you a review on Amazon. I'm fairly sure you'll know which one was me

NightShade03

Forsaken_GA wrote: »

I finished the book a few days ago, and left you a review on Amazon. I'm fairly sure you'll know which one was me

Thanks! I actually read it this morning. Glad you enjoyed it