RHCA EX401 Resources

*work in progress as I study for the exam, will be WIP until I pass*

The EX401 exam "Red Hat Enterprise Deployment and Systems Management" covers mainly using Red Hat Satellite in an effective way to deploy and manage your systems, software, and users' access to that platform. While this does cover and use the proprietary Red Hat Satellite software, the Spacewalk software is the open source version of Satellite. I would not recommend using that to study, but instead actually using Satellite since that's what you'll use on the exam, which makes this one of the more difficult exams to study for IF you don't have access to that software. If you do have access, this exam is one of the easier ones to prepare for, as you can easily set up your own lab to practice the exam objectives without doing much pre-setup to make the lab life-like.

Here is the course outline, if you go that route


Here are the exam objectives


What I'm going to do is just list the exam objectives and link to resources where one could study those objectives:
  • Assign groups, software channels, and configuration channels to an activation key
  • Configure errata
  • Provision RHN Satellite Server clients using kickstart
  • Kickstart a machine using Cobbler
  • Manage virtual systems using RHN Satellite server
  • Clone channels and use a cloned channel

Comments

  • UnixGuyUnixGuy Mod Posts: 4,564 Mod
    Thanks for the review. I thought a lot about this (and RHCA in general), and I'm still not sure if they're really worth while. You're more likely to deal with things like MySQL or Puppet on the job rather than Satellite. Unless you work for Red Hat (or Planning to) ;)
    Certs: GSTRT, GPEN, GCFA, CISM, CRISC, RHCE

    Check out my YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/DRJic8vCodE 


  • darkerosxxdarkerosxx Banned Posts: 1,343
    Mostly these exams cover underlying "you should have these as a seasoned professional linux admin" type skills/knowledge.

    EX401 - baremetal provisioning, dhcp, pxe, kickstarts, software management fundamentals, configuration management fundamentals, revision control, everything RPM, etc.

    EX413 - everything security for open source infrastructure OS and apps

    EX436 - everything storage/clustering

    EX442 - everything system monitoring and performance tuning using open source tools

    So, on the whole, they're helpful... question is are they worth the money when you can study everything on your own, and that depends on how diligent you are in your own studies and whether you want to have the cert to justify your work to peers and/or show your status in the workforce.
  • UnixGuyUnixGuy Mod Posts: 4,564 Mod
    Pretty sire they're very challenging and extremely useful, but my point is that they focus on tools that are not always used on the job. Like Satellite for example, if you don't use it as part of your job then he exam becomes extremely hard to take. Plus the cost!
    Certs: GSTRT, GPEN, GCFA, CISM, CRISC, RHCE

    Check out my YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/DRJic8vCodE 


  • darkerosxxdarkerosxx Banned Posts: 1,343
    So after reading more into the exam, the material I have is for the older course which didn't cover SAM and the 5.6 Satellite code. Given that and the fact that 2 of the exams (436, 442) I have up-to-date course material for, I'm going to go for those while they're still the same material, then come back to this one and the new updated 413 exam.
  • astudentastudent Member Posts: 26 ■□□□□□□□□□
    Thank you for sharing. icon_study.gif
    Satellite 6 was released. Is it going to replace the Satellite 5 in the exam soon?
  • MrAgentMrAgent Member Posts: 1,310 ■■■■■■■■□□
    Thanks for the link. Ill take a further look later today.
  • VeritiesVerities Member Posts: 1,162
    Good stuff. Dark posted all those RHEL 7 guides in the RHCE thread a few months ago.
  • JockVSJockJockVSJock Member Posts: 1,118
    astudent wrote: »
    Thank you for sharing. icon_study.gif
    Satellite 6 was released. Is it going to replace the Satellite 5 in the exam soon?

    I'm currently in the process of upgrading RH Satellite from 5.3 to 5.6 and that will be supported until sometime in 2017.

    Our RH Satellite is disconnected and a bit of a pain in the ass to setup.
    ***Freedom of Speech, Just Watch What You Say*** Example, Beware of CompTIA Certs (Deleted From Google Cached)

    "Its easier to deceive the masses then to convince the masses that they have been deceived."
    -unknown
  • astudentastudent Member Posts: 26 ■□□□□□□□□□
    Verities wrote: »
    Good stuff. Dark posted all those RHEL 7 guides in the RHCE thread a few months ago.
    Thank you for the reply.
    How is your CISSP preparation? Saw that you have a blog for it.
Sign In or Register to comment.