Technology Career Path Musings
Well, I thought I’d have a quiet year and take a break from exams. Got
my VCAP5-DCA and VCAP5-DCD last year but with major moves on OpenStack I
thought I’d find out more about what it all means. In doing so I figured some
Linux skills would come in handy. I’ve dabbled a bit to get under the covers in
ESXi and some virtual appliances but never taken any formal training. It
appeared very complex but with Microsoft pushing Azure / Cloud and starting to
pull away from technologists who’ve supported them for over a decade (e.g.
Technet cancellation, Master Program cancellation) and generally getting all
rowdy (What's up with their VDI licensing and get SA for passive DR copies of
Servers/SQL?), I thought Linux would be a good complementary skill to have. If
Openstack takes off, KVM might become even more important and RedHat I felt was
a good distribution to certify on to open other doors. Microsoft are a great
company and they’ve a very loyal following but with everything being sucked
into the cloud my 3 x MCSE’s don’t feel like a good investment of my time
anymore to renew.
So, RedHat just released Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 just in the middle
of my studies (!) and the exam has been upgraded also. It’s a 2.5 Hour exam,
hands on and I’m book to sit it in a few weeks. The RHEL 7 exam objectives are
mostly the same with a few additions so I thought as I’ve to redo my notes
anyway for this version I’d try and blog some or all of the commands I felt I
needed to know to meet each sections requirements. So for the next while it’s
RHEL7 all the way and my attempts to find the easiest and quickest way to meet
exam objectives and pass my first Linux exam.
The exam blueprint is available here:
There are a number of objective headings as follows:
·
Understand and use essential tools
·
Operate running systems
·
Configure local storage
·
Create and configure file systems
·
Deploy, configure, and maintain systems
·
Manage users and groups
·
Manage security
I’ve listed the full objectives below and highlighted those that have
been added for the RHEL7 Exam over the RHEL6 exam:
Understand and use essential tools
- Access a shell prompt and issue commands with correct syntax.
- Use input-output redirection (>,>> , |, 2>, etc.).
- Use grep and regular expressions to analyze text.
- Access remote systems using ssh and VNC.
- Log in and switch users in multiuser targets.
- Archive, compress, unpack, and uncompress files using tar, star, gzip, and bzip2.
- Create and edit text files.
- Create, delete, copy, and move files and directories.
- Create hard and soft links.
- List, set, and change standard ugo/rwx permissions.
- Locate, read, and use system documentation including man, info, and files in /usr/share/doc.
Operate running systems
- Boot, reboot, and shut down a system normally.
- Boot systems into different targets manually.
- Interrupt the boot process in order to gain access to a system.
- Identify CPU/memory intensive processes, adjust process priority with renice, and kill processes.
- Locate and interpret system log files and journals.
- Access a virtual machine's console.
- Start and stop virtual machines.
- Start, stop, and check the status of network services.
- Securely transfer files between systems.
Configure local storage
- List, create, delete partitions on MBR and GPT disks.
- Create and remove physical volumes, assign physical volumes to volume groups, and create and delete logical Volumes.
- Create and configure LUKS-encrypted partitions and logical volumes to prompt for password and mount a decrypted file system at boot.
- Configure systems to mount file systems at boot by Universally Unique ID (UUID) or label.
- Add new partitions and logical volumes, and swap to a system non-destructively.
- Create, mount, unmount, and use vfat, ext4 and xfs file systems.
- Mount, unmount, and use LUKS-encrypted file systems.
- Mount and unmount CIFS and NFS network file systems.
- Configure systems to mount LUKS-encrypted, and network file systems automatically.
- Extend existing unencrypted logical volumes.
- Create and configure set-GID directories for collaboration.
- Create and manage Access Control Lists (ACLs).
- Diagnose and correct file permission problems.
Deploy, configure, and maintain systems
- Configure networking and hostname resolution statically or dynamically.
- Schedule tasks using at and cron.
- Start and stop services and configure services to start automatically at boot.
- Configure systems to boot into a specific target automatically.
- Install Red Hat Enterprise Linux automatically using Kickstart.
- Configure a physical machine to host virtual guests.
- Install Red Hat Enterprise Linux systems as virtual guests.
- Configure systems to launch virtual machines at boot.
- Configure network services to start automatically at boot.
- Configure a system to use time services.
- Install and update software packages from Red Hat Network, a remote repository, or from the local file system.
- Update the kernel package appropriately to ensure a bootable system.
- Modify the system bootloader.
Manage users and groups
- Create, delete, and modify local user accounts.
- Change passwords and adjust password aging for local user accounts.
- Create, delete, and modify local groups and group memberships.
- Configure a system to use an existing LDAP directory service for user and group information.
- Configure a system to use an existing authentication service for user and group information.
Manage security
- Configure firewall settings using system-config-firewall or iptables.
- Configure key-based authentication for SSH.
- Set enforcing and permissive modes for SELinux.
- List and identify SELinux file and process context.
- Restore default file contexts.
- Use boolean settings to modify system SELinux settings.
- Diagnose and address routine SELinux policy violations
