If you plan to take the exams, check back to the exam objectives pages often because they change from time to time. Also keep in mind that the RHCSA is a standalone certification; however, you must pass the RHCSA and the RHCE exams to get an RHCE certification. Often, the two exams are given on the same day.
You can sign up for RHCSA and RHCE training and exams at https://redhat.com/en/services/training-and-certification. Training and exams are given at major cities all over the United States and around the world. The skills that you need to complete these exams are described in the following sections.
RHCSA topics
As noted earlier, RHCSA exam topics cover basic system administration skills. These are the current topics listed for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 at the RHCSA exam objectives site (again, check the exam objectives site in case they change) and where in this book you can learn about them:
Understand essential tools: You are expected to have a working knowledge of the command shell (bash), including how to use proper command syntax and do input/output redirection (< > >>). You need to know how to log in to remote and local systems. Expect to have to create, edit, move, copy, link, delete, and change permission and ownership on files. Likewise, you should know how to look up information on man pages and /usr/share/doc. Most of these topics are covered in Chapter 3 and Chapter 4 in this book. Chapter 5 describes how to edit and find files.
Operate running systems: In this category, you must understand the Linux boot process, and how to shut down, reboot, and change to different targets (previously called runlevels). You need to identify processes and kill processes as requested. You must be able to find and interpret log files. Chapter 15 describes how to change targets and manage system services. See Chapter 6 for information on managing and changing processes. Logging is described in Chapter 13.
Configure local storage: Setting up disk partitions includes creating physical volumes and configuring them to be used for Logical Volume Management (LVM) or encryption (LUKS). You should also be able to set up those partitions as filesystems or swap space that can be mounted or enabled at boot time. Disk partitioning and LVM are covered in Chapter 12. LUKS and other encryption topics are described in Chapter 23, “Understanding Advanced Linux Security.”
Create and configure filesystems: Create and automatically mount different kinds of filesystems, including regular Linux filesystems (ext2, ext3, or ext4) and network filesystems (NFS). Create collaborative directories using the set group ID bit feature. You must also be able to use LVM to extend the size of a logical volume. Filesystem topics are covered in Chapter 12. See Chapter 20 for NFS coverage.
Deploy, configure, and maintain systems: This covers a range of topics, including configuring networking and creating cron tasks. For software packages, you must be able to install packages from Red Hat Content Delivery Network (CDN), a remote repository, or the local filesystem. The cron facility is described in Chapter 13.
Manage users and groups: You must know how to add, delete, and change user and group accounts. Another topic that you should know is password aging, using the chage command. See Chapter 11 for information on configuring users and groups.
Manage security: You must have a basic understanding of how to set up a firewall (firewalld, system-config-firewall, or iptables) and how to use SELinux. You must be able to set up SSH to do key-based authentication. Learn about SELinux in Chapter 24. Firewalls are covered in Chapter 25. Chapter 13 includes a description of key-based authentication.
Most of these topics are covered in this book. Refer to Red Hat documentation (https://access.redhat.com/documentation) under the Red Hat Enterprise Linux heading for descriptions of features not found in this book. In particular, the system administration guides contain descriptions of many of the RHCSA-related topics.
RHCE topics
RHCE exam topics cover more advanced server configuration, along with a variety of security features for securing those servers in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8. Again, check the RHCE exam objectives site for the most up-to-date information on topics that you should study for the exam.
System configuration and management
The system configuration and management requirement for the RHCE exam covers a range of topics, including the following:
Firewalls: Block or allow traffic to selected ports on your system that offer services such as web, FTP, and NFS, as well as block or allow access to services based on the originator's IP address. Firewalls are covered in Chapter 25, “Securing Linux on a Network.”
Kerberos authentication: Use Kerberos to authenticate users on a RHEL system.
System reports: Use features such as sar to report on system use of memory, disk access, network traffic, and processor utilization. Chapter 13 describes how to use the sar command.
Shell scripting: Create a simple shell script to take input and produce output in various ways. Shell scripting is described in Chapter 7.
SELinux: With Security Enhanced Linux in Enforcing mode, make sure that all server configurations described in the next section are properly secured with SELinux. SELinux is described in Chapter 24.
Ansible: Understand core Ansible components (inventories, modules, playbooks, and so on). Be able to install and configure an Ansible control node. Work with Ansible roles and use advanced Ansible features. See Chapter 29 for information on using Ansible playbooks to install and manage Linux systems.
Installing and configuring network services
For each of the network services in the list that follows, make sure you can go through the steps to install packages required by the service, set up SELinux to allow access to the service, set the service to start at boot time, secure the service by host or by user (using iptables or features provided by the service itself), and configure it for basic operation. These are the services:
Web server: Configure an Apache (HTTP/HTTPS) server. You must be able to set up a virtual host, deploy a CGI script, use private directories, and allow a particular Linux group to manage the content. Chapter 17 describes how to configure a web server.
DNS