RHCSA - Study at home?

opethdisciple · 1 Sep 2015 at 00:56

I work in a Linux environment, but my skills are basic and I could definitely do with learning a lot more.

Can I study the Red Hat Certified System Administration course from home?

Just using my pc running VMs, CBT nuggets, study guides, books ect...

memyselfandi · 1 Sep 2015 at 05:38

Technically the RHCSA is not a course it's just an exam (EX200). What you are trying to do is avoid doing the SysAdmin I and II courses (which given the prices is quite understandable).

I would say probably but you should realize that, whilst easier than the full RHCE, the RHCSA is fully practical and is not an easy exam. You need to be able to do big chunks of the syllabus without having to think about it and figure it out which is why having a reasonable amount of experience is usually required to pass (when I sat my RHEL 6 RHCE I would sat at least 50% of the people sitting the RHCSA at the same time were failing due to not knowing enough ... they were clever people but they just couldn't do things off the top of their heads under exam conditions because they didn't have the experience to just "know" things). You don't have time in the exam to work everything out and you need to do things the way Red Hat expect so that you will be marked correctly.

I'm updating my RHCE to RHEL 7 at the end of the year ... shudder ... and that will basically involve a lot of playing in VMs to go over things on the syllabus just I'll be using the work lab rather than VMs on my own systems (admittedly I've been working on RHEL7 for a significant amount of the time since the start of the year). The problem is that there are several things on the syllabus which are not things which we do day to day so are things I am less familiar with.

edit:
Personally I'm finding RHCSA & RHCE Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7: Training and Exam Preparation Guide (EX200 and EX300) 3rd Edition (March 2015) by Asghar Ghori to be a good book to work from.

Is your company a Red Hat Partner? If they are there is some free online training you can do as well.

opethdisciple · 1 Sep 2015 at 20:42

memyselfandi said:
Technically the RHCSA is not a course it's just an exam (EX200). What you are trying to do is avoid doing the SysAdmin I and II courses (which given the prices is quite understandable).

I would say probably but you should realize that, whilst easier than the full RHCE, the RHCSA is fully practical and is not an easy exam. You need to be able to do big chunks of the syllabus without having to think about it and figure it out which is why having a reasonable amount of experience is usually required to pass (when I sat my RHEL 6 RHCE I would sat at least 50% of the people sitting the RHCSA at the same time were failing due to not knowing enough ... they were clever people but they just couldn't do things off the top of their heads under exam conditions because they didn't have the experience to just "know" things). You don't have time in the exam to work everything out and you need to do things the way Red Hat expect so that you will be marked correctly.

I'm updating my RHCE to RHEL 7 at the end of the year ... shudder ... and that will basically involve a lot of playing in VMs to go over things on the syllabus just I'll be using the work lab rather than VMs on my own systems (admittedly I've been working on RHEL7 for a significant amount of the time since the start of the year). The problem is that there are several things on the syllabus which are not things which we do day to day so are things I am less familiar with.

edit:
Personally I'm finding RHCSA & RHCE Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7: Training and Exam Preparation Guide (EX200 and EX300) 3rd Edition (March 2015) by Asghar Ghori to be a good book to work from.

Is your company a Red Hat Partner? If they are there is some free online training you can do as well.

Cool. Do you mean that there might be stuff in the exam which isn't explicitly covered by any course material. As Red Hat would assume you would know it as you work with Linux daily and so would have the relevant experiences?

All I'm trying to do is make my self more marketable. I'm looking to move on from my job in the next 6-12 months. I think I'm going to go and study for the CCNA, but have noticed that jobs on the various job websites want you to have some windows or Linux experiences to go with it.

I guess just covering the material and maybe not sitting the exam is still not a bad thing.

opethdisciple · 1 Sep 2015 at 21:53

I guess what I'm looking for is a Linux cert that is industry recognised and that I can realistic sit down learn it and pass the exam.

Red Hat is a FANTASTIC one to do. But seem like it is really aimed at me. It's aimed at Red Hat admins, and that not what I currently do.

Would be a cert from the Linux Professional Institute be better?

memyselfandi · 1 Sep 2015 at 22:37

You say that the job ads want experience, but passing an exam is not the same to having experience. Red Hat have tried to counter this by making the exam so that you really need to have experience as well as book learning in order to pass it. This is to attempt to limit devaluation of exams which happens in other areas where people do the exams but in the real world don't have a clue. It isn't the case of you go in and answer some questions on a bit of paper and you're done ... it's a several hour long practical problem solving hands on test and you are graded (and their grading is scripted so you need to have done things in the way they expect) on whether you have done the tasks they have given you.

Yes the Red Hat exams are aimed at Red Hat administrators ... after all they are for their distribution of Linux. But the vast majority of the content is applicable on other flavours as well. If you do the relevant Red Hat courses then you should cover all the areas necessary to do the tasks in the exam ... the experience gains you the knowledge of being able to get through the tasks in the time limit as you are not having to think how to apply the book learning to the system as its things you may well have done before in the real world.

Now the LPIC exams ... now I have actually had an LPIC certification in the past (quite a while ago now) and it was significantly easier than the Red Hat exams. It's a reasonable qualification but as its easier to get it wont be as highly regarded. If you aren't planning to be a Linux specialist and just want to show you have some knowledge then it may be enough for you.

Throrik · 1 Sep 2015 at 23:10

memyselfandi said:
You say that the job ads want experience, but passing an exam is not the same to having experience. Red Hat have tried to counter this by making the exam so that you really need to have experience as well as book learning in order to pass it. This is to attempt to limit devaluation of exams which happens in other areas where people do the exams but in the real world don't have a clue. It isn't the case of you go in and answer some questions on a bit of paper and you're done ... it's a several hour long practical problem solving hands on test and you are graded (and their grading is scripted so you need to have done things in the way they expect) on whether you have done the tasks they have given you.

Yes the Red Hat exams are aimed at Red Hat administrators ... after all they are for their distribution of Linux. But the vast majority of the content is applicable on other flavours as well. If you do the relevant Red Hat courses then you should cover all the areas necessary to do the tasks in the exam ... the experience gains you the knowledge of being able to get through the tasks in the time limit as you are not having to think how to apply the book learning to the system as its things you may well have done before in the real world.

Now the LPIC exams ... now I have actually had an LPIC certification in the past (quite a while ago now) and it was significantly easier than the Red Hat exams. It's a reasonable qualification but as its easier to get it wont be as highly regarded. If you aren't planning to be a Linux specialist and just want to show you have some knowledge then it may be enough for you.

It's quite a difficult place to be in, having little to no experience with a LPI Certificate on your CV may get it picked above someone who hasn't go it, it could be simply used as a way into the interview. It's not going to give you the skills that the RedHat certs will, but it's a good start if you don't have experience.

opethdisciple · 1 Sep 2015 at 23:13

memyselfandi said:
You say that the job ads want experience, but passing an exam is not the same to having experience. Red Hat have tried to counter this by making the exam so that you really need to have experience as well as book learning in order to pass it. This is to attempt to limit devaluation of exams which happens in other areas where people do the exams but in the real world don't have a clue. It isn't the case of you go in and answer some questions on a bit of paper and you're done ... it's a several hour long practical problem solving hands on test and you are graded (and their grading is scripted so you need to have done things in the way they expect) on whether you have done the tasks they have given you.

Yes the Red Hat exams are aimed at Red Hat administrators ... after all they are for their distribution of Linux. But the vast majority of the content is applicable on other flavours as well. If you do the relevant Red Hat courses then you should cover all the areas necessary to do the tasks in the exam ... the experience gains you the knowledge of being able to get through the tasks in the time limit as you are not having to think how to apply the book learning to the system as its things you may well have done before in the real world.

Now the LPIC exams ... now I have actually had an LPIC certification in the past (quite a while ago now) and it was significantly easier than the Red Hat exams. It's a reasonable qualification but as its easier to get it wont be as highly regarded. If you aren't planning to be a Linux specialist and just want to show you have some knowledge then it may be enough for you.

I have experience. Just not at a high level. It's a long story in another thread. The gist of it is that I currently work for a company and provide technical support. (Macs, Windows and mobile devices)

The servers are Linux. So all the command line stuff is Linux based, but my Linux technical knowledge is basic.

I don't want to provide technical support any more and want to move on up. I have been looking at the CCNA but have just noticed that they want people to have either Widows certs or a Linux certs (experience to go with it.)

The LPIC 2 actually looks really really good as it directly reflects the kind of stuff I see the other guys doing in the office. I just don't do this stuff as I'm not skilled enough and my manager has no appetite to let me learn or show me. He actually said this too me!!

Clark Nova · 4 Sep 2015 at 13:44

@ memyselfandi

I'm also doing RHCE on Red Hat 7 at the end of this year, I'm in Nottingham also.

I've found it to be very different to Red Hat 6 which I did my RHCSA on. You're definitely right about needing to know exactly what to do in the RHCSA exam - it's one thing to know how to complete the objective but another thing altogether being able to do it without consulting man pages etc. It's a tough exam, when I did mine several people simply ran out of time.

bigredshark · 6 Sep 2015 at 14:32

I would say, unless you work for a redhat shop already, carefully consider if an RHCSA or RHCE is a sensible move right now, RHEL usage is dropping away, particularly in more forward looking environments - check out the market share in the cloud...

It's difficult to recommend an alternative (the LPIC stuff is good but not directly comparable) but if it was my money then I wouldn't do it (and I say that as somebody who did an RHCE 7/8 years back). Unless you really want to work for a bank or somebody who's set on RHEL then it may not be the most relevant.

* Disclaimer - I am employed by a company which (nominally) competes with Redhat

img · 4 Oct 2015 at 09:48

Rather than create my own thread. Considering openstack usage and centos what cert would be good? My Linux knowledge is also maninly basic due to specialized in vmware ovr last few years. I have started a bit of work with openstack now though fellel my knowledge needs a boost from studying something

opethdisciple · 7 Feb 2016 at 01:30

Did a google search for Can you study for the RHCSA at home and found my own thread!

I'm currently weeks away to diving in to my LPIC or Red Hat study.

I have another thread where the RHCSA has been recommend over the LPIC, simply because it is a more sought after credential in the work market.

However reading peoples replies above it making me think twice about Red Hat.

I'm not looking to specialise. I'm just looking to break in to an infrastructure role / Linux admin.

My other thread is here.

mortals · 7 Feb 2016 at 13:35

bigredshark said:
I would say, unless you work for a redhat shop already, carefully consider if an RHCSA or RHCE is a sensible move right now, RHEL usage is dropping away, particularly in more forward looking environments - check out the market share in the cloud...

exactly this

look at the market share here:
http://w3techs.com/technologies/details/os-linux/all/all

This is for websites but it shows redhat has a very small market share.

Debian 32.6%
Ubuntu 30.8%
CentOS 20.3%
Red Hat 4.0%

Personally I would say experience of working with linux is worth much more than any of the current certifications.
Also the main thing that makes a perfect linux support technician is drive to learn & actively use linux
Seems so many just see $$$$ and don't have any interest in continually learning

If you don't have work experience with linux then showing active use & understanding in some way can still mean much more than a certification. (eg: linux related tech blog/website etc)

opethdisciple · 7 Feb 2016 at 14:07

mortals said:
exactly this

look at the market share here:
http://w3techs.com/technologies/details/os-linux/all/all

This is for websites but it shows redhat has a very small market share.

Personally I would say experience of working with linux is worth much more than any of the current certifications.
Also the main thing that makes a perfect linux support technician is drive to learn & actively use linux
Seems so many just see $$$$ and don't have any interest in continually learning

If you don't have work experience with linux then showing active use & understanding in some way can still mean much more than a certification. (eg: linux related tech blog/website etc)

I work in a Linux environment currently. The issue is my manager gives me no Linux projects to learn from as they already have two Linux admins already.

Personally, I think it's rubbish. He just doesn't like me. I've gone in to more details in my other thread.

memyselfandi · 7 Feb 2016 at 21:49

There are a few issues with the above statistics not least of which being that Linux doesn't just run web servers ... in fact, not working for a specialist web provider, I tend to see many more middleware and database servers / clusters and any web platforms tend to be sitting behind load balancers and SSL concentrators which would potentially affect the count.

Personally I am seeing less RHEL at the moment but that is because Oracle Linux is a hell of a lot cheaper to license than it but given that they are basically the same(*) and normal RHEL training would be relevant there too (and for CentOS). Not seeing much Ubuntu though due to the reliability of their patches not being there. (*) apart from clustering and virtualisation platforms (KVM vs OVM, the latter sucking badly on x86 although it's ok on Sparc).

I do agree with the point that experience is worth more than certifications and that you really need to actively approach the learning of things yourself rather than waiting for projects to learn from.

Sp00n · 8 Feb 2016 at 14:45

mortals said:
This is for websites but it shows redhat has a very small market share.

But combined with CentOS it's still prevalent.

Yes you can study for the RHCSA at home and I would advise it to avoid paying for the sysadmin I and II courses unless you are getting trained through your company.

celliott · 14 Feb 2016 at 21:56

Old thread but yes RHCSA is completely doable self study. I've done RHCSA/RHCE and both Linux Foundation equivalents with study in my own time which helped land me a new job at the end of last year.

Some statistics may show CentOS/RHEL dropping off but it doesn't matter, many very large organisations are still using it and the RedHat certifications are probably the best known in the industry, followed by LPIC. Most of the RHCSA/RHCE content is applicable to other distros, it's when you go beyond that towards RHCA that its specific RedHat technologies.