Soldato
Any have any recommended books and or study material for these certifications?
RHCSA and RHCSE study material
- Thread starter opethdisciple
- Start date
Associate
Sander van Vugt's video series, they're available on Safari Books Online.
Thanks for that. You think he's videos both RHCSA and RHCSE are worth £375?
I imagine they are. As although seemingly expensive, if you have good grasp of the course concepts your be able to get a job easily starting at the 45k + region.
I'm not particularly looking to take the exams. Just I want to prepare my self as much as possible before I enter the job market again.
I am currently in a Red Hat engineering role at a company but I am just very junior. 1.5 years in the job.
I want to study as hard as possible over the next 1-1.5 years and then move on.
When you buy the courses are you able to keep the videos?
Associate
Where are you getting the £375 from? Pearson? Or an annual sub to Safari? Just I’d highly recommend going Safari, purely because there’s so much stuff there and is easily worth the $399 a year. Even if you sub for a month or two just to smash these courses, that’s only $39 a month.
I can recommend the EX200/EX300 book by Asghar Ghori, but I'm not sure books are the best route anymore.
You will also find the Linux foundation SysAdmin/Engineer certs are very close to the RedHat certs in terms of content (I've done all 4), and there is some good course material at Linux Academy. They give you upto 6 VM's to play/test with (included in the cost of your subscription) and have labs throughout their courses. Plus you can do the Linux foundation exams online without going to a test centre and they are much cheaper than RedHat.
Personally I would aim to do some exams instead of throwing £375 at videos. If you have 1.5 years experience using Linux on a daily basis they are not that difficult, there will just be some areas you need to brush up on. Know multiple ways to secure services etc, SELinux, TCPWrappers, IPTables, PAM.
You will also find the Linux foundation SysAdmin/Engineer certs are very close to the RedHat certs in terms of content (I've done all 4), and there is some good course material at Linux Academy. They give you upto 6 VM's to play/test with (included in the cost of your subscription) and have labs throughout their courses. Plus you can do the Linux foundation exams online without going to a test centre and they are much cheaper than RedHat.
Personally I would aim to do some exams instead of throwing £375 at videos. If you have 1.5 years experience using Linux on a daily basis they are not that difficult, there will just be some areas you need to brush up on. Know multiple ways to secure services etc, SELinux, TCPWrappers, IPTables, PAM.
Here
Seems a little cheaper on Safari Books. I might just go with the $39 a month option.
Thanks for the suggestion.
I have all the big three books which are recommended for the exams. (Ashgar, Jang and Sanders)
I'll probably read them after I've done the videos.
So you think it's worth taking the exams?
It doesn't hurt for sure but I have friends in the industry who are now on 70k-90k and none of them have certifications. Just experience.
I'm also thinking it might be quicker to learn via videos than through traditional reading.
Those RH text books are around 1000 each. The video series is only 30 hours.
Much quicker to get through the material via a video series.
Those RH text books are around 1000 each. The video series is only 30 hours.
Much quicker to get through the material via a video series.
OK Guys.
If I was to purchase Sanders Book read that first then purchase the video series both RHCSA and RHCSE if I studied those things alone and really learnt the material would I be ready for the exams?
I'm getting tempted to take the exams also.
One aspect that bothers me is the re-certifying part, but I guess I only need the exam initially for my next jump after which I probably won't need to impress anyone with certs as they are more interested in experience at that point.
If I was to purchase Sanders Book read that first then purchase the video series both RHCSA and RHCSE if I studied those things alone and really learnt the material would I be ready for the exams?
I'm getting tempted to take the exams also.
One aspect that bothers me is the re-certifying part, but I guess I only need the exam initially for my next jump after which I probably won't need to impress anyone with certs as they are more interested in experience at that point.
If you already have "the big 3" books, why are you thinking of buying yet another book? Seems overkill to me, but each to their own.. I would use 1 Book and a video series then do your own studying to get a deeper understanding of topics you are not 100% sure about from the exam blueprint.
I absolutely think the exams are worth doing, you don't need to rectify every year. Even an expired RHCE has weight as it shows your skills were at that level X amount of time ago, so now you know more above and beyond that. If your employer wants you to rectify it should be a walk in the park and they could pay for it. I moved from a Windows/Electronic engineering role which I had been doing for 7/8 years to a full time Linux role at a very large company coming up 3 years ago, having RHCE/LFCE definitely helped get my foot in the door. I'm now a senior and earn a very decent salary although its not 90k..
I absolutely think the exams are worth doing, you don't need to rectify every year. Even an expired RHCE has weight as it shows your skills were at that level X amount of time ago, so now you know more above and beyond that. If your employer wants you to rectify it should be a walk in the park and they could pay for it. I moved from a Windows/Electronic engineering role which I had been doing for 7/8 years to a full time Linux role at a very large company coming up 3 years ago, having RHCE/LFCE definitely helped get my foot in the door. I'm now a senior and earn a very decent salary although its not 90k..
Soldato
Personally I used RHCSA & RHCE Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7: Training and Exam Preparation Guide (EX200 and EX300) by Asghar Ghori as a book, and did the RHCSA and RHCE revision courses on Linux Academy. If your company is a Red Hat Partner I also did the RHEL7 Implementation and the RHEL7 Troubleshooting course via the Partner Portal's training section. Also just do lots of hand on time with RhEL systems so things are almost second nature (e.g. you should be able to do any LVM task without even thinking about it)
Me and my colleague did our RHEL7 RHCSA and RHCE exams just over a year ago and also took the Red Hat SysAdmin III course as a refresher (in the version which includes the exams on the last day) ... I would not recommend this as whilst the course covered a few things which we didn't do normally the instructor was absolutely **** poor, exceedingly so when I compare him with the instructor who did my RHEL6 RHCE course years before, and we actually learnt more in the hotel in the evening with a tablet connected to the hotel TV and VPN'ed into Linux Academy and our home and work labs.
I do know quite a few senior sysadmins who are very good who have failed their RHCE's on the first attempt (they are people with 15-20 years of experience in Linux/Unix and use it all day every day). It can be a pain if you don't know how to approach it because it is completely hands on and you have to think about how they set questions and how you should approach the multiple tasks you are asked to do as a whole rather than completely individually, (and always make sure what ever you do can survive a reboot (and that your system will still reboot))
When doing the exams make sure before you start that everything is secure physically. I had no end of problems with my RHEL7 RHCSA as the monitor stand decided it would unlock itself so the monitors kept on drifting down and angling the bottom away from me. Not an issue but took time to fix (meant I didn't beat my RHEL6 RHCSA of 100% in just over an hour).
Me and my colleague did our RHEL7 RHCSA and RHCE exams just over a year ago and also took the Red Hat SysAdmin III course as a refresher (in the version which includes the exams on the last day) ... I would not recommend this as whilst the course covered a few things which we didn't do normally the instructor was absolutely **** poor, exceedingly so when I compare him with the instructor who did my RHEL6 RHCE course years before, and we actually learnt more in the hotel in the evening with a tablet connected to the hotel TV and VPN'ed into Linux Academy and our home and work labs.
I do know quite a few senior sysadmins who are very good who have failed their RHCE's on the first attempt (they are people with 15-20 years of experience in Linux/Unix and use it all day every day). It can be a pain if you don't know how to approach it because it is completely hands on and you have to think about how they set questions and how you should approach the multiple tasks you are asked to do as a whole rather than completely individually, (and always make sure what ever you do can survive a reboot (and that your system will still reboot))
When doing the exams make sure before you start that everything is secure physically. I had no end of problems with my RHEL7 RHCSA as the monitor stand decided it would unlock itself so the monitors kept on drifting down and angling the bottom away from me. Not an issue but took time to fix (meant I didn't beat my RHEL6 RHCSA of 100% in just over an hour).
I definitely need to do the courses as my skills are poor.
I don't know what Red Hat are thinking tho. They have their own study website.
Basic is £4k and the Standard is £5k!
That's insane right?
I don't know what Red Hat are thinking tho. They have their own study website.
Basic is £4k and the Standard is £5k!
That's insane right?
Senior and Lead DevOps £70k and £90k respectively.
I spent 8.5 years in a technical support role. Doing nothing but taking 1st line support calls and menial IT jobs.
I am now in a Systems Engineer / DevOps role which I have been in for 1.5 years. I've read a few Red Hat books, some bash scripting and Puppet books and been on training courses through work.
But pay is very very average. I want to go as fast as possible to make up for lost time and move on in about 1.5 years if not sooner.
So this is why I am now interested in paying to watch these Sanders videos. I also want to do some Python as well.
I'll sit the Red Hat exams if I think I'm good enough.
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LVM task without even thinking about it?
I'd struggle even looking it up.
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To be fair although we use LVM we don't use it in a traditional way.
For example to increase an LVM volume we don't do it using LVM. We shut the VM down and use some KVM commands to expand the LVM inside the VM.
Only done this once.
Soldato
You shutdown the system to increase things when using LVM? .... Part of the whole point in using LVM is that you can do it online on the fly with no outage ...
Soldato
Yep those two. They were reasonable prep plus some playing around using my own and LA's test servers.
Not looked at the Sander can Vugt videos as I already had a Linux Academy account for things like Docker etc (although the best course i've done on that subject was on Udemy)
Not looked at the Sander can Vugt videos as I already had a Linux Academy account for things like Docker etc (although the best course i've done on that subject was on Udemy)
Cool.
You think the two video courses plus a book is sufficient info to be prepared? Should I consult another book?
I think I need to set my self a target and that is to sit the RHCSA by the end of the year.
Considering my Linux knowledge is novice with a sprinkling of intermediate how long do you think I need to prepare for each exam?
Do you think if I book the RHCSA for around the 14th of Dec I'll be ready in that time?
Just to note at work we are running 99% RHEL 6 hosts with only one RHEL 7 at the moment.
All my RHEL 7 training will have to be done at home on Virtual box.
I do have about 5 weeks leave from work I haven't taken yet. So I could easily book 2 weeks off pre exam for extra preparation.
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I've been researching the two videos (Linux Academy and Sanders courses) as well as what the internet says about the three books.
Sanders videos are I think 28hrs for both courses (unless I am misunderstanding it and it is actually 28hrs per course) whilst the Linux Academy is about 70hrs for both courses.
Not sure if the shorter course is actually better as it might actually be to the point with minimal fluff?
I am leaning towards the Linux Academy one anyway.
Also I found the American dude easier to understand than the Dutchman.
Books on the other hand seems a mixed bag.
I'm some what leaning towards Sanders book. Probably at the end of the day any of the three books are fine. And I should just buy one and get on with.
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Check out the techexams forum as folk there are studing for it / passed and usually post good info -
http://www.techexams.net/forums/lpi-rhce-sair/
Thanks dude I'll check it out.