Getting an RHCE Certification for RHEL6
If you received an RHCE certification for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 or earlier, that cert expired when RHEL 6 was released in November, 2010. If you are thinking about re-upping your RHCE cert (or getting one for the first time), I wanted to start a discussion here about tips for doing that.
A bit about me: I recently became a writer for the Red Hat customer portal. Just before that, I spent almost three years as a trainer for Red Hat, focusing particularly on Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE) and Red Hat Certified System Administrator (RHCSA, formerly RHCT) training and certification. Before that I spent about a decade writing a few dozen Linux books, including the Red Hat Linux Bible, Linux Toolbox series, Linux Toys series, and Fedora Bible.
Although we are not allowed to speak directly of what is on the RHCE exam, or train people specifically to take the exam, there is public information I can point you to that can help you pursue your RHCE certification:
• RHCE Prep Guide: Go here http://www.redhat.com/certification/rhce/objectives to get information on the format and objectives of the exam. For RHCSA, go here: http://www.redhat.com/certification/rhcsa/objectives.
• Notice topics no longer covered: If you took the exam before RHEL 6, notice that several previous topics are no longer on the exam, including: Software RAID, user quotas, IMAP (IMAPs, POP3s), DNS slave server, and using rescue media.
• Notice new topics: Actually, there's kind of a lot of new stuff.
If you are rusty or unfamiliar with some of the topics here, Red Hat training (http://training.redhat.com) is the best way to prepare for the exams. However, if you want to try to take the exams cold, I'd be glad to discuss some of the new topics on the prep guides within this group. They include:
New RHCSA Level Skills:
• Identify CPU/memory intensive processes, adjust process priority with renice, and kill processes
• Virtualization: Configure virtual host, install/launch/start/stop virtual guests
• Create and configure LUKS-encrypted partitions
• Configure systems to mount file systems at boot by Universally Unique ID (UUID) or label
• Mount and unmount CIFS and NFS network file systems
• Configure a physical machine to host virtual guests
• Configure system to run default HTTP and FTP server
• Firewalls and SELinux
New RHCE Level Skills:
• Network Address Translation (NAT) via iptables
• Configure system to authenticate using Kerberos
• Build a simple RPM package
• Use shell scripts to automate system maintenance tasks
• Configure a system to accept logging from a remote system
• Configure an MTA (mail server) to forward (relay) email through a smart host
As we get our new Online User Groups off and running, I'd like to invite you to discuss this and other topics related to RHCSA and RHCE certification for RHEL 6.
-- Chris Negus
Red Hat GSS Customer Portal
RHCE, RHCX, RHCI, RHCVA
Responses
I've taken RHCE and passed since RHEL 2.1, but never have a chance to retake RHCE test again. During those day, we had to recompile kernel, solve kernel panics, network, drivers issues, DNS, http, mail, etc.
I wonder what does rhce 6 test look like now? and what topic(s) does it cover?
"current" RHCE's: care to share your experiment about preparing, taking test!!!!!
Thanks,
Chris mentioned: "In other words, the prep guides are still the best way to find out what might be on the exams."
I just wanted to (very carefully) underscore this. I printed out each prep guide and had it next to my computer while I was self-studying for the RHCA. The certification staff responsible for the prep guides put significant effort into them and they are exceptional.
Just want to say I do agree that the prep guides give you a list of topics to study and research. However, I've read 6 or 7 manuals, then attended the Admin I course. There's a lot of stuff which I missed, mostly GUI stuff. This can be due to me using the command line all the time. It's an expensive option and does take time to attend training courses, but it will be worthwhile in the long run. I've put off attending training courses for a long time, but RHEL6 seems to be a good time to get some training because you get all the GUI stuff, it is a much bigger OS, so the course is meatier. I'm going for the Admin II course. After that, I hope to attend the Admin III course. The exams are scarey, but the most important thing (to me anyway) is to be able to work with the OS effectively. Somebody on the course told me he just "pass the buck" to the hosting company. I told him I work for a hosting company. So looks like the buck stops with me!