Prepping for the RHEL Sysadmin & Cert'd Eng. exams

Linux and Unix-Like Red Hat
1

I have completed training for RH033, RH133, & RH253. How much practical hands-on time (besides just re-doing the labs) will I need to successfully pass the RHCSA/RHCE exam?

Also, is there an alternative for lab time besides week-long lab sessions that Red Hat sells for $300 a pop?

Thanks very much in Advance!

  Rob
2

I think you mean $3000+ a pop.

The best advise I can give you is to take the sequences provided in the training course labs and the examples in Michael Jangs RHCE Study Guide and practice practice practice until you can do them blindly in your sleep and in as little time as possible.

3

FPMurphy,

Thanks for your Reply. Sorry, I wasn't as clear as I could have been; Red Hat sells "lab time" apart from the training sessions. One week of lab time costs $299.

I've ordered a 2nd RHEL prep book (Michael Jang), and I hope to get CentOS installed on a laptop. I won't have much free time the next few weeks!

  Rob
4

Rather than purchasing Red Hat labtime, I suggest you purchase VMware for your laptop and install install 2 copies of RHEL or Centos on your laptop in an appropriate configuration and take a snapshot of the configuration once it is up and running. Then just use the snapshot to restore the configuration to default whenever needed.

5

Alternately, Virtual Box is free and works very well for your goals. I second the idea of getting CentOS though.

6 
I suggest you purchase VMware for your laptop [...]

Or use VirtualBox... it's free.

If you are only going to use VMs for a few days I think it's not worth it paying for a VMware license.

7

VMware Server is free as well ...

8

The reason I suggested VMware Workstation is that it just works OOTB. The OP needs to concentrate on training - not on setting up VirtualBox, etc.

From personal experience, I know that VMware Workstation plays very nicely with Microsoft Windows. Setup, snapshots, clones and teardown of appliances and groups of appliances is very simple. Much nicer than VirtualBox or any other the other free solutions.

9

Yes, that it is. However, it is slower and a bit clunkier (I have used both, and loved VMware server 1.x but 2.x onward have Tomcat and have made decisions I loathe).