RHCSA question
Posted by Pain-in-the-ARP@reddit | linuxadmin | View on Reddit | 19 comments
I am studying for RHCSA. I have a book for version which I know isn't around now. But it's all I got right now so I'll work with what I got
What I mainly wanna know is can I do all I need with the labs and study with just a desktop and a few VMs of CentOS?
I've been banging my head trying to get things working with CentOS on a bare metal EVENG server but things like adding more disk space is impossible when the VM is already installed. It never recognizes the modified virtioa.qcow2 space or any additional ones.
And I may be getting a refurbished desktop to just use KVM instead but is that enough? I know it involves some networking so I just want to get what I need or do it how I need to be most prepared.
Thanks in advance
xstrex@reddit
VMs or not, you’re gonna have the best experience with actual RHEL, likely 9.x if you’re taking it soon. The labs offered by Redhat, as well as the documentation are also great. Instructor led classes are a joke in my experience. Also, get good with nmcli!
ericlikescars@reddit
Or be mediocre with nmtui.
xstrex@reddit
From what I remember nmtui wasn’t available.
carlwgeorge@reddit
One of the RHCSA objectives is "install and update software", meaning you can install additional RHEL packages such as NetworkManager-tui and use them to complete other objectives.
xstrex@reddit
How are you gonna download software without the network being configured?
carlwgeorge@reddit
It's been a while since I've taken one of these tests, but my assumption is you would have basic network connectivity to start, can use that to install NetworkManager-tui, and then use nmtui to configure additional network interfaces for the "configure IPv4 and IPv6 addresses" objective. If indeed you start with no networking at all, and NetworkManager-tui isn't preinstalled, then yeah you would need to know how to bring up basic networking with something that is already installed such as nmcli.
xstrex@reddit
Correct, and I can confirm having taken this test not too long ago, you start without any networking, or nm-tui, and need to configure the network with nmcli before proceeding, and yes one of the steps is to define a repo, then install packages from the repo. But the whole testing env is isolated. Even when networking is up, you don’t have internet access.
ericlikescars@reddit
That conflicts with what I’ve heard from others who took the test recently. Guess I’ll find out when I take it tomorrow.
tae3puGh7xee3fie-k9a@reddit
Sign up for a free Red Hat Developer account, that will let you download and practice with genuine Red Hat software.
captkirkseviltwin@reddit
Can’t second this enough; when I originally studied for my RHCSA many years ago, I made do with CentOS, but I would have given my eye teeth for what is now the No-cost developer account.
sudonem@reddit
KVM is plenty so long as you’ve got enough CPU, ram and storage space to go around. The key is to make sure the CPU actually supports virtualization because older hardware might not.
Without that, you’d be better of using some cloud options like AWS or maybe linode for example. It would be kinda slow (because they are very low specifications) but AWS t2.micro EC2 instances can be run for free for something like 12 months.
As far as CentOS. Don’t do that. For two reasons. First - Rocky Linux is now the spiritual successor to RHEL. Secondly, if you sign up for a Red Hat developers account (which is free) you can download RHEL 9.5.
There are some RHEL specific things you need to know, so it’s worth using the correct distraction.
Also, I would honestly not bother with training materials targeted at anything other than RHEL9 because a lot has changed in the exam from RHEL 7 & 8 that will cause you to fail the exam if you don’t know them.
Strong recommend for Sander van Vught’s book.
carlwgeorge@reddit
Rocky is completely dependent on RHEL existing. It isn't a successor to RHEL in any way, shape, or form.
This is definitely the correct path for RHCSA study.
bityard@reddit
They meant "spiritual successor to CentOS"
sudonem@reddit
Yes. Thanks. Corrected.
carlwgeorge@reddit
Repeating the mistakes of CentOS's past doesn't merit the title of "spiritual successor". The clone model is fundamentally broken. Clones can't fix bugs or accept contributions that change the operating system. CentOS finally fixed this flaw with CentOS Stream.
fragerrard@reddit
Go to https://docs.redhat.com/en/documentation/red_hat_enterprise_linux/9
Open sysadmin manual and use that when working on questions at home.
Also, man pages are your friend. All questions can be answered by using man pages for assistance.
For RHCSA, this is enough, but only drawback is that it is not structured and tailored like the exam prep books.
But then again, real work does not have structured tutorials for everything.
xoxoxxy@reddit
16 machines available with red hat developer account, don't waste time with centos .
Aaron-PCMC@reddit
All you need is a developer account and a copy of rh9 or rh 9.3 iso depending on which version of test you take.
If you're in US I might be able to send you the only book you need, Sander Van Gugt's rhcsa 9 book...
Feel free to PM me if you run into problems setting up your study environment, I'm happy to help.
s1lv3rbug@reddit
Why not used a virtual box, create a vm, install red hat, create a disk, attach to vm, u will see a new disk. Pvcreate, vgextend, lvextend Bla Bla.