RH302
Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE) Exam
The Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE) and Red Hat Certified
Technician (RHCT) exams are performance-based evaluations of Red
Hat Enterprise Linux system administration skills and knowledge.
Candidates perform a number of routine system administration
tasks and are evaluated on whether they have met specific
objective criteria. Performance-based testing means that
candidates must perform tasks similar to what they must perform
on the job. Official scores for the RHCE and RHCT exams come
exclusively from Red Hat Certification Central. Red Hat does not
authorize examiners or training partners to report results to
candidates directly. Scores on the exam are usually reported
within three (3) US business days. Exam results are reported as
section scores. Red Hat does not report performance on
individual items, nor will it provide additional information
upon request.
Components of the RHCE and RHCT Exams
The RHCT exam is a subset of the RHCE exam, and is organized
as follows:
- Troubleshooting and System Maintenance — 1 hour
- Installation and Configuration — 2 hours
In order to earn RHCT, one must successfully complete all the
requirements in Troubleshooting and System Maintenance, and must
achieve a score of 70 or higher on Installation and
Configuration.
For RHCE exams given on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 and higher,
the exam is organized as follows:
- Troubleshooting and System Maintenance — 2.5 hours
- Installation and Configuration — 3.0 hours
In order to earn RHCE, one must successfully complete all the
RHCT-level Troubleshooting and System Maintenance requirements,
and successfully complete enough additional RHCE items to earn a
score of 80 or higher overall on the section. In addition, one
must score 70 or higher on the RHCT items of Installation and
Configuration, and 70 or higher on the RHCE components of that
section.
Prerequisite skills for RHCT and RHCE
Candidates should possess the following skills, as they may
be necessary in order to fulfill requirements of the RHCT and
RHCE exams:
- use standard command line tools (e.g., ls, cp, mv, rm,
tail, cat, etc.) to create, remove, view, and investigate
files and directories
- use grep, sed, and awk to process text streams and files
- use a terminal-based text editor, such as vim or nano,
to modify text files
- use input/output redirection
- understand basic principles of TCP/IP networking,
including IP addresses, netmasks, and gateways for IPv4 and
IPv6
- use su to switch user accounts
- use passwd to set passwords
- use tar, gzip, and bzip2
- configure an email client on Red Hat Enterprise
Linux
- use text and/or graphical browser to access
HTTP/HTTPS URLs
- use lftp to access FTP URLs
RHCT skills
Troubleshooting and System Maintenance
RHCTs should be able to:
- boot systems into different run levels for
troubleshooting and system maintenance
- diagnose and correct misconfigured networking
- diagnose and correct hostname resolution problems
- configure the X Window System and a desktop
environment
- add new partitions, filesystems, and swap to
existing systems
- use standard command-line tools to analyze problems and
configure system
Installation and Configuration
RHCTs must be able to:
- perform network OS installation
- implement a custom partitioning scheme
- configure printing
- configure the scheduling of tasks using cron and at
- attach system to a network directory service, such as
NIS or LDAP
- configure autofs
- add and manage users, groups, quotas, and File Access
Control Lists
- configure filesystem permissions for collaboration
- install and update packages using rpm
- properly update the kernel package
- configure the system to update/install packages from
remote repositories using yum or pup
- modify the system bootloader
- implement software RAID at install-time and run-time
- use /proc/sys and sysctl to modify and set kernel
run-time parameters
- use scripting to automate system maintenance tasks
- configure NTP for time synchronization with a
higher-stratum server
RHCE skills
Troubleshooting and System Maintenance
RHCEs must demonstrate the RHCT skills listed above, and
should be able to:
- use the rescue environment provided by first
installation CD
- diagnose and correct boot failures arising from
bootloader, module, and filesystem errors
- diagnose and correct problems with network services (see
Installation and Configurationbelow for a list of these
services)
- add, remove, and resize logical volumes
- diagnose and correct networking services problems where
SELinux contexts are interfering with proper operation.
Installation and Configuration
RHCEs must demonstrate the RHCT-level skills listed above,
and they must be capable of configuring the following network
services:
- HTTP/HTTPS
- SMB
- NFS
- FTP
- Web proxy
- SMTP
- IMAP, IMAPS, and POP3
- SSH
- DNS (caching name server, slave name server)
- NTP
For each of these services, RHCEs must be able to:
- install the packages needed to provide the service
- configure SELinux to support the service
- configure the service to start when the system is booted
- configure the service for basic operation
- Configure host-based and user-based security for the
service
RHCEs must also be able to:
- configure hands-free installation using Kickstart
- implement logical volumes at install-time
- use iptables to implement packet filtering and/or NAT
- use PAM to implement user-level restrictions