Red Hat Certified System Administrator (RHCSA) objectives:
Understand and use essential tools:
- Access a shell prompt and issue commands with correct syntax. (A nondescript requirement, requires no discussion)
- Use input-output redirection (>, >>, |, 2>, etc.).
- Use grep and regular expressions to analyze text.
- Access remote systems using ssh and VNC.
- Log in and switch users in multiuser runlevels.
- Archive, compress, unpack, and uncompress files using tar, star, gzip, and bzip2.
- Create and edit text files.
- Create, delete, copy, and move files and directories.
- Create hard and soft links.
- List, set, and change standard ugo/rwx permissions.
- Locate, read, and use system documentation including man, info, and files in /usr/share/doc.
Operate running systems:
- Boot, reboot, and shut down a system normally.
- Boot systems into different runlevels manually.
- Use single-user mode to gain access to a system.
- Identify CPU/memory intensive processes, adjust process priority with renice, and kill processes.
- Locate and interpret system log files.
- Access a virtual machine’s console.
- Start and stop virtual machines.
- Start, stop, and check the status of network services.
Configure local storage:
- List, create, delete, and set partition type for primary, extended, and logical partitions.
- Create and remove physical volumes, assign physical volumes to volume groups, and create and delete logical volumes.
- Create and configure LUKS-encrypted partitions and logical volumes to prompt for password and mount a decrypted file system at boot.
- Configure systems to mount file systems at boot by Universally Unique ID (UUID) or label.
- Add new partitions and logical volumes, and swap to a system non-destructively.
Create and configure file systems:
- Create, mount, unmount, and use ext2, ext3, and ext4 file systems.
- Mount, unmount, and use LUKS-encrypted file systems.
- Mount and unmount CIFS and NFS network file systems.
- Configure systems to mount ext4, LUKS-encrypted, and network file systems automatically.
- Extend existing unencrypted ext4-formatted logical volumes.
- Create and configure set-GID directories for collaboration.
- Create and manage Access Control Lists (ACLs).
- Diagnose and correct file permission problems.
Deploy, configure, and maintain systems:
- Configure networking and hostname resolution statically or dynamically.
- Schedule tasks using cron.
- Configure systems to boot into a specific runlevel automatically.
- Install Red Hat Enterprise Linux automatically using Kickstart.
- Configure a physical machine to host virtual guests.
- Install Red Hat Enterprise Linux systems as virtual guests.
- Configure systems to launch virtual machines at boot.
- Configure network services to start automatically at boot.
- Configure a system to run a default configuration HTTP server.
- Configure a system to run a default configuration FTP server.
- Install and update software packages from Red Hat Network, a remote repository, or from the local file system.
- Update the kernel package appropriately to ensure a bootable system.
- Modify the system bootloader.
Manage users and groups:
- Create, delete, and modify local user accounts.
- Change passwords and adjust password ageing for local user accounts.
- Create, delete, and modify local groups and group memberships.
- Configure a system to use an existing LDAP directory service for user and group information.
Manage security:
- Configure firewall settings using system-config-firewall or iptables.
- Set enforcing and permissive modes for SELinux.
- List and identify SELinux file and process context.
- Restore default file contexts.
- Use boolean settings to modify system SELinux settings.
- Diagnose and address routine SELinux policy violations.