RHCE

Overview

The Red Hat Certified Engineer exam is quite unique, since it's entirely hands on and result based : No written questions, just tasks to be carried out successfully. Since May 2009, it's also quite condensed, with only 3.5 hours during which you need to give 100% the whole time. The key to passing it is to know how to do everything officially listed as the requirements, and know it all well enough to do it as fast as possible. Many people should be able to get what's asked done over a few days, searching lists and forums for some answers... a lot less are able to do it under the exam's conditions.

Preparation

The official Red Hat Preparation Guide can be found here : http://www.redhat.com/certification/rhce/prep_guide/

Below is the page's content as of August 2010, probably the last update for RHEL5, with links to the relevant documentation and tips & tricks.

Study Points for the RHCE Exam

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 Configuration below 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