EX200

Red Hat Certified System Administrator (RHCSA) exam

Overview

Exam description

The performance-based Red Hat Certified System Administrator (RHCSA) exam (EX200) tests your knowledge in areas of system administration common across a wide range of environments and deployment scenarios. The skills tested in this exam are the foundation for system administration across all Red Hat® products.

By passing this exam, you become a Red Hat Certified System Administrator. If you choose to continue your learning journey beyond RHCSA®, the credential can also serve as a foundational step toward other certifications. you must be an RHCSA® to become a Red Hat Certified Engineer in Enterprise Linux and a Red Hat Certified Engineer in Ansible.

This exam is based on Red Hat® Enterprise Linux® 10.

Audience for this exam

Prerequisites for this exam

 Objectives

Study points for the exam

RHCSA exam candidates should be able to accomplish the tasks below without assistance. These have been grouped into several categories.

  • Understand and use essential tools
    • Access a shell prompt and issue commands with correct syntax
    • Use input-output redirection (>, >>, |, 2>, etc.)
    • Use grep and regular expressions to analyze text
    • Access remote systems using SSH
    • Log in and switch users in multi-user targets
    • Archive, compress, unpack, and uncompress files using tar, 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
  • Manage software
    • Configure access to RPM repositories
    • Install and remove RPM software packages
    • Configure access to Flatpak repositories
    • Install and remove Flatpak software packages
  • Create simple shell scripts
    • Conditionally execute code (use of: if, test, [], etc.)
    • Use Looping constructs (for, etc.) to process file, command line input
    • Process script inputs ($1, $2, etc.)
    • Processing output of shell commands within a script
  • Operate running systems
    • Boot, reboot, and shut down a system normally
    • Boot systems into different targets manually
    • Interrupt the boot process in order to gain access to a system
    • Identify CPU/memory intensive processes and kill processes
    • Adjust  process scheduling
    • Manage tuning profiles
    • Locate and interpret system log files and journals
    • Preserve system journals
    • Start, stop, and check the status of network services
    • Securely transfer files between systems
  • Configure local storage
    • List, create, and delete partitions on GPT disks
    • Create and remove physical volumes
    • Assign physical volumes to volume groups
    • Create and delete logical volumes
    • 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 VFAT, ext4, and XFS file systems
    • Mount and unmount network file systems using NFS
    • Configure autofs
    • Extend existing logical volumes
    • Diagnose and correct file permission problems
  • Deploy, configure, and maintain systems
    • Schedule tasks using at, cron and systemd timer units
    • Start and stop services and configure services to start automatically at boot
    • Configure systems to boot into a specific target automatically
    • Configure time service clients
    • Install and update software packages from Red Hat Content Delivery Network, a remote repository, or from the local file system
    • Modify the system bootloader
  • Manage basic networking
    • Configure IPv4 and IPv6 addresses
    • Configure hostname resolution
    • Configure network services to start automatically at boot
    • Restrict network access using firewalld and firewall-cmd
  • Manage users and groups
    • Create, delete, and modify local user accounts
    • Change passwords and adjust password aging for local user accounts
    • Create, delete, and modify local groups and group memberships
    • Configure privileged access
  • Manage security
    • Configure firewall settings using firewall-cmd/firewalld
    • Manage default file permissions
    • Configure key-based authentication for SSH
    • Set enforcing and permissive modes for SELinux
    • List and identify SELinux file and process context
    • Restore default file contexts
    • Manage SELinux port labels
    • Use Boolean settings to modify system SELinux settings

As with all Red Hat performance-based exams, configurations must persist after reboot without intervention.

 What you need to know

Preparation

Red Hat encourages you to consider taking Red Hat System Administration I (RH124) and Red Hat System Administration II (RH134) to help prepare. Be sure to review the Red Hat Certification Program Guide to ensure you are familiar with all official policies and exam procedures before booking your session.

Exam format

The Red Hat Certified System Administrator (RHCSA) exam is a hands-on, practical exam that requires you to undertake real-world tasks. Internet access is not provided during the exam, and you will not be permitted to bring any hard copy or electronic documentation into the exam. This prohibition includes notes, books, or any other materials. For most exams, the documentation that ships with the product is available during the exam.

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