hELLO
i JUST STARTED STUDYING FOR MY RED HAT CERTIFICATION AND i WOULD LIKE TOBE A RED HAT proffesional. I would like to know if I should master Unix/Linux first or is it ok to just dive into rhel right now? also what programming languages are good to focus on in order to complement my red hat knowledge?



Thank You
AO!!!

Please read the "How to ask a smart question" link in my posting signature...posting in all-caps is considered shouting.

And your question leads to another: Why do you want to be a "Red Hat Professional"?? What is your goal?? Learning Linux should be your first step...until you know the basics, you won't ever be a 'professional'. If all you're after is a 'certification'...please, don't. There are so many 'certified' people out there now who don't know the basics, it's not even funny. Learn the subject first.

And you need absolutely no programming experience at all to learn Linux, ever. Knowing how to script is a good thing, but not necessary to be a systems administrator, although that skill will make your job easier. You can learn any language you want...Linux has all the development tools and compilers you want already present.

Unless you have a clear goal (i.e. "I want to be a professional *nix systems administrator"), you won't know what you need to learn to accomplish it, and we can't tell you.

2 members found this post helpful.

Do not use CAPS if not necessary instead use bold option in your post to highlight something.

Coming back to your query, you said that you want to be Red Hat professional and preparing for Red Hat certification, it will be good to know if you have any prior experience with Linux? If have worked before on Linux it will be easy for you to navigate around. Red Hat exams are practical exams so just going through the study material wouldn't be helpful. If you have got real world experience it will definitely come handy during the exam. In the exam you might come across a situation which you have not encountered during your practice and that is when your experience comes into picture. If you have played around with Linux for a while it will be easy for you to ascertain a situation during the exam.

My suggestion would be keep studying for the exam but at the same time play around with the system. Just don't concentrate on exam objectives instead try few things yourself. Post setting up your machine you can take a snapshot / image so that you can play around with it and if something goes wrong and you are unable to fix it restore it from the image.

When you say programming language what exactly are you looking for? Are you planning for device driver development, kernel programming / customization or you are talking about scripting. C is good language and Linux kernel is one big C program. If you are talking about scripting I would suggest to start with Bash and then moving on with more advanced scripting languages like perl and python. Don't get me wrong perl and python can be used for programming as well not just for scripting.

2 members found this post helpful.

dude relax
didn't know I had Caps lock on. Remember when you were in class and your instructor would say no question is a dumb question when your really trying to learn?
Think about it.

I use Fedora 21 right now and I've been messing around with linux for a little while. I gues what got me into learning linux is the fact that I had a good instructor for my UNIX class and I fell in love with it, so much I switched from windows entirely. I used to think just learning a programming language was the end all be all but for some reason learning about the basics of being a system admin and knowing a little CEH skills was alot more fun. It's funny I used to hate linux because I didn't know what I was doing and yes windows makes things easier for your average computer user but knowing your way around the terminal and other things is alot more rewarding.

No one said it was a dumb question; we said you should have a clear goal, and you should. Again, we encouraged you to learn the subject first, BEFORE taking a certification.
Agreed, and if you're using Fedora 21 now, there's no real, compelling reason to go to RHEL or CentOS just yet. Fedora is the bleeding-edge of RHEL...it's where new things are tested/written, before being incorporated further upstream. You're still in the RHEL ecosystem, and you're not missing much.

As you said, you hated it because you didn't know what you were doing...and now that you do, it's only going to get easier. To use a Windows analogy, I haven't touched anything from MS in years (aside from my gaming rig), and have no clue how to configure most stuff on it. Loading a driver? Mapping a drive?? Takes forever in Windows, and seconds in Linux.

Get comfortable first...learn the basics. Learn how to configure services, edit files, move things around, and perform basic systems administration functions. Build on those skills, and learn to script/code if you want to. Learn about LVM's, and other more advanced topics. Then start to think about a certification, but only if you want to do something with it...otherwise, it's a meaningless piece of paper which will cost you a good bit of money to get.

2 members found this post helpful.

@TB0ne
Thanks for the advice my man. I really want to be a system admin. I read about those people that have like a million certifications all for the sake of landing that bossy job but employers look at all those certifications as a red flag. I still want to have good programming skills cause I'm into robotics and embedded systems also but after this semester and after learning what I know about Unix and seeing how much more crisp and clean of an OS it is and also hearing all the cool stories about the job I'm hooked. It's almost like learning the Dark Side of the force (knowing all the stuff that people don't see on the surface). I think I'll stck with C and or Python cause for 1 I can still do some micrcontroller programming and now I can also build my own shells but I'm still sticking with Red Hat.


Thanks again Fellas
Reputation Button is on push
AO!!!

Thought that you put it in caps to highlight it, so just wanted to make you are aware that we have bold option available. It wasn't a rant rather an informational message.

Indeed Linux is fun to work with. I wouldn't say there is anything wrong in possessing certification and I wouldn't say they are mandatory. If you have certification to back your knowledge good but if you have done them just for the sake of doing it not good. You might (intentionally highlighted it, as there is no guarantee) get interview calls by looking at your certification but it is your knowledge that lends you a job.

TB0ne already mentioned stuffs that you should be concentrating on. Would like to add that instead of using RHEL you should switch to CentOS which is rebuild of Red Hat. Red Hat requires paid subscription for updates whereas you get that for free on CentOS. You will be stuck with old packages if you are using Red Hat as you will not be able to get updates whereas in CentOS you get new packages aimed at bug fixing, security fix and enhancements.

All the best with your studies.

Enjoy Linux!!!

1 members found this post helpful.

@T3RM1NVT0R
Thanks bro
as a matter of fact I'm downloading Centos Right now

Yes, because you like the long days, the shift rotation, the dog hours, administrative tasks, repetitive tasks that aren't automated (yet), managers who won't listen, colleagues ditching responsibilities (let alone document things), managers who take credit for what you do, the "consultants" telling management what to do (which you already told them but apparently they only listen to certain pay grades), the trips to the Data Centre (yes, I know you just left 30mins ago but it b0rked again, so), The Case of the Missing Backups, false positives waking you up at 3 in the morning, customers wanting privileged access Just Because, forgetting your access token, customers wanting 3 TB of unencrypted data on a USB stick never mind who they are and let alone regulatory compliance, inventory management, the yearly audits, The Vendor using an Overseas Call Centre, power outages, security reports, plus the five hundred tasks you aimed to do this week if it wasn't for (insert urgency).


The way I see it cool stories involve skill, time, luck (yes) and either 0) somebody else causing a problem and you fixing it, 1) you causing a problem and you fixing it, 2) you causing a problem and somebody else fixing it or 3) problem appearing and disappearing without anyone doing anything. #0 makes up the majority of incidents but it's what you're paid to do anyway, #1 is what you not ever tell your boss about, #2 is why you learn something new every day and #3 may cause Fear. Fear leads to anger. And may anger lead to so much hate that you'll be skipping the whole Dark Side thing altogether ;-p


Obviously any proper job has its mix of fun, challenges, excitement and whatnot. There's no reason why you shouldn't try to find out on your own what makes things tick. Especially with information being as free as it is today, hardware being relatively cheap and virtualization allowing you to deploy, ditch and resurrect whole constellations of systems at the push of a button. Best advice: practice. A lot. If you can keep an eye on what businesses generally require (as in what makes things safe and efficient for example network architecture, backup, upgrade and monitoring automation, identity management, security, whatever-as-a-service, using cloud services, redundancy configurations, disaster recovery) while you hone your skills. Practice some more and you could get yourself a temp job on the side to experience if you really like it. Most people I know didn't plan to be admins anyway but just grew into their roles, often after moving around a bit...

Have fun!

3 members found this post helpful.

you do know that these are well " fish tales "

they are only funny 2 or more years AFTER THE FACT

1 members found this post helpful.

@ unSpawn,

Awesome post!!! Very true picture of a life of system admin. Even Ang Lee will find it difficult to be creative enough to direct Life of System Admin!

1 members found this post helpful.

Agreed...while the job can be fun, it definitely has its downside.

On a plus note, as you get older, you get younger folks to have the night/weekend on-call shifts.

1 members found this post helpful.

wow I came back to read more post from you guys and DAMN! you guys make the job sound miserable, like jump off the Bay Bridge miserable.I still plane on have excelent rpogramming skills (like at a softwaer engineering level) but jeez! you guys make me feel more sorry for you then inspired by you.

I mean is ti really that bad???
if so, God Damn, I thought it would be a pretty interesting job the way my instructor made it sound ( but the dude does come of a little nutz for a college instructor).

Is there a lader to climb up after being a sys admin afetr a while?

Also I here software engineers tell miserable stories to but i don't know, do they have a better job to where you look at them like Mu**er F***er.


please tell me more about the two jobs and pros and cons.

There is good and bad in EVERY job. The important thing is going into it with your eyes open. Are there long hours? Long nights/weekends? Absolutely. Are there some pretty good perks too? You bet. Same can be said for any other job that provides a critical service.
You bet, just like there is for any other occupation.
There are far too many to list, but it sounds like you're at the beginning of a career..and you haven't decided what that is yet.

Don't get pros/cons...the best thing to do is to pursue what INTERESTS you. No matter what occupation you choose, it's going to go like this:

1. Get your first job doing xxxx
2. Do the grunt work that the senior people don't want to do.
3. Take the long hours, nights, and get stiffed occasionally on holiday time off.
4. You will do (2) and (3). Why? Because EVERYONE, in EVERY JOB has done it to pay their dues...you will also have to pay yours.
5. Learn, get the 100,000 skills you don't even know you lack right now, learn how to work with your team, and increase your knowledge so you can...
6. ...move up the ladder, and BECOME a senior person, so YOUR juniors can pay their dues and you can teach them.

This holds true for a construction worker, accountant, graphic designer, programmer, or systems admin. To elaborate a bit, analyze the programmer vs. admin.
Admin: provides the machine, doesn't have to worry about the programs ON it; that's the programmers job.
Programmer: writes the code, and doesn't care about the machine, only that it works...because that's the ADMINS job.

Think a bit further...will the admin have to work late if the machine crashes? You bet...that's the job. Will the admin have to work late if the programmer is going to miss a deadline, or can't figure something out? Nope...both have their ups and downs.

1 members found this post helpful.