shall I take the RHSA exam?
 

Hi, I have been using RHEL for sometime, and my level is between RHSA and RHCE, but for complicated tasks, I often have to resort to the book in order to configure the files and pay attention to details, but I have a good understanding of what is what.

Now the RHSA test is more like a complicated Intelligence test, where you are supposed to be highly cognizant of every detail (you know computer has ZERO tolerance for any human error in order to achieve the target result, say a wrong command). My gut feeling is even someone who has been System administrator for years might not pass the exam.
Here is my situation: I am trying to enter this field and become a professional, does any employer take the RHCA test very seriously or it is just a bonus? Thanks for your advice! Since I have to pay for the exam, is it worthy?

The RHCSA is taken very seriously, I would say even more than the CompTIA and other certs if you are applying for a linux admin job in a RHEL shop. The one thing I do love about the RHCSA is you are given full access to the system and make the magic happen, you aren't forced to sit on a windows 98 dell laptop and click boxes on a multiple choice exam that are designed to make you fail.


If you are competent you will be fine, just use the man pages and your resources and you can get it done.

Thanks, I am very comfortable with routine work, but something such as ACL mask, it is just too much detail, and very complicated, if I am tested on that, I will struggle without a book! Man page can only tell me so much!

many thanks, other people have suggestion?

The man pages should be all you need to get the job done. And there is room for error, it is a fundamental exam so more than likely they would ask you to try and do something that ACL would prevent you from doing and you would have to identify that ACL was the problem.

The questions are kind of in this format, if they wanted to test you on file attributes:

Tester: Delete the file /tmp/tmp1


This is not a question from the actual test that I know of but hopefully gives you an idea of how they will approach it.

Dear shfyang, I suggest that you look at the RHCSA objectives listed at http://www.redhat.com/training/cours.../examobjective

You are correct to be concerned about ACLs, as it is one of the objectives:

In general, you won't have time to read through man pages, etc. during the RHCSA exam. However, if the great majority of objectives are "routine" to you, then you may be ready.