Today on market we can find plenty IT related video courses. But nobody can guarantee, that you’ll get complete, up to date information. And that is an important point for your employer if you’re looking for IT job. Nevermind if you’re a system or network administrator – you need to know the latest and actual infromation.

For this reason some companies offer certification for specified IT jobs. Of the most common on Linux, we have:

Linux Foundation

LFCS: Linux Foundation Certified System Administrator
LFCE: Linux Foundation Certified Engineer

Linux Professional Institute

LPIC-1: System Administrator
LPIC-2: Linux Engineer

Red Hat Certification Program

RHCSA: Red Hat Certified System Administrator
RHCE: Red Hat Certified Engineer

Oracle Corporation
Oracle Linux System Administration

OCA: Oracle Certified Associate
OCP: Oracle Certified Professional

Global Information Assurance Certification (GIAC)

GCUX: Certified UNIX Security Administrator

In our upcoming “article-series” we’ll focus on two Linux Foundation certifications – LFCS and LFCE. Step by step we will go through the whole training program and certification process, so be sure to add dock.co.nz to your bookmarks.

The following bundles were purchased at 25th November, now let’s see what we have in details:

1. Essentials of System Administration (LFS201) Course + LFCS Certification (Linux Foundation Certified System Administartor)

2. Linux Networking and Administration (LFS211) Course + LFCE Certification (Linux Foundation Certified Engineer)

These bundles include one year access to online video course and certification exam.

Essentials of System Administration

This video course by Linux Foundation (LFS201) is intended for self-paced learning. Normaly that course should take 40-50 hours, but it’s completely depends on your abilities. To complete this course you must have basic computer education, terminal (or command line) understanding.

Course Outline:

Ch1. Course Introduction
Lab 1.1 – Configuring the system for ‘sudo’

Ch2. Linux Filesystem Tree Layout
Lab 2.1 – Sizes of the default Linux directories
Lab 2.2 – Touring the ‘/proc’ filesystem

Ch3. Processes
Lab 3.1 – Controlling processes with ‘ulimit’
Lab 3.2 – Examining System V IPC activity

Ch4. Signals
Lab 4.1 – Examining signal priorities and execution
Ch5. Package Management Systems
Lab 5.1 – Version control with ‘git’

Ch6. RPM
Lab 6.1 – Using RPM
Lab 6.2 – Rebuilding the RPM database

Ch7. DPKG
Lab 7.1 – Using ‘dpkg’

Ch8. yum
Lab 8.1 – Basic YUM commands
Lab 8.2 – Using ‘yum’ to find information about a package
Lab 8.3 – Managing groups of packages with ‘yum’
Lab 8.4 – Adding a new ‘yum’ repository

Ch9. zypper
Lab 9.1 – Basic ‘zypper’ commands
Lab 9.2 – Using ‘zypper’ to find information about a package

Ch10. APT
Lab 10.1 – Basic APT commands
Lab 10.2 – Using APT to find information about a package
Lab 10.3 – Managing groups of packages with APT

Ch11. System Monitoring
Lab 11.1 – Using stress

Ch12. Process Monitoring
Lab 12.1 – Processes
Lab 12.2 – Monitoring process states

Ch13. Memory: Monitoring Usage and Tuning
Lab 13.1 – Invoking the OOM Killer

Ch14. I/O Monitoring and Tuning
Lab 14.1 – bonnie++
Lab 14.2 – fs_mark

Ch15. I/O Scheduling
Lab 15.1 – Comparing I/O schedulers

Ch16. Linux Filesystems and the VFS
Lab 16.1 – The ‘tmpfs’ special filesystem

Ch17. Disk Partitioning
Lab 17.1 – Using a file as a disk partition image
Lab 17.2 – Partitioning a disk image file
Lab 17.3 – Using ‘losetup’ and ‘parted’
Lab 17.4 – Partitioning a real hard disk

Ch18. Filesystem Features: Attributes, Creating, Checking, Mounting
Lab 18.1 – Working with file attributes
Lab 18.2 – Mounting options

Ch19. Filesystem Features: Swap, Quotas, Usage
Lab 19.1 – Managing swap space
Lab 19.2 – Filesystem quotas

Ch20. The ext2/ext3/ext4 Filesystems
Lab 20.1 – Defragmentation
Lab 20.2 – Modifying filesystem parameters with ‘tune2fs’

Ch21. The XFS and btrfs Filesystems
Lab 21.1 – Finding out more about ‘xfs’
Lab 21.2 – Finding out more about ‘btrfs’

Ch22. Disk Encryption
Lab 22.1 – Disk Encryption
Lab 22.2 – Encrypted Swap

Ch23. Logical Volume Management (LVM)
Lab 23.1 – Logical Volumes

Ch24. RAID
Lab 24.1 – Creating a RAID device

Ch25. Kernel Services and Configuration
Lab 25.1 – System tunables with ‘sysctl’
Lab 25.2 – Changing the maximum process ID

Ch26. Kernel Modules
Lab 26.1 – Kernel Modules

Ch27. Devices and ‘udev’
Lab 27.1 – ‘udev’

Ch28. User Account Management
Lab 28.1 – Working with user accounts
Lab 28.2 – Restricted shells and accounts

Ch29. Group Management
Lab 29.1 – Working with groups

Ch30. File Permissions and Ownership
Lab 30.1 – Using ‘chmod’
Lab 30.2 – ‘umask’
Lab 30.3 – Using Access Control Lists

Ch31. Pluggable Authentication Modules (PAM)
Lab 31.1 – PAM configuration

Ch32. Network Addresses

Ch33. Network Devices and Configuration
Lab 33.1 – Static configuration of a network interface
Lab 33.2 – Adding a static hostname
Lab 33.3 – Adding a network interface alias/address using ‘nmcli’
Lab 33.4 – Adding a static route using ‘nmcli’

Ch34. Firewalls
Lab 34.1 – Installing ‘firewalld’
Lab 34.2 – Examining ‘firewall-cmd’
Lab 34.3 – Adding services to a zone
Lab 34.4 – Using the firewall GUI

Ch35. System Startup and Shutdown
Lab 35.1 – Shutdown vs. Halt vs. Reboot

Ch36. GRUB
Lab 36.1 – Booting into non-graphical mode using GRUB

Ch37. init: SystemV, Upstart, ‘systemd’
Lab 37.1 – Adding a new startup service with SysVinit
Lab 37.2 – Adding a new startup service with ‘systemd’

Ch38. Backup and Recovery Methods
Lab 38.1 – Using ‘tar’ for backup
Lab 38.2 – Using ‘cpio’ for backup
Lab 38.3 – Using ‘rsync’ for backup

Ch39. Linux Security Modules
Lab 39.1 – SELinux: Contexts

Ch40. Local System Security
Lab 40.1 – Security and mount options
Lab 40.2 – More on ‘setuid’ and scripts

Ch41. Basic Troubleshooting

Ch42. System Rescue
Lab 42.1 – Preparing to use rescue/recover media
Lab 42.2 – Recovering from a corrupted GRUB configuration
Lab 42.3 – Recovering from password failure
Lab 42.4 – Recovering from partition table corruption
Lab 42.5 – Recovering using the install image

Linux Foundation Certified System Administrator (LFCS)

After completing Essentials of System Administration video course you can proceed to LFCS exam. First you need to register your participation couple days (or day) before, as you’ll be monitored by a real person, a proctor via streaming audio from your headset, video from webcam and the screensharing. Exam duration is 2 hours, passing score – 74%.

New scoring table that would be available from March 20, 2018:

LFCS Domains and Competencies V3.18

Essential Commands – 25%

Log into local & remote graphical and text mode consoles
Search for files
Evaluate and compare the basic file system features and options
Compare and manipulate file content
Use input-output redirection (e.g. >, >>, |, 2>)
Analyze text using basic regular expressions
Archive, backup, compress, unpack, and uncompress files
Create, delete, copy, and move files and directories
Create and manage hard and soft links
List, set, and change standard file permissions
Read, and use system documentation
Manage access to the root account

Operation of Running Systems – 20%

Boot, reboot, and shut down a system safely
Boot or change system into different operating modes
Install, configure and troubleshoot bootloaders
Diagnose and manage processes
Locate and analyze system log files
Schedule tasks to run at a set date and time
Verify completion of scheduled jobs
Update software to provide required functionality and security
Verify the integrity and availability of resources
Verify the integrity and availability of key processes
Change kernel runtime parameters, persistent and non-persistent
Use scripting to automate system maintenance tasks
Manage the startup process and services (In Services Configuration)
List and identify SELinux/AppArmor file and process contexts
Manage Software
Identify the component of a Linux distribution that a file belongs to

User and Group Management – 10%

Create, delete, and modify local user accounts
Create, delete, and modify local groups and group memberships
Manage system-wide environment profiles
Manage template user environment
Configure user resource limits
Manage user privileges
Configure PAM

Networking – 12%

Configure networking and hostname resolution statically or dynamically
Configure network services to start automatically at boot
Implement packet filtering
Start, stop, and check the status of network services
Statically route IP traffic
Synchronize time using other network peers

Service Configuration – 20%

Configure a caching DNS server
Maintain a DNS zone
Connect to network shares
Configure email aliases
Configure SSH servers and clients
Restrict access to HTTP proxy servers
Configure an IMAP and IMAPS service
Query and modify the behavior of system services at various operating modes
Configure an HTTP server
Configure HTTP server log files
Restrict access to a web page
Configure a database server
Manage and configure containers
Manage and configure Virtual Machines

Storage Management – 13%

List, create, delete, and modify physical storage partitions
Manage and configure LVM storage
Create and configure encrypted storage
Configure systems to mount file systems at or during boot
Configure and manage swap space
Create and manage RAID devices
Configure systems to mount file systems on demand
Create, manage and diagnose advanced file system permissions
Setup user and group disk quotas for filesystems
Create and configure file systems

As previous course for System Administrators, LFCE video course is also self-paced and online.

Linux Foundation LFCS & LFCE Step by Step Completion