In Depth Look At Red Hat Certification

Matthew Miller recently went through the RH300 training course, as well as the RHCE Certification Exam. He was kind enough to write an overview and give us his opinions on both of them, as well as his opinions on the relevance and quality of the training and the exam. Certification has been discussed extensively with regards to Linux, and here's a big scoop of food for thought.

The following was written by Slashdot Reader Matthew Miller

I'm fortunate enough to work at a place that realizes the importance of keeping employees educated and up-to-date. Since my largest current project is Linux-related, and based on Red Hat's distribution in specific, we thought it'd be worthwhile to send me to Red Hat for their RH300 course. I'm pretty familiar with Linux, but I'm a long way from knowing everything, and it's always interesting to learn what the vendor thinks are the most important parts of their product. We chose RH300 because it's the highest-level systems administration class currently offered. It's also the one linked to the RHCE exam, which was an added bonus, but learning was my main goal, not getting the certification. This is my report on the experience -- hopefully, it will help you decide if this is a good choice for you, either as a sysadmin or as an employer.

The Training Center

This course is not only available directly from Red Hat, but also from various partner organizations, including Global Knowledge, which has a training center here in Boston. However, we decided that if we were going to go to the expense of sending me, I might as well go directly to Red Hat, to increase the chances of getting a good instructor, and to insure adequate access to resources. We've had experiences in the past with third-party instructors who didn't know much beyond what was written in the materials. Of course, I don't know that this would be the case with Global Knowledge's version of RH300 -- perhaps someone else can comment on any experience they've had there.

So, it was off to the Red Hat headquarters in Durham, NC. Incidentally, I stayed in the Residence Inn there -- it was on Red Hat's site as being nearby. They didn't mention that it was on the other side of a major highway, with no provision for pedestrians to get across. Moral: stay at one of the closer hotels, or else get a car. Anyway, the RH building is very nice -- much bigger than I expected. (I suppose the IPO cash is going to good use.) Of course, as students, we weren't shown much of it -- no tour, and we weren't introduced to any of the celebrity employees. (Fair enough -- with several classes coming through every week, they'd never get anything done.) The people I did meet seemed pretty cool, and in general I got the impression that it's a fun place to work.

The classroom was about as I expected -- projection screen up front, rows of decent-enough small-brand Celeron-based systems (one per student). The machines were on a private network -- reasonable for the course, but unfortunately there was no provision for Internet access, which at the least would have been nice to have when I finished labs early.

We did have access to a breakroom with free soft drinks / juice and various snack items. This is also where the lunches were served -- to my surprise, these were quite good, and there were even decent non-meat choices.

The Teacher

The instructor was very knowledgeable -- not necessarily a complete guru, but he knew his stuff, including the "why" behind the course material. He was able to present the material in a good way, and was good at answering questions. I think the decision to go to Red Hat directly was wise; unlike a third-party consultant, he had some idea of what was going on inside of Red Hat and of their potential future plans. For example, during the section on the printing subsystem, he mentioned that they're considering a replacement for LPR in future releases -- perhaps LPRng or even CUPS. It's unlikely that someone from a different company would have had access to that kind of information.

Other Students

The other students in the course had a wide range of skills and backgrounds. I think that everyone probably met the listed better than pico. However, I could tell that some people were struggling. The instructor mentioned that the pass rate for the exam is about 65%, and I wouldn't be surprised if our class came out at that level or worse. It's not that anyone was stupid -- just that some people were out of their depth. On the other end of the spectrum, there were some people who were over-qualified: a few highly experienced sysadmins, and some folks from IBM taking the class because they are soon going to teach it.

The Course

The course was generally similar to the outline found on Red Hat's site, although I think the online information is a bit out of date. (Notice that the Web page makes reference to ipfwadm instead of ipchains or netfilter.) The eight units had slightly different names, and covered slightly different information. In the most drastic example, Unit 8, listed on the Web site as "Systems Administration and Security II", has turned into "Routers, Firewalls, Clusters and Troubleshooting". Some of the information listed in the online Unit 8 was moved into Unit 7, and some of it (cops, for instance) wasn't talked about at all. Hopefully, the online info will be updated soon.

Overall, the class went into less depth than I was hoping. Some of this was due to limitations of the lab setup -- it's a bit difficult to experiment with RAID in any meaningful way when you've only got one IDE hard drive, and obviously impossible to set up a cluster on one machine (short of running VMware). Other things where just plain introductory -- the section on the kernel, for example, focused on the steps required to build and install a new kernel, rather than being an in-depth discussion of tunable parameters. The part about Apache was similar; I was hoping to hear "You've all configured Apache before; here's things you should be aware of when you need it to do such-and-such", but the most advanced we got was setting up a virtual host. Building RPMs from source was mentioned briefly, but there was no information given on important and largely undocumented topics like --buildpolicy.

That's not to say I didn't learn anything -- the section on LVS / Piranha was enlightening even without hands-on experience, and I appreciated the part about quotas, which isn't something I've worked with much. And, I learned a large number of tiny things which add up to making the experience worthwhile to me. RPM can now do globbing over ftp! Portmap uses tcp_wrappers, but doesn't do reverse name lookups, so be sure to use IP addresses instead of names. RH Linux provides a little script called "service" that lets one avoid the tedium of typing /etc/rc.d/init.d/servicename all the time. And so on....

The "300" designation is a bit misleading. This isn't really what I'd consider an upper-level course -- it's more along the lines of SysAdmin 101. Overall, I think this class is probably worthwhile to someone with a good RH Linux background who hasn't done any systems administration. In fact, I'd even recommend it to people in that situation. On the other hand, if you've been a Linux sysadmin for a while, you'll probably be bored most of the time. It might be valuable to experienced Unix sysadmins who haven't dealt with Linux much (or even Linux admins who haven't used Red Hat Linux), but the course wasn't particularly taught from that angle and there are probably better options.

The Exam

Since I signed a confidentiality agreement, I can't talk about specific details of the test, but I will address the exam in general terms. It's a day-long three part process, with each part being worth 1/3 of the total. To pass, your overall score must be at least 80%, and you can't do worse than 50% on any one part.

One of the sections is a typical multiple-choice test, but the other two are lab based. I was quite impressed with the hands-on tests -- they are certainly what makes the RHCE meaningful. I'm not aware of any other sysadmin certifications that work this way.

For one of the lab tests, students are given a several-page specification, and must install and configure Red Hat Linux and several network services. This wasn't particularly difficult, and shouldn't be for anyone with much experience. For me, the hardest part was resisting the temptation to go beyond the spec -- since I finished the given requirements with plenty of spare time, I considered installing and setting up additional services in a way that would fit in with the listed goals. But, I decided that it'd be better to leave well-enough alone -- there's no concept of extra credit.

The other hands-on test is the cool and exciting one. Students are given preconfigured setups which are broken in some way, and given a task that must be completed. The system's problem doesn't necessarily relate directly to the task, but does interfere with it. The test-taker must find out what's wrong and correct the error. (Reinstalling packages is not allowed.) Being able to list the steps taken and to repeat the fix is important, but ultimately the test is scored on a works / doesn't work basis. One the examiner verifies that the problem is fixed, he or she wipes the system and provides another broken config.

This problem-solving section directly tests skills important to being a sysadmin in the real world; if someone has trouble with these, they're probably not ready for a systems administration job. Of course, just passing this test doesn't guarantee good problem solving skills (let alone all the other needed abilities), but it does seem a genuinely valuable indicator.

I've only two complaints with this part of the test. First, I'd make it a much larger section -- at least 50% -- and I'd increase the number of problems given so that there'd be a better sample size. The various challenges are assigned at random, and some are easier than others, and each tests knowledge of different parts of the system. The way it's done isn't bad, but it wouldn't hurt to have a lot more of it. Second, I'd give each student two computers, and make more of the problems network-related. This has logistical and cost issues (especially in places other than Red Hat's own training centers), but since many of the problems faced in the real world have to do with the way systems interact, I feel it'd be worth it.

The Exam Separated From The Course

You may have noticed that I seem a lot more excited by the exam than by the course itself. I think both are valuable, but they seemed aimed at slightly different levels. The course definitely can serve as a good review for the exam, but if you need the course, you won't do well on the test. If you're tight on cash and the certification seems valuable to you or to your employer, going straight to the exam would be reasonable. (Make sure you take a look at Red Hat's test prep page.) On the other hand, if you need to be quickly brought up to speed on the basic knowledge required of a RH Linux sysadmin, it might make sense to take this course without worrying about the test. Since RH300 is equivalent to RH033 + RH133 + RH253, this could be a much more intensive and time-efficient option.

Red Hat-Specificness

It's probably obvious, but bears mentioning anyway: this is a Red Hat Linux course and certification, not a general Linux one. I found this to be true both explicitly and implicitly. The instructor was good about saying "This is the Red Hat way of doing things -- it's possibly different on other distributions." (I found the increase-the-whole-pie attitude to be common to all of the RH employees I talked to.) There were also quite a few things that were just assumed. If you take the exam without knowing a lot about Red Hat Linux in particular, you're likely to have trouble.

This doesn't make the certification meaningless for organizations running other distributions -- many of the skills and knowledge required for the test (especially the problem solving part) are generally applicable anywhere. In fact, due to the lab-based testing process, I have more respect for this exam than I might for a multiple-choice test covering more distributions. I think this issue is a one-way sort of thing: the RHCE exam requires knowledge of Red Hat Linux, but anyone who can pass it shouldn't have much trouble picking up other flavors.

Stuff

Ok, the Web page promises that they'll give Red Hat promotional items to course participants. Yeah, well, they can do better on this front. Not even a t-shirt! C'mon, everyone gives t-shirts. Vendor shirts are a staple of my wardrobe! All we got was a mousepad, some stickers, and a baseball cap. (No chance of getting a red fedora.) Oh, and of course an official copy of the CD (with the 180 days of support). Many people in the class were surprised to learn that Red Hat doesn't sell anything from their offices -- you can't buy copies of the distro or additional merchandise. They've got a lot of students coming through there, so it seems like this could be a decent (even if relatively small) revenue stream.

A Bit About Study Guides

Before I went, I flipped through RHCE Exam Cram , the sole study guide I found at the local bookstore. Someone in the class actually purchased it and brought it with them, and I got a chance to read more of it then. I wasn't really impressed. The book was especially concerned with what it called "trick questions", and indeed its sample questions were sometimes a bit confusing -- and often poorly worded. After taking the test, I can say that this seems mostly to be a problem with the book, not something encountered on the actual exam, which was mostly straightforward and fair.

There are RHCE study guides, but I wouldn't recommend spending any money on any of them. As the course instructor told us: if you're going to pass, you'll do so even if you don't have a guide. And if you're going to fail, the guide won't be much help.

Conclusion

I think the RH300 course and RHCE certification can be valuable to both employers and individuals. The course provides a nice quick overview of the basics needed to move, for example, from being a systems operator to being an admin. I wouldn't think of it as either a requirement for the test or as something that can make someone not ready suddenly have the skills required for the exam. Since the exam is hands-on and lab based, those abilities can only come from real world experience. Looking at that from the other direction: this is exactly what makes the RHCE worth anything. While it's not a total statement on someone's talent, being able to pass is a strong indicator that they have the basic skills for a systems administration job. If I were making hiring decisions, I wouldn't make the RHCE a requirement, but I would have more confidence in applicants who have it.

Cost?

[volsung]

I'm curious to know what this entire thing cost you. (Including travel and hotel, etc) Is it only feasible if your employer pays for it?

Re:Where my money will go

[SupahVee]

Reminds me of something my brother told me a while back...."Certification is a way for idiot managers to feel better about hiring incompetent people."

We have an MCSE in our group, he's a shining example. He asked me for the administrator password to get into a 95 box. I laughed at him and it took him 2 days to figure out how to bypass the security on the 95 machine.

Re:Global Knowledge, and etc.

[lbrlove]

But we need all those vendor-specific certs so that people can cover entire walls with meaningless certificates! ;}

I have heard the same good things about Global Knowledge. A friend of mine took Cisco ACRC and said it absolutely rocked. Good setup, plentiful equipment, super-knowledgable instructor, good pacing, etc. Your comment convinces me they are trying to do something good in the area of tech training.

I guess in a way I agree with what you say about CompTIA stuff. Their exams cover things that are pitifully missing from a lot of people's skills, things that should really be assumed. Similarly, generalized exams for UNIX (or programming for that matter) might be handy. A strong structure is built from a strong foundation.

-L

Re:printing...

[kevin lyda]

look in the RELEASE-NOTES on a redhat 6.2 cdrom. it's pretty far down, but there's a list of deprecated packages.

ftp://ftp.esat.net/mirrors/ftp.redhat.com/redhat /redhat-6.2/i386/RELEASE-NOTES

Re:Certification and RedHat

[DFDumont]

There are two main reasons to get education beyond what you are curious about.
1. Self-directed learning will leave you with significant gaps in your knowledge. Since you only pursue those areas that interest you, you fail to grasp any of the "mundane" concepts or parts of the system outside your personal tastes. You may know procmail because that's what you set up, but you don't know sendmail, or appreciate the vaguarities of writing a general purpose parser.
2. You only learn by being stretched and it takes someone that knows more than you to stretch you. If you think there is no one that knows more than you....

The original post dealt with one aspect of this greater issue. That is how do we authenticate what we know. Demonstration is not an option, unless you plan on working for free, forever.

Certification is ONE answer, not the only answer or even the best answer. I know of many bad lawers, doctors, and CPA's that managed to pass their respective certification processes. Nevertheless our industry will continue to suffer both internally and in relation to other industries as long as there are unqualified, unaware and self-taught individuals making major decisions. To put this into as much perspective as possible, would you visit a self-taught doctor, or see a self-taught lawyer for the subsequent malpratice suit? Would you want a self-taught CPA to go with you to the IRS audit? If you answered NO to any of these, than why are we still trying to validate the efforts of those unwilling to submit to outside validation?

If you taught yourself Linux, Redhat, then can I call on you to disentagle a terminal server on the end of a frame-relay link? How about a Novell server that has a recurring NLM failure? What about a problem with a Visual Basic program used to run my business? I could go on, but the point is you don't know everything. You don't even know all you could know, and because of that you are a liability to yourself, your employer/customer and to our industry.

Wake up guys. It's not a hobby, its a career. Treat it as such.

Re:Red Hat Certs & more

[Saint Mitchell]

I know. I happen to work for a MS Solution Provider. Getting them to send me to RH training would take a miracle. I'm not joking, God would have to threaten my practice manager with damnation before they would even consider letting me go. Looks like it's more self study for me...

Re:Cost?

[mattdm]

Course + exam:..............$2500
Airfare from Boston:..........250
Hotel 7 nights @ $120:........840
Local phone calls (urg.).......20
Food:..........................70
Cab fare (inc. airport)........70
---------------------------------
somewhere around............$3750

I wouldn't have paid for this if it were entirely coming out of my pocket, but, if I were looking for another job, I might consider the exam-only option, which would be considerably cheaper.

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test format

[mattdm]

I'm all for LPI, but I wish that they'd have something better than a multiple-choice test.

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Re:printing...

[mattdm]

If you can find a reference for this, I'd be very interested.

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Re:Bug in /sbin/service?

[gmkeegan]

I agree. Lacking a man page for "service" or any comments in the script itself, it looks like you're supposed to call:

service name [start|stop|restart|status] (ie. "service smb start")

This just dies a horrible death. Adding a "-x" to the #!/bin/sh showed that it was actually trying to run:

/etc/rc.d/init.d/smb basename "/sbin/service"

Definitely _not_ the desired behavior. What I ended up doing was to change the "basename" line to:

"/etc/rc.d/init.d/$1" `basename $0`

then create soft links called "start" and "stop" that pointed to it:

ln -s /sbin/service /sbin/start ln -s /sbin/service /sbin/stop

Granted, it's a hack, and one that shouldn't required; but it gets the job done. I can now run

start smb or stop smb

(or whatever service) and it starts & stops happily. (if desired, add another link for "restart"... :)

Re:Courses are one thing, certification is another

[mattdm]

Sure, we've got lots. ACM [acm.org], SAGE [sage.org], etc. But I don't think any of them mean anything more than "I sent these people some money."

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Re:Used to be that way on the MCSE too...

[NetJunkie]

Only if RedHat constantly changes the test setup. Else you'll see a lot of lists showing "If this happens, do this..." etc. Those are already around for some of the Cisco tests.

Re:Another aspect to certification...

[mattdm]

Good point, especially because this is something Red Hat doesn't really do yet and probably should. As I understand it, they don't even provide camera-ready artwork for business cards.

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Re:syllabus?

[Karmageddon]

thanks. don't ask me how I missed that originally... crack smoke? :)

Re:Well, did you pass the exam?

[mattdm]

For the record -- I did pass.

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Re:syllabus?

[mattdm]

http://www.redhat.com/se rvices/training/training_course.html [redhat.com].

I linked to this in the article above, actually. First link under "The Course".

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Re:Global Knowledge, and etc.

[Cando]

I JUST took a Global Knowledge course (RedHat 133 course) and was less that happy with their setup they provided for the students. The pre-req's were not met by half of the students, which dragged the class to a screeching halt, and the depth of the coverage of more "advance" topics was mediocre at best. The instructor was just plain afraid to talk above anyone's heads. I got more out of the class by bringing in my own laptop (since I guess I don't really want to share one when I'm paying $2600 for a 4-day course)and playing with it. I went through all of the chapters myself after 3 days, hung around for the fourth hoping for some in depth information, which was never to come.

There were people in my class who had never really played with Linux before, and they are taking the test next week. Knowing what I know (I work w/2 RHCE's), I can't imagine that any will do very well on the test. There is just too much to cover (ie, what to do if you only get 'LI' after booting. simple, yes, but these folks didn't have a clue). When I returned to work, I informed my boss to never send ANYONE to Global Knowledge again if possible. For the money, conditions should have been better. My instructor answered questions wrong sometimes. I jumped in and corrected him. He didn't have anyone to refer to if he had a stumper, unlike an instructor at RedHat. At least at RedHat, if they didn't know an answer, they were in the right place to get it. Global Knowledge may do well with other courses, but they handle the RHCE classes poorly at best. Next class (Level 300 this time) will be in North Carolina for me.

Oh, and I did fill out the student survey with this information, so the proper people will hopefully get my rant. I just don't expect anything to be done about it.

Re:Where my money will go

[Phallus]

But the first five minutes I used Linux I didn't go and get myself a job as a sysadmin. There is a difference between asking an occasional question, and really not knowing what you are doing. People in jobs they aren't able to perform make life hard on themselves and their co-workers - criticising people for this is not 'arrogance', it's commonsense.

tangent - art and creation are a higher purpose

Re:This is obviously a scam

[mattdm]

I suggest you read the article. The non-distro specific certification you refer to is probably the one from LPI, which I link to above. I feel that the RH exam has significant advantages, as it requires actual real-world skills rather than just the ability to take a multiple-choice test.

I'm all for having a good vendor-neutral certification, and the LPI exam has potential, but until they have something lab based, it won't be as good as Red Hat's.

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Re:+3, Informative

[dboyles]

No, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that if you want to teach "Advanced RedHat Linux System Administration" you have to give more than a superficial glance at the the packages involved. That is, an advanced system admin should be able to do more than setup virtual hosting with Apache.

I see your point, in that the course was supposed to be an advanced course. However, "covering the basics of an advanced topic" isn't an oxymoron or contradiction. Perhaps RH feels that advanced SysAdmins can pick up Apache details on their own (but this kind of ignores the fact that certification is supposed to mean that you *can* do it, not just that you're expected to).

Certification and RedHat

[DFDumont]

The reason the IT industry has certifications is primarily a reaction to a problem that I don't see in any other industry. We have a demand that far outpaces the supply and because of that we have a LOT of people who are in the industry in various positions that don't know the elbow from the ...w ell from there foot. What's worse is we have even more people who no enough to be mildly succesful wihtin the narrow field of experience but are lost when they leave their comfort zone.
I'd very much like to see the same kind of review and certification process that CPA's, lawyers, doctors and other professions enjoy (endure?). I'm tired of dealing with people who THINK they know technology when all they realy know is the three things they've worked on since they left school.

Second rant: (if you're already slighted leave now)
I agree with the two other writers here about the tauted "experience" versus "book knowledge" argument. If you taught yourself everything you know then you had a fool for a student. The way to inovation is to build on the efforts, knowledge and experience of others. The experience benefit only occurs when you have the necessary foundation of book knowledge. Otherwise you MAY figure out HOW to accomplish something, but you'll never understand WHY it works or WHAT the ramifications are of your actions.
It is all of you self-taught folks I'd like to weed out of this field. You are the main thing that prevents the rest of us from moving forward.
Feel free to email me personally with your flames. I've heard them all before.

Used to be that way on the MCSE too...

[NetJunkie]

I've had my MCSE for about 5 years now. I got mine before study guides and transcenders. You say you can't find a paper RHCE now, but wait just a little while. Exam crams and study guides are already out there...it won't be long before there are simulation tests.

I'm glad to see there is a lab test. The MCSE has needed one for years. Lab tests help weed out the paper people and increase the cost enough that people won't try 4 times to pass.

NT admins are not nesiserily in good shape.

[Forge]

No rest, Malnutrition and a bad attitude. Meanwhile the Linux admin has time to work out and whereas a penguin on his T-shirt which everyone knows causes women to want sex with you. ( sex is exercise and builds lower back strength while improving balance, dexterity and rhythm.)

The NT admin is no match for the Linux admin. Playing quake and pumping iron in your office doesn't hurt ( all the better for filling out that sexy XXXL Penguin emblazoned T-shirt.)

This is obviously a scam

[BenLutgens]

To gain market share. This whole thing reeks of Microsofts MCSE program. Pay us lots of money to certify you, then pay us more to certify you when the technolgy changes. Thus encouraging corporations to run Red Hat because they can hire "Certified Engineers" Come o n people why else would they not want to support the project (I forget the name in my anger) that is designed for non-distro specific certifications. Why because Red Hat is a typical commercial organization out for one thing. Money! Which is not a bad thing, but they should not hide behind the pretense of "Oh we are doing it to help the linux community..." Red Hat puts out inferior distributions with pretty GUI installers and configuration tools all aimed at the newbie. While I think this is great, it also makes for overly lazy admin who will not read the documentation, thereby leading to poorly configured, insecure, and inneffecient systems. Red Hat makes me sick. Note to all newbies: Start with RedHat then move to a real distro like debian for important stuff. Thier other selling point is "Tech Support" how many of you have actually called Red Hat for tech support? Not many I can assure you. Thier tech support is probably tantamount to Microsofts. Red Hat != Linux. It's about time corporate america sees that.

Give it time...

[NetJunkie]

When I got my MCSE 5 or so years ago I had to explain what it was to people. No one had heard of it.

printing...

[kevin lyda]

in fairness i seem to remember reading in the redhat 6.2 install notes that the berkeley print system was going to go away - no indication of what was next.

Re:MCLU

[lbrlove]

The essential classes:

666: Windows Reboot Options 714: The Kernel Debugger and You

-L

Re:Good Idea

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree. I'm currently in the market to be a Mac tech. Say what you will about the Mac platform, but there are people that like to use them, and want support. I like using them, and I want to support them.

However, I'm having a difficult job quantifying my experience to potential employers, as there is only a recently released Mac certification program, and it is not nearly as in depth as certification for any other platform.

This lack of certification opportunity for the general public (you can get Apple certified at Apple Service Centers, but not on your own hook) is (partially) responsible for holding the Mac back: IT and corporate managers, who are considering switching to the Mac platform, look around for techs that will support them through and after the change, and can't find anything definitive. It's a lot easier to sort resumes by the "certification" bullet than it is considering and evaluating the experience level of every applicant.

I know this is an AC post, (my psswd is at home) but I'm interested in your comments; email me (with job offers?) here [mailto].

Re:Where my money will go

[Phallus]

As far as I'm concerned, anybody throwing away their time on someting like this is going to be dead wood.

Not a good plan - all sorts of people, some very talented, get these sorts of qualifications because it makes them look more hirable to the suits. You may be missing some great staff by doing this.

tangent - art and creation are a higher purpose

Re:Where my money will go

[Phallus]

Everybody should be required to start from the bottom instead of learning from others' experiences.

No, everyone should be expected to be able to do the jobs that they go for - not knowing how to bypass Windows 'security' is a sign of gross incompetence at administering a Windows box to me.

tangent - art and creation are a higher purpose

Re:Well, did you pass the exam?

[mattdm]

I'm not a wage slave. They give me money to play with toys all day.

btw: you seem a bit bitter. what's the problem?

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Re:I too have gotten my RedHat cert and...

[mattdm]

Actually, Randy was the teacher I had too.

I'm not sure what you mean when you say "The other thing I didn't agree with is the RedHat Specificness."

Here's some things that are Red Hat specific that we talked about without particularly pointing out non-RH ways of doing things: the install program (including kickstart), chkconfig (and sysv init scripts in general), PAM, sndconfig, kudzu, piranha. The instructor didn't make a point of saying that these things may be different elsewhere, but he did clearly say "This is the way it is on RH Linux." That's what I mean by it being implicitly Red Hat-specific. There wasn't a particular effort to demonstrate other ways of doing things, but there was definitely the understanding that those might exist.

There was no attempt to make it seem like Red Hat is the only way.

There were also things that were overtly mentioned as being the Red Hat way of doing things -- for example, the user-group scheme they use. For a different class, I wouldn't be at all surprised if the times where the RH-ness is mentioned were different -- it was mostly assumed as understood.

What do you disagree with about that?

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Re:Review missed the target

[mattdm]

Which target did it miss, exactly? I think what you say is an apt demonstration of what I said under "The Exam Separated From The Course"...

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Re:SAIR GNU/Linux certification

[mattdm]

That's right -- I mentioned LPI, but I totally forgot about this one. In my opinion, it suffers from the same problem the LPI exam does -- it's just multiple choice.

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Re:Review missed the target

[rakjr]

Let me qualify my background. Prior to RH courses and test, I had been flying linux by the seat of my pants relying on updates (better configured installs) to correct my problems as they arose. This is admittedly a stupid way to run servers, but at the time I had jumped ship from NT because in a hostile environment NT was crashing daily, whereas linux stayed alive and kicking with the default install.

Initially I signed up for 133 and 233. Well, for reasons I will leave out at the moment, 133 was a waste of money. Fearing that 233 would be the same kind of flop, I switched to 300 with the understanding I was going to be part of the 35% who do not pass the exam. Starting half way through the 133 week, I began to read the RH installation text, followed by O'Rielly's "Running Linux, 2nd Edition (the third edition came out 2 weeks later). Based on that, and rebuilding and reconfiguring my laptop every other night, I was able to get through 300 and do great on the test.

That said, I was not what you would call an experienced admin (I was a joke). 300 did what it was intended to do, and I did the rest. My initial impression from reading the article was that it was leaning in the direction of saying that 300 was a weak course. It is not until "The Exam Separated From The Course" that the distinction is strongly made about the course's intent.

I agreed with the raw content of the article. The issue I had with it was that it left me with the impression of "as an upper level course, this is lacking." If it were an upper level course, I agree, it would be lacking in depth in many areas. As a final prep before the exam, I think it was right on target.

Re:MCLU

[LarsG]

745: FDISK in the Enterprise

With the new and improved magic Master Bootrecord Reposession-option?

Re:Who gets these certs?

[mattdm]

No degree. Five years of experience with Linux.

--

no stuff? that's disappointing...

[matticus]

come on, redhat! everyone knows the real reason people take certification exams is for the free tshirts and bumper stickers!
"My Red Hat Certified Son Beat Up Your MSCE!"

Re:Where my money will go

[Savant]

As far as I recall under Windows 95, there are two buttons on the login screen: OK and Cancel. Cancel gets you into the system; indeed if you click OK several times failing each and then Cancel you get the desktop as it is set up for the user you've 'logged in' as.

Maybe this guy was very bright; but when faced with only 2 buttons, not to try both seems to suggest a lack of the inquiring mind that I've always felt intelligent folk should have...

Savant

Re:good

[mattdm]

you're just not working for the right place.

--

Re:Very Accurate Review

[Ruzty]

I too am a RHCE. I agree, the review was fairly accurate.
The most important thing IMHO is to go to Raleigh, NC. It's worth the trip to have one of the education department senior people teach your class.

-Rusty

Good Idea

[ibpooks]

RHCE is a good idea in the commercial market for the simple fact that corporations love training courses. Linux won't be recognized as a valid OS in "average" (pronounced: non-tech) industries until employees can be trained. In the corporate mind, Linux can't be "equal" to Novell and Microsoft's shitty products until a tech can be Linux "certified". It gives 'em that warm, tingly feeling.

Re:slack cert

[mattdm]

Actually, you need to more than that for the RH certification too. Installing packages was disallowed during the debug part of the exam -- you needed to really fix the problem.

--

Re:a more traditional voice...

[AntiBasic]

I got that statistic from Seminole County Public Schools [k12.fl.us] on a handout dealing with gifted children as a sort of guide for parents. You can ask them to send you one you brainwashed liberal drone. Be as subjective as you can be, you gotta be good at it.

Red Hat Certs & more

[sparkes]

I wouldn't take a Red Hat exam, they are very good, but at the end of the day they may be percieved as still tieing yourself to one os.

Remember how your MSCE friends used to brag but now you point at them in the street ;-)

Lets not forget the other exams available.

Re:MCLU

[erb]

666: Windows Reboot Options 714: The Kernel Debugger and You
The kernel debugger?
But...wouldn't invoking a debugger on the Windows kernel be considered reverse engineering, and thus be a violation of Microsoft's intellectual property rights under the DMCA? We couldn't have that...

Interesting, But...

[LaNMaN2000]

The Red Hat Certification exam sounds similar to Cisco, in that their is both a standard and lab component to it. While this generally increases the level of difficulty, it also causes the exam prices to be unusually high. While MS exams (tests only) are $100, Cisco's cost significantly more. One question: does the course/exam have to be given together or can you only register for the exam and take it at SP? How much does it cost?

It is about time that a Linux vendor realize the value of offering distro-specific certification. However, what is the benefit for the average sysadmin? Is their a salary difference between UNIX admins w/o the certificaiton and UNIX admins that do have it?

Thanks for the review.

Re:Well, did you pass the exam?

[mattdm]

I think so. :)

I don't have my final score yet.

--

LPI all the way...

[Ron Harwood]

I don't believe in vendor specific certification... RHCE, MCSE, CCNA, etc... I do believe that a company such as redhat could join an organisation such as the LPI [lpi.org] to create a non-vendor specific certification. In the process, the linux communitiy would benefit greatly... vendors, developers and users a like... along with the corporations that want certified staff...

Re:SAIR GNU/Linux certification

[mattdm]

Wow. I was just looking at SAIR's sample tests [linuxcertification.com], and I'm disappointed. They're much worse than I expected -- the questions are confusingly worded and the answers unclear. It doesn't seem very professional at all. Hopefully, the actual questions are better than the sample ones.

--

Interesting Post

[isolation]

This is a cool artical to see, I've been hearing both good and bad things about this program as oppsed to MSCE. I do like redhat approach by brings people there for the training, Although the local Comunity collage I teach at doesnt seem to like it because we cannot become RedHat cerified to teach.

All in all it was nice tosee how they do things

Re:Interesting, But...

[FattMattP]

While MS exams (tests only) are $100, Cisco's cost significantly more.

Well, there's a reason for that. A hands-on lab test where you actually solve problems is going to be better at assessing your skills than taking a multiple choice exam.

Also, have you taken any Microsoft exams? Are you an MCP or MCSE? Do you know any? I'm an MCSE myself. I decided to take the tests which I'll admit were pretty easy. It doesn't take much effort to pass the exams. Because of that there are a lot of MCSEs out there that really don't have a clue how to go about solving problems. 99% percent of the time their answer is to reboot or reinstall. The exams aren't as thorough as they should be. Consequently, my MCSE certification doesn't mean much.

Look at how many people laugh at MCSEs and how worthless the certification is becoming. Cisco certifications, on the other hand, aren't laughed at. No one makes fun of CCIEs. Sure, it's expensive, but that money both weeds out people who aren't really serious about obtaining the certification, and it allows Cisco to put more money into their certification process. Both of those things help the certification to be taken more seriously.

Re:MCLU

[pigpogm]

Indeed. That's why the TechNet article [microsoft.com] on removing Linux and installing NT advises you to use the Linux version of FDISK.

There's a beautiful irony there.

"There can be only one..."

[Ron Harwood]

...not.

Think about it from this perspective then...

You could have core linux courses that are (reasonably) independent of distribution:

Networking (TCP/IP, NFS/SMB, LPR, etc)
System admin (User admin, file system admin, cron, scripting)
Various application courses (MySQL/Postgres, Apache, sendmail, etc)

That's just off the top of my head - I'm sure there could be a whole plethora - and then you could chose your stream.

Red Hat Training

[l0ki]

I recently took the 253 course (admin and security) at Redhat in Durham as well. I also agree that it was targeted at a lower level than I expected. Some areas were very informative (the ones I never had a call to do in the past) while others were boring. Overall the security information was primarily conceptual, and much of the admin work was as well. Contrary to my tone here, I would give the training a definent thumbs up. They had good facilities (minus the lack of internet access--which may have been for my own good :) and the courseware was as neutral as possible to still be "Red-Hat". I think that one misconception a lot of people make is that everyone coming through will be a guru. The beginning courses should concentrate on this, I know, but also the series may very well be the 1st linux contact that someone has. It may be a disgruntled MCSE who wants an OS minus the blue screens. I've taught the MCSE tracks for a few years now, and plenty of career changers with little or no experience come through these looking to get into IT. Luckily, I think that most of the car dealers - turned - IT guys haven't heard of linux yet, but, if we want linux to succeed, you've got to have trained people and companies that see a means TO train people to implement it. I think that in any course, a certification is a good goal for the students, and HOPEFULLY a gauge for the employer--- unfortunately, cheap study guides lead to cheap certified people. IE> paper CNE/MCSE. Anyway- All in all I also reccomend the RHCE courses. Red Hat understands that for linux to really succedd- it must act like some of the people we hate-- (big businesses--MS) sometimes - in some ways. A cert, is not evil, it just hopefully is a goal. If employers are stupid enough to hire based solely on it and NOT the interview process-- then they are to blame for an industry of janitors with the administrator/supervisor/root password...

Re:Where my money will go

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, there was an article in eWeek (which until this week was PC Week) about how certifications, particularly the MCSE are beginning to lose their luster in the eyes of HR. They even interviewed some hiring types that are hesitant to hire MCSEs because of all the times they've been burned by schmucks with the certs but no REAL knowledge. They did mention that the CCIE was still a big deal, though. Sam Dunham [e-mail] RWCE

Re:Good Idea

[voop]

RHCE is a good idea in the commercial market for the simple fact that corporations love training courses. Linux won't be recognized as a valid OS in "average" (pronounced: non-tech) industries until employees can be trained. In the corporate mind, Linux can't be "equal" to Novell and Microsoft's shitty products until a tech can be Linux "certified". It gives 'em that warm, tingly feeling.

While I believe that the marketing effect of having "vendor certificates" for a product is positive (both for the holder of the certificate and for the product), there is more to the story than just that. I would like to point out two issues in the following:

Without disqualifying any certificates in particular, then there is imho a fundamental problem with such "vendor certificates" - and that is just that: they're "vendor". Most of the certification programs I've had contact with emphasize "the way of the vendor" a lot, and ignores (or assumes known) the general workings og things.

Let me give an example, which unfortunately is not just "thought up": most OS vendor certificates teach "setting up networking" and such. Some even "debugging network problems". Yet none (of those I have seen or heard of) set asside sufficient time to teach the fundamental understanding of the protocols behavior and how to utilize and interpret the output of various tools (traceroute and tcpdump comes to mind). I support this observation by experiences from working in a large organization with various OS-vendor certified personel (Novell and MS-certifications) - to whom the notion of "port numbers" under IP was completely unfamiliar (yes, the MS person in question did have the MS networking part, or so his resume said). I do believe that he could set up MS-something-server much faster than most (as could the Novel guy probably with a Novell-product), but that was not the issue (which was figuring out why some traffic didn't get through a particular router).

This leads me to the other issue, namely that with all those "vendor certificates", HR-people tend to hire more on those (the flash-value of a bunch of golden-framed certificates is known to be high in HR), than on the actual skills. The result (as was my experience) was, that the IT-department ends up with lots of people, who can (rightfully) claim to be "certified" - but who cannot really claim the understanding of what is going on...and who definitely will work less-than-good in a heterogenous setting (as most places really are: different servers, mainframes, terminals and workstations in a mess of a network with a mess of different traffic).

Anyways, the emphasis on "vendor certificates" has - in my experience - caused people to focus on "getting the certificate" (because that catches the eye of the HR-people) rather than on the actual learning the skills. And that is the real problem: very few do as the author of this very fine review of RedHat's certification process and say "hey, I know most of this stuff in general, but now I really need to know how RedHat do things". Most rather think "Uhmm...Redhat == money, I need that certificate".

Finally, a problem about vendor certificates is, that there is no real control with what they yield. Traditionally, teaching organizations (one way or another) are subject to some level of control, which should guarantee some level of quality. As the author of the review rightfully points out, then there might be big differences between what the course looks like in different sites. (not that the courses in universities and colleages do not differ either, but they are supposibly subject to some sort of quality control...)

That said, I find it encouraging that RedHat does provide what (to me) seems like rather real settings for part of their tests: "This machine is broken, fix it!" and "This machine should do XXX, make it so". I hope and wish that the training behind does provide a good background for doing this propperly.

Yet I still believe (and am trying to teach HR) that it is more important to evaluate actual skills and experience than simply to count the number of certificates....

Re:Red Hat Certs & more

[Saint Mitchell]

Come come now. Not everyone who has an MCSE is the devil's child. I got my MCSE becuase of the pay increase where I work. I'm looking into becoming an RHCE simply because corps love certs (and linux rocks the free world). You could go to an interview and tell them you have 10 years experience as a Sysadmin and get no where some places. But tell them "I've got my (insert cert) and have 2 years experience" and you can name your price. It's dumb yes, but corps are dumb.

Re:Question on agenda

[mattdm]

I'd agree with the first parts (competency, legitimacy), but I really didn't get a sense that RH was trying to "stamp its name on Linux". In fact, they took pains to make it clear that RH != Linux.

--

Re:a more traditional voice...

[Art Tatum]

I know the CS curriculum.

Re:I too have gotten my RedHat cert and...

[ejbst25]

I definitely don't disagree. I guess I skimmed what you said too lightly. I apologize. I was very impressed with how much he went into the specific files instead of the gui things though.

What I meant was that I want to stress that this was not totally a Redhat specific course...and what I mean by that is not that we delved into the other ways things are done....but you don't have to be a redhat guru to take this. I myself use Debian as well as redhat at home and SuSE and Redhat in the workplace. And I can honestly say that if I knew jack about Redhat specific stuff I still could have passed...just from the knowledge of the other distros and linux in general.

And I also wanted to stress that compared to any formal training I have ever had...Randy would rank in the top 3. He knew his stuff..could answer questions...and expanded on everything. It wasn't as if he was reading a script like some courses.

GEPUC

[Chundra]

GNU Emacs Power-User Certification
Just think of the respect you'll receive from your co-workers and friends when they see your official GEPUC diploma hanging on the wall. It'll prove your hack-worthiness to all.

What you'll learn:

How to open files.
Editing in multiple buffers!
Remapping keys
And much, much more!

Classes begin July 2, 2000, so sign up today. The first 200 to register get a free Emacs Quick Reference Ecard (available for download in both Postscript and PDF formats). So sign up today!

Re:Global Knowledge, and etc.

[bungalow]

But we need all those vendor-specific certs so that people can cover entire walls with meaningless certificates! ;}

An employee of a previous client of mine did exactly that. In the middle of the cubicle village, there was this one guy who had tiled his entire cubicle with continuing education certificates. - and had started building up! on top of his 4' cube, he had another row of framed certs and had begun a second.

The goofy part is that the certs were worthless - entirely - like a 6-hour course on Introduction to Excel. Maybe that was the point.

Re:good

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't it funny how many people are "proud" to be a sysadmin? It is a horrible job. Anyone who aspires to be a sysadmin has set their sights too low.

Re:MCLU

[albamuth]

Heh, when I returned the laptop I had out at my last job, my former boss spent a week just trying to figure out how to get rid of RH 5.1 that I had installed on it. "Fat12?! WTF!!?"

Re:MCLU

[Rydian]

So, is the course going to be based off of this Microsoft Product Support Page?

Q247804 - How to remove Linux and Install Windows 2000 or Windows NT on your computer. [microsoft.com]

Re:The case for certification

[Vagary]

So you're planning on spending however much it costs for this college certification course and then using that to get summer jobs to help pay for university? I haven't done the math, but it sounds like you'd be in less debt by skipping the certification and spend the time (and future summers) getting a job with the skills you have.

University vs. College vs. Certification

[Vagary]

As someone half way through a Computer Science degree, I'd be interested to know what people in the industry think about the various methods of formal training. What is the value of university degrees, college diplomas, and certifications (vendor-neutral or otherwise) for various positions? Even more complicated, what does a combination of these yield?

To relate this to my personal experience: Can I expect to get hired as a Linux sys-admin* with a BSc? How would my value change if I added a certification on top of that? What about graduate degrees?

(*) That's not particularily what I'm interested in doing, it just seems like the most likely example to get answered here. :)

Re:The case for certification

[matman]

college course is less than one year part time. I can work while I take the course. I can easily make the money that the course costs back in under a year. So I tie up less than 2 years of income after living expenses on this, and I gain two years of experience. So as soon as I'm going to university I'm 2 years and a few certs ahead of other university people so I can make more as I goto university, giving more time for school work since I wont have to work as much to cover costs. By the time I'm outa university, I'll have at least 5 years experience and a degree and a few certs and little debt, where other grads will have 3 years experience, more debt (depending on their parents, etc) and no certs. It makes sense to me.

Re:The case for certification

[matman]

oh, and i already have the money for the college course.

Very Accurate Review

[thoreau]

I have to say that I took the RedHat class and exam and passed very well. I totally agree with this review. The exam made certain that you really understood what was going on during and after boot. I'm always in favor of hands-on exams over multiple choice.

RedHat has done a good job at making thier certification valuable. You can't just read a cram book and make it through this exam. You have to KNOW and more importantly DO it!

One note:
We had a very experienced class, therefore our instructor was able to spend alot of time on additional details and items that normally wouldn't be part of the class. One of these was creating RPMS from source. We actually went through the process our creating our own kernel RPMS with our modified configurations. That really made the class worthwhile!

In defense of the RHCE

[MindTree]

I took the RH300 course and RHCE certification exam earlier this month. I was very impressed with the facilities, the instructor, and the SNACKS! The class was informative, the labs were fun and, while not difficult, thought provoking. You could complete the labs in 20 minutes if you run through it, but that wasn't the point, you see. The point was to play with the material that had just been presented in lecture, and I had the distinct impression that some people in my class, also some of the same people who didn't pass the exam, did understand this fact. As for my instructor, he was one of the kewlest guys I have met in a long time. A former Unix system administrator, he was very knowledgable in his field. He also had a great passion for teaching, and loved to answer questions, even the most bazar ones I could dream up. As for not getting into the building of source RPMS, all you had to do was ask. I did and we ended up having an optional additional lab on building source RPMS, which I found very educational as our instructure loved to play with building various pacages in his free time. It was actually illuded to that some of the RPMS we were installing from the distribution server on the LAN were his own custom pacages. As for the test, it was as well done as it could be. I would just like to point out that the "extra credit" on the installation and configuration section MAY not be totaly correct, I believe that there was some element of "extra credit" as it was the only section of the test that was completely open ended. As we all know there are more ways to get one objective done with Linux than there are configurations for the whole of an winblows product, so I think there were different point value assesments for different ways of doing the same thing, being that some ways are more correct than others. The promotional crap they give out is truely nothing great, so if you're going for the free stuff, lets just say it ain't worth your 2500. I'll never wear the ball cap, the mouse pad is alright, but nothing great, and the stickers, are well, stickers. Givem to your kids and tell them to stick them on the computers at school, and you'll be doing something really educational with them. Now one area where you can get your 2500 dollars worth is the lunches and the snacks! They do a great job on the food, and the free snacks rock. I'll just say I didn't go hungry, and I only feel like I payed 2000 instead of 2500 all because of the snacks. Oh, take a car or get a car if you're going down there, you can't do anything without one, it's a very spread out area. If you havn't picked up on it so far, I payed for the certification out of my own pocket. That's how much I wanted it and that's how much I believe in it. And I didn't do too bad on the exam either. Not a piece of cake, but not really all that difficult. RH seems to take a lot of crap, and I love /., but they do seem to get a lot of flack from this direction, and trust me, they will comment on it. Everyone I met admitted they loved slashdot, but it seems to be the running joke that they can't wait to see what will be said about them next. Everyone I met was good people, and I won't be caught bad mouthing them for some time, so let's take it easy, okay?

Re:This is obviously a scam

[SoftwareJanitor]

All vendor-run 'certification' programs are a scam to enrich the pockets of the vendors. While Microsoft's MSCE program is probably the biggest and worst example out there right now, it was actually Novell that invented this sort of program. As long as the pointy-haired-boss types are convinced that 'certified' means something, this sort of program will continue to flourish.

That being said, I think your criticism of Red Hat is a little harsh. While their distribution isn't perfect, neither is Debian, neither is any other. Red Hat is certainly motivated by profit, but I don't think they have tried to hide that, and all in all, I think they have done pretty well in acting responsibly towards the Linux community.

Re:Where my money will go

[Bad Mojo]

"We have an MCSE in our group, he's a shining example. He asked me for the administrator password to get into a 95 box. I laughed at him and it took him 2 days to figure out how to bypass the security on the 95 machine."

While this certainly appears funny, this story once again raises a serious, IMO, side effect of the MS training machine. It's people like this who end up designing a network only to have it `h4X0red' and creating some giant `blame someone' game. Sure, this person might lose their job for being a moron, but the damage is usually allready done by that time.

Net result? The industry looks unstable, and insecure to the general non-technical crowd who aren't in the know. I know what a MCSE does to get that piece of paper, and I know that doing those things or getting the actual paper does nothing to actually guarantee anything except a minimal level of understanding.

But this might just be me holding NT admins to a level of excellence only uni* admins ever seem to strive for.


Bad Mojo [rps.net]

Reason for certification

[ACK!!]

There are good reasons for people to get certified. There are not many good reasons but I can come up with one situation (my own of course) where it makes sense.

Let us say that you are in a general position that really is cool. You are learning SQL, Oracle scripting, NT (yuck but I do), shell scripting and Solaris. Ok, you know what you want to specialize in. You love Unix. However, your job is too general and you need to show potential employers that you have the stuff to run a Solaris sysadmin job despite the fact Unix is only one fourth of your job. You could stay a generalist but until you become a big-time system consultant or project manager it does not pay to be a generalist in the computer business.

So how do you show that you have enough knowledge despite the fact you job is not solely focused on the skill. You get the certification. I am going for the Solaris certification. It is not the basis of my resume but it highlights the fact that I take what I want to specialize in seriously.

Another aspect to certification...

[stienman]

When one becomes an MCSE, Microsoft inducts them into the MCSE group, and sends them 'useful' information about Microsoft's products. This is to 'keep the MCSE up to date on microsoft technologies' but in reality is a sales channel. So, MS trains an MCSE, and a manager hires the MCSE because MS has certified the MCSE. Now MS has a salesperson^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^HMCSE working for the manager. MS sends the MCSE info about current technologies and two things happen:

1) Every problem looks like a nail to the MCSE to be solved with the Microsoft Hammer(TM).
2) MCSE recommends product upgrades and new products in the guise of making things run more smoothly.

Now, this is a good model to use, because it works. Does Red Hat want to increase its market share? Keep in frequent contact with your certificatees!

-Adam

Q: How many IBM CPU's does it take to execute a job?
A: Four: three to hold it down and one to rip its header off.
-Stephen Samuel

Re:Where my money will go

[Chris_Pugrud]

> but I wont take dead wood. _Real Engineers_ learn by doing.

That's really to bad, you may have missed out on some really excellent people.

With 10 years of UNIX, 8 years of networking, 6 years of Linux, and 5 years of NT experience I took the MCSE for one reason: I got an on the spot $3K bonus. The company needed certs to maintain their status as a Microsoft Certified solutions Provider. Marketing, pure marketing. I could care less, the money is the same to me.

Operating systems are just tools. Use the combination of hardware and software that best suits the job you are trying to do. I find it humourous that in my new job I get tremendous resistance to suggesting that we use $2K linux boxes for basic services (mail relays, DNS, NTP) instead of $8K Sun Netra T1's. How's that for dogmatic bigotry?

Chris

Re:Where my money will go

[extrasolar]

Do you mean like pressing *Cancel* on the log-in screen? Or is it something less obvious that will make me feel like a fool? :)

Certification, Officialdom and Decentralization

[timothy]

This reminds me of certification in the field of medicine (I'm not, neither do I play on TV) -- I don't mind and in fact appreciate that the American Medical Association sets certain standards (basically, conventional Western medicine -- the kind that *I'm* most comfortable with), but on the other hand, they shouldn't be the only ones to decide the proper course and scope of medicine. I'd like medical licensure to be totally private and at the discretion of what could be many different and divergent organizations, each of which reflect the scientific and moral beliefs of their founders / adherents. But that's another story, only a kernel ...

An interesting thing to me about the RHCE program is that for it to be worth much, it must (as Matt says it successfully does) distance itself from the idea that only Red Hat's Linux is Linux.

While someone could also (copyright quibbles aside) start an alternative certification program to the MSCE, it'd be hard to imagine that it could ever be as well accepted or prestigious, simply because only one vendor controls the spec. "If you're going to ask someone, you ask that guy over there, he buil the thing." :)

On the other hand, while Red Hat may be a big name and has grabbed attention / brand recognition, would anyone frown on a "Mandrake Certified" engineer, or someone who's "SuSE Qualified"? (Or whatever ... these are examples only, and maybe a completely 3rd party would be a better example.) It would be cool if the most major players, or at least any also interested in providing this kind of base-level officaldom would work (did I dream this or is it happening) with groups like the Linux Standards Base to determine a minimum set which would be acceptable to all of them.

After all, the same kind of flexibility which makes so many distributions of Linux possible and worthwhile would also be good in the realm of certification -- the more robust the market the more worthwhile such things will be. And (this is backhanded logic maybe but it's my only weapon) perhaps a diversity of all-equally valid certification programs will reduce the percieved need for / dominance of both any particular one and in fact such certifications in general. If they're going to exist (they do, and they will), they should at least be seen as "a feather in your cap" rather than the whole suit and shoes.

Since the common perception seems to be that such certs are basically formalities for those willing to obtain them, wouldn't want interviews with otherwise qualified job candidates, say, to hit a hiccup when the interviewer says "Hmm. I see you're not Red Hat certified. I guess you can leave your resume with the desk and we'll be in touch ... "

ok, a ramble. But the more administratively / philisophically spread out and the less offically important such certs are, the better in my view.

timothy

I too have gotten my RedHat cert and...

[ejbst25]

First of all.. Two weeks ago, I wrote a long winded review for /. and they declined it.

I must say I full heartedly agree with this guy. Except I must say as a guy who has been through training courses from Sun Microsystems and from IBM (my current employer) that my teacher was excellent. I had a gentleman at redhat named Randy Russel who knew his stuff...at least a good bit more than me. Even better...he knew how to teach. The course was good..although I didn't learn a ton. but without the course as a review of everything I am not sure I would have done as well on the test. And their helpful hints on troubleshooting were excellent...and things I necessarily haven't done in depth.

The other thing I didn't agree with is the RedHat Specificness. Although it was obviously a bit specific...my instructor pointed out the "other" traditional ways to do it...and many times stated a preference to editing files rather than gui tools. the only real redhat specific thing they did was there was no telling you how to build non-rpms....but hey...you have to expect some redhat specificity.

I do agree with this as well. DO NOT BUY THE STUDY GUIDE IF YOU ARE TAKING THE COURSE. There is no need. They are dumb.

The cert ws worth it...it wasn't easy (for the general public) and it will weed out those who do not have linux experience...but for those of us like myself who have been using it exclusively for 2+ yrs...(myself around 6)...it was easy.

Re:The case for certification

[matman]

Micro$oft has made the windows 2000 mcse track considerably harder I hear. I'm going to a college to learn and earn an MCSE2000 only because it can help me make a bit more money as I save for university. Dont get me wrong, I cant stand Windows, but unless I goto college for it, I'm not going to have any motivation to learn it - and a lota companies need people who know windows, as well as linux.

Interesting

[daviddennis]

I must say I got a laugh out of The Wizard of OS.

If I have to be obsessed with someone, though, it will be someone I have a non-zero chance of meeting :-(.

D


----

Where my money will go

[Signal 11]

I'll be honest here - it's nice to hear that the certification is worth something. Yes, it is alittle rough around the edges but linux in general tends to be that way. :) However, myself (and I suspect many others) get certified primarily for one reason - to make more money.

What this means is that a certification program depends more on marketing and getting PR and HR together to be successful. Competency is, unfortunately, second. As a side-effect, this means that people like me aren't going to look at it seriously until the people in a position to hire me do. This is why many people are going for their MCSEs - they know HR reads the 4 color glossies MS sends out. Of course, the tech department groaned loudly when HR went off and stuck up another job description without consulting them (HR won't get stuck with the new guy, will they?).

So, in a nutshell, RedHat should pour alittle money into PR to make sure HR knows who they are. And, the 4 color glossies never hurt.

The case for certification

[Mark F. Komarinski]

I've been a frequent opponent of certification, mostly because the certification doesn't mean anything. However, in this case, I'm for Linux certification. Why?

The simple reason is that Linux isn't Windows. Credentials for Linux users in place of things like prior experience is sometimes needed. In my business, we have customers asking for Linux support for our products. Our sales people can say that there is a RHCE on staff, which is somewhat rare for the industrial PC business. Of course, most people who are asking for Linux support know that Red Hat != Linux, but the RHCE exam does ask enough general Linux questions to (IMO) make a RHCE a Linux Expert.

Everyone knows a Certified Windows person who has 0 clue about Windows and how to do proper administraton. Go find Certified Linux person (Red Hat or not) who is that clueless. It's hard. You probably won't.

Bug in /sbin/service?

[tmu]

Excellent piece. I enjoyed the narrative and have been wondering about the RH certification process, so it was good to know more about it.

I had never seen the service script and so immediately tried it. It didn't work on my RH6.1 system (They've fixed it in 6.2, but 6.1 is totally broken).

The line:

elif [ -x "/etc/rc.d/init.d/$1" ]; then
"/etc/rc.d/init.d/$1" $*

had to be changed (since $* *includes* $1. duh!)
i fixed this with:

elif [ -x "/etc/rc.d/init.d/$1" ]; then
"/etc/rc.d/init.d/"$*

but in RH6.2 they've changed it to:

elif [ -x "/etc/rc.d/init.d/$1" ]; then
"/etc/rc.d/init.d/$1" "basename \"$0\""

anyway, great review.

MCLU

[pigpogm]

I'll wait for the official Microsoft MCLU certification.

Microsoft Certified Linux Uninstaller.

It's only two exams:
745: FDISK in the Enterprise
823: Windows 2000 Good, Linux Bad.

Courses are one thing, certification is another

[Moderation abuser]

Going on a training course to understand how something specific works is one thing and I'm sure the Red Hat courses are very valuable in that respect but becoming 'certified' by an organisation like Red Hat or Microsoft or Novell is quite another matter.

Don't you USA bods have a professional IT society? The UK has the British Computing Society. It's purpose is:

".... promote the study and practice of Computing and to advance knowledge therein for the benefit of the public"

The BCS is also an Engineering Institution, fully licensed by the Engineering Council to nominate Chartered and Incorporated Engineers and to accredit university courses and training schemes.

Membership of the BCS with a professional grade is a much better indicator of a useful IT person than specific 'certifications' by Microsoft or Red Hat or Novell. In order to become a professional member you must have years of experience and be well educated, either through university or through accredited courses.

Plus you get to put letters after your name. :-)

Re:Good Idea

[Chris_Pugrud]

> Most of the certification programs I've had contact with emphasize "the way of the vendor" a lot, and ignores (or assumes known) the general workings og things.

I maintain and will be willing to bet that anyone can pass the "NT Server in the Enterprise" based on one simple premis: No matter how wrong the answer may seem, the answer that bashes UNIX and/or Novell the most is correct."

> "This machine is broken, fix it!" and "This machine should do XXX, make it so".

I am really glad to hear about this facet. It sounds like Redhat learned something from Cisco on this one. The CCIE ( Cisco Certified Internetworking Engineer ) is one of the toughest and most respected certifications on the market.

It begins with a qualifing exam taken at normal testing centers. This exam covers every single networking protocol used in the last ten years, along with every physical connection and permutation. In the TCP section you must correctly identify, by byte range, the different parts of the TCP header.

If you manage to pass that then you must go to Cisco to do the hands on labs which are very similar to what has been described for the Redhat tests. A full day of "Set this up to do X" followed by "Why does this not work?".

No, I don't have the CCIE, but don't think I'm not working on it.

Chris

a more traditional voice...

[neowintermute]

The most troubling thing I see about these certifications, is that they feed young 3133t h4x0r's egos. It's bad enough that tons of people think you can be a good software developer without any education, but to add to that, I've met people who have an mcse, and are 19-21 and think they have an engineering degree.

I'm almost done with my computer science degree, and while it's true that I learned a huge amount working as a programmer, without the basis I got from my degree in math, problem solving, and a variety of programming languages and techniques, I would not be nearly as good a programmer. (or so I think) I mean, I'm sure working on open source projects at 13 helps you learn a lot, but there are design fundamentals and lots of underlying knowledge necessary about compilers, and assembly, and hardware, that you need to have to really understand what's going on. Hopefully, our economy will improve enough so that more people can get a quality education [washingtonpost.com]. Or, to be more acurate, hopefully our entire economic paradigm will shift [zmag.org] enough to allow everyone to get a decent education.

I've never taken a certification class though, so maybe they're better than I imagine.
The review of this RH class just confirms what I've thought all along, that you can't learn anything in 8 hours. Or in 24 hours in 3 days. He states that he didn't really learn much from the class, just a few tidbits. It was his previous knowledge that allowed him to pass the exam.


___________________________
Michael Cardenas
http://www.fiu.edu/~mcarde02
http://www.deneba.com/linux

Global Knowledge, and etc.

[omarius]

I've not taken the RHCE course, but I have taken a class from Global Knowledge. I took Nortel's Accelar configuration class, and I was very impressed with the knowledgability of my instructor. The tech training business must be booming, because I've never taken any training classes where there weren't two or three young people taking the class to prepare for teaching the class. I enjoyed my class w/ Global and would recommend it to anyone--assuming their other classes are of a similar caliber.

However, I must say I agree with those folks who speak out against vendor-specific certification. I would jump in a minute at the chance to take a general Linux certification exam. I hold two of CompTIA's general specifications (A+ and Network+), and feel that the skills reviewed in those exams are good samplings of the kind of knowledge computer professionals need to have. Not knowing where the default install location for a specific package on a specific distro is a momentary problem for anyone with a basic knowledge of UNIX/Linux. With a strong elementary knowledge base and a good skill set, learning a new distro would be a snap for someone with some experience.

I champion vendor neutral certifications for the same time I advocate Liberal Arts universities and colleges: Specific skills become obsolete quickly. General knowledge and widely applicable skills enable students and professionals to adapt, learn, and grow with changing situations and technologies (and distros! :)

-Omar

Re:MCLU

[Karn]

You forgot to include:
301: Windows Troubleshooting (aka re-installing Windows)
This course is essential for all Windows admins.

Question on agenda

[lbrlove]

Certifications generally have an agenda other than the "insure-competent" considerations. They certainly do not make much money (if any at all) for the vendor. I assess current certs (not exhaustive; all IMHO) like this:

- Cisco: insure professional competency, proliferate technology through incentive discount.
- Nortel/Bay: insure professional competency, keeping up with the Joneses.
- Novell: insure professional competency, speed upgrade through "credential turnover".
- Microsoft: proliferate technology, speed upgrade through "credential turnover", insure a modicum of professional competency.
- CompTIA: insure modicum of professional competency.

I understand from this article...

- Red Hat: insure modicum of professional competency, add legitimacy to Linux, stamp RH name on Linux.

Is my understanding here flawed?

BTW, I am not trying to belittle any of these certs in particular as they are all a pain-in-the-butt academic exercise anyway. I am considering the RHCE based on what I am hearing. I am already an MCSE and have been for three years (I like money), so don't even think you can beat me at Minesweeper! Solitaire is kind of deterministic, so that was a pretty easy exam...

-L

Re:Interesting, But...

[mattdm]

Yes, you can take the exam by itself [redhat.com], and it is sigificantly more expensive -- $750.

As for the benefit -- I don't think there's enough data yet (or enough of a marketing push on Red Hat's part, as another poster mentioned) for there to be conclusive data. But my feeling is that the average person would see a reasonable return.

--

Re:no stuff? that's disappointing...

[mattdm]

Well, that's encouraging. If I end up getting a box of cool stuff in the mail, I'll make a big public apology. :)

--

Re:Looked at a book the other day

[mattdm]

Yes, seem my comments on the book above. The questions on the test weren't like this.

--

Re:University vs. College vs. Certification

[mattdm]

A computer science degree doesn't prepare you to be a sysadmin, just as a degree in architecture doesn't make you qualified to build houses.

Real-world experience is more important than degrees or certifications.

--

Re:Redhat doesn't care about you?

[mattdm]

Interesting. I had a completely different experience -- all of my e-mail was answered, if not instantly, at least within a few days.

--

Quality of Trainers/Training

[nick_danger]

I had similar complaints with a Java course I took earlier this year from Sun. Over all a good course, but the trainer wasn't much more than live-action "Clippy" reading from the book. Not a guru by any stretch. A lot of material was covered during the week long course, but way too much time was spent on the simple stuff, and the more involved stuff was glossed over. Granted, the instructor was appealing to the lowest common denominator in the class.

As near as I can tell, courses like these are only useful if you already have significant familiarity with the material. Otherwise, you're not likely to really learn anything, and you only slow down the rest of the class.

+3, Informative

[FascDot Killed My Pr]

I'm really glad someone did this review--now I know what to avoid.

I've been vaguely thinking that I'd like to take these classes/exams, but didn't know if I should spend the money. Your description makes it sound like the other training classes I've taken: mostly useless. Why useless? Let's think about who benefitted from the class. You mentioned three groups of people:

1) "in over their heads": These people didn't get anything out of it because it was too much. What little they might have gotten surely wasn't worth the cost.
2) Experts (such as the reviewer): Learned very little new since only the basics were covered (e.g. virtual host for Apache). What little they learned ("service" command) surely wasn't worth the cost.
3) Future instructors: Who knows how much they got out of it, but since the only purpose was to iterate an already useless process...

In short: "Covering the basics of an advanced topic" is a contradiction in terms.
--
Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?

Job hunting

[whoop]

Sadly, doing a search on monster.com, I come up with only one job, and that one has nothing to do with RHCE.:) Dice.com does not return a single thing. This is most likely a piece of the HR promo the author suggested. When I plunk down $750, I just want to think there are bunches of suits eager to hire me for the trouble...