Red Hat RHCE Administration III - RH254 Course

Course Description

Red Hat System Administration III (RH254) is designed for experienced Linux administrators who require networking and security administration skills. With a heavy emphasis on practical, hands-on labs, this course is tightly aligned with experienced Linux administrators' job tasks and the skills required for advancement. Focus is placed on enhancing the students' automation skills to securely configure, deploy and manage network services including DNS, Apache, SMTP, and network file sharing. In addition, this course emphasizes security, including monitoring, packet filtering, access controls, and SELinux. At the completion of this course, students already familiar with the RHCT/RHCSA administration skills will have exposure to all competencies tested by the RHCSA and RHCE exams.

Audience:

• Senior Linux system administrators who require networking and security administration skills
• Linux IT professionals who currently have RHCT/RHCSA certification, and are interested in earning an RHCE certification
• Linux IT professionals that can demonstrate the competencies needed to earn an RHCT/RHCSA, but have not passed the RHCSA exam.

Prerequisites:

• RHCSA Rapid Track Course (RH200)
or
Red Hat System Administration I - RH124
Red Hat System Administration II - RH134
• Equivalent experience to the RHCSA Rapid Track Course
• Skills required to earn an RHCT/RHCSA certification
• Confirmation of the correct skill set required for this course can be obtained by passing the online pre-assessment quiz at  http://www.redhat.com/explore/pre-assessment

Course Outline

Unit 1: Getting Started with the Classroom Environment
Objective: Given a virtualized environment, begin to administrate multiple systems using prerequisite skills

Unit 2: Enhance User Security
Objective: Configure system to use Kerberos to verify credentials and grant privileges via sudo

Unit 3: Bash Scripting and Tools
Objective: Automate system administration tasks utilizing Bash scripts and text-based tools

Unit 4: File Security with GnuPG
Objective: Secure files with GnuPG

Unit 5: Software Management
Objective: Use yum plugins to manage packages; understand the design of packages; build a simple package

Unit 6: Network Monitoring
Objective: Profile running services, then capture and analyze network traffic

Unit 7: Route Network Traffic
Objective: Configure system to route traffic and customize network parameters with sysctl

Unit 8: Secure Network Traffic
Objective: Secure network traffic through SSH port forwarding and iptables filtering/network address translation (NAT)

Unit 9: NTP Server Configuration
Objective: Configure an NTP server

Unit 10: System Monitoring and Logs
Objective: Manage local filesystem integrity; monitor systems over time and system logging

Unit 11: Centralized and Secure Storage
Objective: Access centralized storage (iSCSI) and encrypt filesystems

Unit 12: SSL-encapsulated Web Services
Objective: Understand SSL certificates and deploy an SSL-encapsulated web service

Unit 13: Web Server Additional Configuration
Objective: Configure a web server with virtual hosts, dynamic content, and authenticated directories

Unit 14: Basic SMTP Configuration
Objective: Configure an SMTP server for basic operation (null client, receiving mail, smarthost relay)

Unit 15: Caching-Only DNS Server
Objective: Understand DNS resource records and configure a caching-only name server

Unit 16: File Sharing with NFS
Objective: Configure file sharing between hosts with NFS

Unit 17: File Sharing with CIFS
Objective: Configure file and print sharing between hosts with CIFS

Unit 18: File Sharing with FTP
Objective: Configure file sharing with anonymous FTP

Unit 19: Troubleshooting Boot Process
Objective: Understand the boot process and recover unbootable systems with rescue mode