Hi all
I really need help on this. I am currently working as a Red Hat Linux administrator in some place. I am planning to take the RHCSA exam but i do possess neither time nor money to attend the courses. So i am thinking about self study and doing it on my own. Already bought some books like "A Practical Guide to Fedora and Red Hat Enterprise Linux" and "Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Administration Unleashed" in addition to "Hands-on Guide to the Red Hat(R) Exams: RHCSA™ and RHCE(R) Cert Guide and Lab Manual" which is to be released on the 30th of this month.
I want somebody to tell me: can be self study of any use to pass the exam, or is it just a waste of time and effort? i know that RHCSA and all RH exams are lab based, so can i practice this labs at home/work and achieve the same (or near the same) results in the course?
thanks a lot and i appreciate it

Hi,

I self studied and took the RHCSA this morning. While I can not go into the details of what is on the test, I can say that it is possible to pass it without training. However, it covers a very broad base of general Linux and RH specific material making it difficult for someone with little practical Linux experience. I have a copy of RHEL5 admin unleashed from a year ago. When I started my self study, most of the material in this book was review. I spent about 15 hours doing self study based on the topics listed on RH web site. I'm pretty confident that I did well, but I definitely needed the 15 hours to review the topics listed on the RH site for the RHCSA.

The proctor said, "Not many people pass this test their first time."; this is not what I wanted to hear right before taking the exam. I have 6+ years of daily experience with Linux and I can tell you that the RHCSA is not something you should walk in to unprepared regardless of how well you think you know Linux. Not trying to scare you, I was just surprised that it was as difficult as it was

Good luck!

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Hi and welcome,

If you are serious on studying by your own, then I can only suggest you to grab an ISO of any from Fedora/CentOS/Scientific Linux plus download an e-book for RH Linux standard practices. Install any of them in a spare PC OR put it as a VM over your Windows machine using VirtualBox or VMware and start practicing.

Good luck.

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I recently passed the RHCSA. I took Red Hat Academy classes to prepare. Unfortunately, the classes I took were for the RHCT. Just as I finished the last of the coursework, RHEL 6 came out and the RHCT was retired. There were several new topics in the RHCSA that I had never worked with so I had to self study those areas. Prior to taking the Red Hat Academy classes, I had no experience working with Linux.

I think someone who does have Linux experience could pass the exam without taking official courses if they truly mastered everything listed in the test objectives. Red Hat's online documentation is very detailed and helped me quite a bit when I was studying:

http://docs.redhat.com/docs/en-US/Re...ide/index.html

I practiced using mainly Fedora 13/14 and Scientific Linux 6.

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Many thanks for all of you. This really helped me figure my way out. I will take the RHCSA rapid track and work hard on practicing.
Congratulations for all who passed the exam and wish me luck.

Hello, mpr_rhel.
I am also in a similar situation where I have finished training for RHEL 5. Can you please tell me where to get the RHEL 6 DVD from? I downloaded RHEL 6 from the redhat website but it does not have the GUI, only command line. Any help would be greatly appreciated. :-)

Hello and Welcome...
Try typing startx at your console to start gui.
And my suggestion would be the same as I had given above to the OP. The RHEL DVD you have downloaded is most probably a trial version, for which after 30 days you will not get any kind of updates.

Regards.

Hi, I logged in as a root user and typed in startx...but it does not work!

Then you'll need to install the "X Window System" and "General Desktop Environment" package groups. Of course, as a RHCA candidate, you should already be familiar with that process,

as well as the availability of Scientific Linux 6 (SL6), which is built from RHEL 6 source code. Since SL6 uses Red Hat source code, it's just as good for studying for Red Hat exams.

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mike_rhce had said already what I'd have said as a reply.

1 members found this post helpful.

Hi There,

If you are serious about studying by your own, then I would suggest you to grab an ISO of any from Fedora/CentOS/Scientific Linux plus download an e-book for RH Linux standard practices. Install any of them in a spare PC OR put it as a VMover your Windows machine using VirtualBox or VMware and start practicing now.

I have recently passed Redhat’s Certified Systems Administrator (RHCSA) exam — an industry recognized certification by Koenig Solutions. and I scored RHCSA 290/300.