The IT Certification Megathread: Straight Outta CompTIA

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > The IT Certification Megathread: Straight Outta CompTIA

evol262: Nov 30, 2010; #!/usr/bin/perl

Frag Viper posted:

I'm working towards my CCNA right now and i'm currently a Jr Network Admin that still ends up doing Helpdesk poo poo because a title change doesn't mean poo poo for the end users.

Stop handling their poo poo and they'll learn

# ¿ May 4, 2014 19:55

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 12:57

evol262: Nov 30, 2010; #!/usr/bin/perl

Dr. Arbitrary posted:

Is this a reasonable path? I might have to get in on this. Any pointers on how to get started?

RHOS/RDO is easy as openstack goes, but AWS free is capable if you don't have spare hardware, want AWS experience and not just "cloud" (eucalyptus is private AWS, basically), or can squeeze into a Debian (or other small) image

# ¿ May 5, 2014 05:17

evol262: Nov 30, 2010; #!/usr/bin/perl

Got Haggis? posted:

which online practice tests do you think are good? I'm basically a DevOps dude that works mostly in Debian/Ubuntu with a few CentOS servers and have been thinking about getting the RHCSA cert (even though I focus on servers and not desktops)

i'm basically self taught - and after a phone call from Google about a possible job, have come to the realization that I know nothing. Google starting asking me questions about "inodes" and I was like....I have no idea what that is (obviously after looking into it after the question, I understand - I had just not come across that term before...which is pretty sad, heh)

I mean, coverage of basic filesystem stuff is part of the RHCSA, but the RH certs are much more practical than theoretical.

Google's interviewers are particularly bad about this stuff, but "what is an inode" is a pretty common question.

There's no way, short of experience and digging to fix broken stuff, to really know the ins and outs of most parts of the system. And realistically, you have no reason to know it at the RHCSA level.

But the Linux VFS architecture needs to know 4 things, dentry, inode, vfsmount, and superblock.

I don't want to go into data structures 101, but you can read this stuff yourself if you know C.

dentrys are, broadly, file and directories. It's really just a directory entry (everything is a file, remember), with directories being special instances of files. Though from the kernel's perspective, directories are only special insofar as they have dentry children. So when you look up a file, the kernel says (simplified):

"find the vfsmount for /, which will point at the dentry in the superblock of /, then find dentry of the child named 'foo'"
"check if 'foo' is in vfsmount, and if so, replace vfsmount with it and get the new superblock (in case /foo is actually a mounted filesystem)'
"if not, look for foo->bar and get its dentry. If it has no children, it's a file, so create a new file object which maps to the dentry and its vfsmount"

Every dentry includes inode information, which basically says "here's everything you need to know about this, where you can find it on disk, etc..."

I shamelessly stole this, but pictures help:

(This is what /proc/$pid/fd is addressing)

The inode contains all the file information that you can see with `stat` (and ls, which is essentially a nicely-formatted mass stat), except the filename, which is actually part of the dentry.

Again, though, the RHCSA won't really teach you any of this stuff. The RHCE will teach you some, I think (I never actually bothered taking the courses and jumped straight to the exams). Read this, and the rest of the series also looks pretty complete.

evol262 fucked around with this message at 18:21 on May 5, 2014

# ¿ May 5, 2014 18:19

evol262: Nov 30, 2010; #!/usr/bin/perl

ascii larry posted:

I have a ways to go in my consideration of becoming a sys/net admin or whatever floats my way, but as far as operating systems are involved, I have little direct exposure to what is actually used by companies/institutions. Between Windows and well, Red Hat, as this thread might suggest, should I just focus on certs for the one of my choosing but be aware of elements of the other? Hope I'm not mistaken if something like Active Directory and *nix servers can coexist on the same network. It's just that when I have the courage to look at job postings there's always something new on the laundry list, even for just an internship, and it's back to the books.

Also does anything from the LPI hold weight or is it all Red Hat out there?

LPIC is fine for a junior admin. Redhat certs sort of rule the roost for Linux because EL distros (RHEL, CentOS, OEL) dominate the enterprise market, and a lot of the stuff is also applicable to SuSE. If you're going to end up in a non-enterprise market using Debian, Ubuntu, or whatever, do whatever you like better. The RH certs are more rigorous, though, based on what I've seen of the LPIC.

Yes, Linux on some servers, Windows on others/desktops is common. There's no good alternative to Active Directory. But for what to do? Do you wanna be a Linux admin or Windows admin?

# ¿ May 10, 2014 16:50

evol262: Nov 30, 2010; #!/usr/bin/perl

Tab8715 posted:

Is there really none? How do all linux shops manage user identity and rights?

LDAP and kerberos. Maybe with FreeIPA or RHDS. But AD just does it better, honestly, and with the same tools, as Docjowles said. AD is LDAP+DHCP+DNS+krb5 anyway. Nothing Linux can offer is better. Or even equivalent. You can use LDAP automounted homedirs and logon scripts, but I can bypass those if I'm clever, and GPOs are unmatched, really, unless you want to go the whole Novell logon services route

# ¿ May 11, 2014 05:59

evol262: Nov 30, 2010; #!/usr/bin/perl

caberham posted:

Interesting! I just want to learn how to set network logins and group policy for home network and eventually learn how to tinker with the office‘s Windows Server 2000. Initially I was thinking of setting up a linux solution so that our computers don't have to be windows machines but I suppose getting the new server 2012 R2 and setting up AD is easier?

Im starting to study CompTIA Network+ on my own and it seems like it's more about setting up wifi and physical networks. Where can I learn more about setting up group policies and network infrastructure? Any guidance appreciated! Eventually I would like to learn how to set up my ultimate goon base: using enterprise tools for my home.

Setting up Radius login, VPN server, issuing guest certificates and setting up a guest portal, setting up a home portal for all users, dumping local documents of different machines into shares/ready to stream photos/colloboration ala google docs/syncing calendars/monitoring/web site filtering/chat messaging logging/having a web cam sync with the door/linking baby monitors/etc..

It's for my family and extended family. Yes we will still use whatsapp, wechat, facebook chat, etc, but it would be nice to set up a central repository for different chat logs, photos, and other items. Even when we replace new phones/computers/add new devices. Am I dreaming too much?

Linux can authenticate with AD through various means (Pam_LDAP+pam_krb5, winbind, centrify, etc). It doesn't bar you from centralized auth at all.

# ¿ May 15, 2014 12:05

evol262: Nov 30, 2010; #!/usr/bin/perl

MJP posted:

While I can agree that knowing when to call another team or a vendor is a good skill to have, if you want to be a good sysadmin, you need to understand how this stuff works. tcpdump/wireshark are still common debugging tools, especially for archaic but prevalent protocols (why isn't TFTP working?). Configuring VLAN tagging and bonding are common takes as well, and understanding the principles matters. Plus all of this really matters with the rise of software-defined networks.

Would you rather receive a ticket that says "LACP should be configured, but the partner hash is null, and there's no redundancy when I pull a cable plugged into switchport X in rack Y" or "bonding isn't working." "I can't get network access from new/moved systems foo and bar, but they can ping each other, can you check that they're on the right VLAN"? Or " network doesn't work".

Knowing enough to eliminate likely problems (subnetting, routing, etc) and give a detailed ticket to the network team can dramatically improve response time, because it's obvious that you're not a boob and you've done basic legwork, so their job is easier. The scope of your job as a sysadmin ends somewhere, but that somewhere is your environment, not the NIC

# ¿ Jun 8, 2014 15:38

evol262: Nov 30, 2010; #!/usr/bin/perl

Hughmoris posted:

As someone outside of IT, are the majority of these certifications multiple-choice exams? Do you get your results immediately?

Some are practical exams. Some written. Some labbed. Some multiple choice. Some with results instantly. Some you wait a week.

It varies. Is there a specific cert you're curious about?

# ¿ Jun 11, 2014 04:41

evol262: Nov 30, 2010; #!/usr/bin/perl

Docjowles posted:

Michael Jang is pretty much the RHCSA/RHCE author.

I'd also point out that RHEL 7 was just released and so the exams and books will likely be updated later this year.

Exams for the RHCSA are already updated. RHCE supposedly within 4 weeks of GA, but I haven't checked other than that.

The exams and books should be updated within the month.

# ¿ Jun 30, 2014 14:39

evol262: Nov 30, 2010; #!/usr/bin/perl

Martytoof posted:

So "don't spend money yet" is what I'm hearing?

And then in a month go buy whatever 2014 edition I can find.

Looking to knock RHCE out of the park in the next three months. My only real soft spot is the package management system because I basically never use yum aside from yum search/install xyz. Seems like half of the questions on the "RHCE assessment" on RH's site had to do with yum so I guess I have some boning up to do.

I am REALLY looking forward to taking this test since I hear it's really hands on and not a bunch of dumb multiple choice questions.

Word is that they should be live this week, but I'm not on that side of the house, so I can't really be more specific.

The RHCSA stuff is already out. The earlier RHCE track is dead, and it's all hands-on+lab, plus the usual labbed tests (the RHCSA is also hands-on).

Familiarity with RPM and yum are a given (and hopefully subscription-manager instead of RHN classic), but you'll mostly cover that in the RHCSA, probably. I haven't done any of the preview stuff, though, and I probably won't bother with it for a few months, so none of this is gospel.

It's reputedly much more console oriented with almost no GUI stuff, but expect the usual "configure LDAP auth, automount, Apache, SElinux, install these packages, fix a few broken things (we liked boot loader in the past, but who knows), etc". It's actually fun.

# ¿ Jul 1, 2014 06:40

evol262: Nov 30, 2010; #!/usr/bin/perl

Martytoof posted:

Thanks for the info. Subscription-manager might be a PITA since iirc CentOS removes that from the upstream so I've literally never once touched it

There's not a lot to know about it that the manpage can't tell you, and yum is still used for package management, just that rhn_register is deprecated and probably won't show up on the exam.

# ¿ Jul 1, 2014 15:29

evol262: Nov 30, 2010; #!/usr/bin/perl

Docjowles posted:

evol is probably in the best position to know, being an RH employee But my 2c would be to wait for the version 7 book. There's enough stuff that is radically different, like systemd and a new major kernel version. It feels like a more disruptive update than 5 to 6 did.

I've only looked at our internal quickstarts, really, but there are a lot of differences, wait for the book. systemd notwithstanding, you need to worry about :

firewalld
selinux port labeling
all console -- no graphical stuff
kerberized nfs
heavier on ipv6 and iscsi

# ¿ Jul 22, 2014 19:10

evol262: Nov 30, 2010; #!/usr/bin/perl

In news unrelated to VMware, I'm traveling, and I plan to review the new rh199 and rh299 (rhcsa and rhce) training documentation, so at least I'll be more prepared to answer rhel7 certification questions

# ¿ Aug 6, 2014 18:29

evol262: Nov 30, 2010; #!/usr/bin/perl

Docjowles posted:

I think there's official training available from Red Hat, but the typical books like Jang's aren't out yet.

The official training is what I grabbed to look at.

# ¿ Aug 7, 2014 05:52

evol262: Nov 30, 2010; #!/usr/bin/perl

OhDearGodNo posted:

Compared to CCNA so far studying for VCP has been a cakewalk. Apparently etherchannel is considered "magic" to some admins?

It's also a bad Cisco-ism. Calling it link aggregation or 802.3ad or LACP makes it a lot less "magic" (yes, I know that Etherchannel marginally varies from these, but still).

# ¿ Aug 25, 2014 17:19

evol262: Nov 30, 2010; #!/usr/bin/perl

kuive posted:

Are there any vendor agnostic or Debian / Ubuntu Linux certifications that are worth the cost/effort?

I see RHEL starting to fall out of favor with developers, and to be honest, I've always been more comfortable with the Debian way of doing things, so investing in Red Hat-specific certifications doesn't seem like the right move for me.

The RHCSA, RHCE, and analogues are relatively vendor-neutral. Yes, there are Red Hat-isms, but the vast majority of stuff you do cross-applies to other distros, and none of the LPIC stuff or anything else comes close.

But RHEL was never "in favor" with developers, so it can't fall out. RHEL is "in favor" with business and enterprises. The kind of people using Ubuntu on AWS would never have used RHEL in the first place. Developers haven't picked RHEL first since RHEL was... RHEL. RHL used to come first, years ago. And new releases of RHEL get interest (interest and a large bump in new CentOS deployments). But before Ubuntu got popular, developers used Debian or Slack or Gentoo or Mandrake or SuSE, depending on the era.

# ¿ Sep 2, 2014 15:04

evol262: Nov 30, 2010; #!/usr/bin/perl

Tab8715 posted:

What do you mean it doesn't come close?

I mean that LPIC-1/2/3 don't map nicely on to RHCSA or RHCE, and the RHCA track is far more technical than anything LPIC offers (RHCE is about on par with some of the LPIC-3 stuff). LPIC-1 is a waste of time. RHCSA will teach you far more than LPIC-1 and maybe LPIC-2. Plus, much as I like open software, some of the stuff the LPIC uses (samba+openldap instead of AD or IPA/RHDS, etc) you will never, ever see in the real world.

The LPIC is fine for a "I want to be a helpdesk guy" cert. Or "I'm the only IT guy for a small shop and I want to know how to do everything Linux related with only Stallman/Debian approved tools". It's a really poo poo "I want to be a Linux admin/engineer at a large shop" (where large is defined as "uses Linux for real-world stuff") track.

# ¿ Sep 2, 2014 16:02

evol262: Nov 30, 2010; #!/usr/bin/perl

DirtyFalcon posted:

Is it mile wide / inch deep like compTIA exams or is it pretty in depth?

From what I've heard, there's no real way to know whether you'll have an exam which focuses on one section a mile deep or an inch deep on all 10 with no real way to predict. I know a few CISSPs, and only one who passed the first time. The others walked in banking on network/crypto/Dev questions and got hammered on DR/legal/etc.

Last time I talked about it was a few years ago, so maybe it's changed a bit, but I would go over the whole book and multiple sample exams if I were in your situation.

# ¿ Sep 10, 2014 04:41

evol262: Nov 30, 2010; #!/usr/bin/perl

Elucidarius posted:

With that said, how different is CISSP from the Security+ exam? If you studied for one would you be prepared for the other?

The CISSP covers an incredible amount of material and problem domains. Prepping for the CISSP would make Sec+ completely pointless. Sec+ would do basically nothing for many of the problem domains in CISSP.

# ¿ Nov 25, 2014 23:16

evol262: Nov 30, 2010; #!/usr/bin/perl

madpanda posted:

where does lpic rate as far as linux certs?

There's zero reason to get it if you can get a RH*

madpanda posted:

I looked at the description for rhce and could get it with a bit of study/cbt nuggets and vmware.

I did SQA at a previous job and worked with linux a lot more then but it was 10 years ago and now I just use it on a secondary computer for basic tasks.

Judging from your work history and these statements, you could probably get a RHCSA with a bit of study. The RHCE would likely be a full week-long course, and even then, there's a lot of stuff you may be missing. It's a live, labbed exam, so this matters.

Get a job working with Linux full-time. Get your RHCSA. Go from there.

# ¿ Dec 10, 2014 21:16

evol262: Nov 30, 2010; #!/usr/bin/perl

MC Fruit Stripe posted:

e2: First one to correct me on what year the battle of Shiloh was gets kicked by Robert E Lee's trusty horse, Horatio.

Only gonna ding you for missing the years the Civil War happened in by decades

# ¿ Jan 22, 2015 22:27

evol262: Nov 30, 2010; #!/usr/bin/perl

Docjowles posted:

The Red Hat certs are in a terrible spot right now. The exams are updated for RHEL 7 but none of the popular books (maybe none at all?) have been updated to match. Jang's isn't due out til this fall. RHEL 7 is a pretty big departure from 6 in a number of ways, such as systemd vs SysV init and firewalld vs iptables, so if you aren't using it frequently at work it could suck trying to squeak by on outdated materials.

*if you want to self study

The official training stuff has been updated for 6 months or more, but official training is expensive.

Reading the Fedora security guide is a great way to catch up on firewalld, and systemd has been stable for a long time.

The "big" changes have a lot to do with retargeting the certs towards real-world stuff, which basically means no using GUI tools.

# ¿ Mar 24, 2015 23:04

evol262: Nov 30, 2010; #!/usr/bin/perl

likw1d posted:

Thanks for the info guys, I am planning on self studying. I was able to get work to pay for the VCP stuff but we don't or have clients that use linux so i'm on my own. I am new to linux (other than playing around with ubuntu) and was hoping there was something enterprise focused that I use to get familiar. I can just wait until septemberish when the books start releasing.

The book will teach the cert. The cert is an objective-based exam with not a lot of time, so it's all about teaching you what you need to know to accomplish it all in a few hours.

But if you just want to read about it, we have extremely complete documentation that you should look at. Especially the System Administrator's Guide, Networking Guide, and Security guide. These will actually teach you everything you need to know to pass the exam, and a lot more, but they're very tightly written (for docs), don't get bogged down in too much detail, and...

One of our big advantages over Canonical is having a real, dedicated documentation team that does an absolute ton of work. Use it. All of this will work on Centos, with the exception of "subscription-manager", but you can use that as well with Katello if you're really interested...

# ¿ Mar 25, 2015 05:28

evol262: Nov 30, 2010; #!/usr/bin/perl

MJP posted:

It's the actual boss. He's not really pushing it, he basically is making the noise that in a small company like ours, jack-of-all-trades is a good thing.

I honestly couldn't possibly care less about SQL - my real interest is in the Windows/VMware side of things, but our company will never be large enough to merit having a dedicated Windows/VMware guy.

I've got my resume out to keep my eyes peeled, but I've got the 2k3, 2k8, and 2k12 MCSAs and a VCP. I have no interest in the Hyper-V cert that is the server infrastructure MCSE for 2k12.

The balance of the job hunt is out of scope of this thread, and I spare no illusions about the fact that a VCP didn't do much despite it saving a ton of dollars that would otherwise get outsourced. A "proficient" on a performance review won't leverage well into me asking for a salary adjustment instead of the across-the-board raise that the entire company supposedly will get.

Anyway, right now what interests me isn't really even getting more certs. I took a shot that the Citrix CCA-V/1Y0-200 and failed by 3% last month, just to hopefully leverage said raise, but it did at least give me better background knowledge. The huge lack of prep material makes me shy away from losing another $200 retaking it - I'd make it back if I passed, at least, but there's nothing exam-specific out there and the Xendesktop 7 Cookbook didn't do that well as my score suggests.

On the plus side of SQL, he did say that if I could take billable hours off of the SQL consultant/DBA we outsource to it'd bump things up on the next review. However, given that the performance reviews apparently have zero impact on salary increases (again, companywide) I honestly don't feel very motivated to give any more than what's necessary.

Sorry for the off-topic, I guess it kinda helps bring things into perspective.

I might try for the VCP-600 once Sybex has a book out for it.

Counterpoint:

There are few things which will help your career in the long haul as much as understanding SQL, wages at your current job notwithstanding.

# ¿ Apr 3, 2015 16:22

evol262: Nov 30, 2010; #!/usr/bin/perl

MrKatharsis posted:

It sounds like his boss wants him to learn to be a SQL Server admin, not learn the structured query language.

The first is a pretty involved process and will take months or years. The second is easy and yeah it's awesome to have on a resume.

Those aren't as orthogonal as you're making them sound.

Becoming a DBA necessarily requires knowing SQL at a higher-than-dipshit level, though it doesn't take months or years to become a competent DBA at a shop so small that they're outsourcing it to one consultant on a part-time basis, since he presumably won't have to worry about nightmarish legacy column names and normalizing old datasets while also wrangling developers who think that linq is god's gift.

Learning SQL can also take months or years if you're at a shop where developers are expected to maintain enormous sprocs at reasonable performance levels, when most developers are barely aware of what an index is, much less which columns are indexed, and have never heard of any joint other than left.

There's a fair amount of overlap.

# ¿ Apr 3, 2015 17:07

evol262: Nov 30, 2010; #!/usr/bin/perl

MrKatharsis posted:

All true but we're talking about a windows/VM admin here. He's not providing feedback to devs, he's being asked to save some billable hours. Query language expertise doesn't appear to be part of the request.

MJP: if you're not interested in a DBA career, you probably want something like SQL Server in a Month of Lunches rather than a full blown set of MS certs. It's a surprisingly decent book.

SQL expertise is part and parcel of getting the MS certs. They'll take you from "I've heard of SQL" to "I know how to use the query analyzer, best practice for disks, where tempdb should go, and I have mid-level SQL skills". And its on paper, which is something SQL Server in a Month of Lunches is not.

Even as an admin, that's much more valuable long-term than VCP6 (it doesn't transfer well to Oracle administration, but SQL server has a ton of marketshare and it's Windows anyway). Both from a financial perspective and a personal growth perspective.

Let's forget about what you think the best way to learn MSSQL is for a second. For someone who already has a VCP5, but knows little enough about SQL that he isn't currently able to take some of the workload of a part-time consultant, and someone who's an admin (who are, believe it or not, still expected to be relatively multidisciplinary, and it helps a hell of a lot with root cause analysis), do you think the SQL Server certs are a better investment of time for career and financial growth than VCP6?

# ¿ Apr 3, 2015 19:46

evol262: Nov 30, 2010; #!/usr/bin/perl

MrKatharsis posted:

I guess I'll just empty quote this useless post. Sometimes the best advice is to actually give advice and not just tell the poster what you think they want to hear.

MJP posted:

My logic in going the MS cert route was to explore the possibility of getting the very nice cert as well as whatever basics of SQL that were required for it.

My SQL experience is minor, mostly pertaining to backups/restores and knowing how to execute other people's queries, as well as connecting to separate instances on a server to maintain them. That's about it.

I think that my ultimate goal would be to continue to specialize - I just don't really care about SQL and networking to be passionate about them, and without going into job search stuff, that might mean I'd have to be elsewhere. I guess that my ultimate growth would be into some kind of Windows and/or VMware engineering role, perhaps. My concern on the flip side of this is that the more I generalize here, the less focus I can leverage into the future.

We have three major consultants: one for VMware/Windows/Xendesktop. Me coming in with MCSAs took a lot of the Windows load off, VMware even more so, and arguably the same for Xendesk with the CCA-V studying and exam attempt. I can't quite yet quantify how much I've saved the company by those but we still lean on the guy for some other stuff that I can probably build on over time.

Another is a CCIE that does nothing but networking, and the third is the DBA/Great Plains guy. He works mostly for the business side of things, developing SQL reporting and GP integration with the DBs and the line-of-business apps that we use, but also DBA tasks. My boss never even made mention of the basic DBA tasks like checking job scheduling and execution (which I can do) until yesterday's performance review.

NippleFloss got it. Traditional virt is saturated. VCP is nice and all, but having a VCP5 and years of VMware experience/projects on your resume is going to speak louder than a VCP6 will, unless you really want to go the VCDX route or something.

I would say that specialization is increasingly worthless as an admin (unless you want to go the networking route, where it's still totally viable for now). Every major operating system is already at or is moving towards some kind of congruence where the platform has ceased to matter for 99% of use cases because it's all virtualized, and even the cases where it's on metal are getting managed by lifecycle tools. That's not to say that knowing the nuts and bolts of an operating system isn't useful, but growth is towards applications and working with other teams instead of digging yourself into a hole. Specialize enough that you know what tools and resources to reach for to diagnose tricky issues. Keep up on best practice, which you're probably already doing by reading blogs and aggregators instead of cert prep books.

Keep specializing at being an admin/engineer. Do that by learning storage and databases and basic development skills (since even Windows is moving towards the Powershell route really fast, and it's not a big leap for your tooling to go from a scripting language to a "real" language once people are comfortable with the fact that admins have basic coding skills). I know you may not care about SQL or networking or whatever. But they matter a lot. Because even if you're on the systems engineering team, being able to competently look at what's happening and say "network team, the MTU is wrong, please set it correctly so networking works" (yes, this is a real problem with GRE encapsulated SDN in some cases) makes you look great and saves everyone's time. Especially yours, because there's no all-hands calls and useless emails going back and forth about whose problem it is, which inevitably ends up with some team refusing to look at it until you prove it's them.

You can focus on what your current company needs, or where you wanna be and how relevant you wanna be in 5-10 years. One of those things is probably not like the other. But it's obviously your call and not mine.

# ¿ Apr 3, 2015 23:42

evol262: Nov 30, 2010; #!/usr/bin/perl

Tab8715 posted:

I get that traditional On-Premise virtualization isn't growing and if you're already in the field that's fine but investing your time into a product that has a decreasing market share isn't good idea.

This makes sense however you're then arguing that specializing is or isn't a bad idea unless a specific tech - cloud, storage, databases? I'm not following this...

You should still invest time in traditional virt because it's not going anywhere, but it doesn't print money like it used to.

I'm saying that once you're capable at something (Linux, Windows, VMware, whatever), you should start learning other problem domains which intersect with yours. Which is increasingly all of them. Networking and storage and databases have always been good skills to have for admins/engineers, but they're slowly becoming required. Don't "specialize" into a cul de sac.

Japanese Dating Sim posted:

Is pursuing Linux+ worth a drat? Like, for someone who has very minimal experience in Linux and wants a semi-structured way to learn it?

I'm not planning on a Linux+ cert impressing anyone, but my job pays for certs and CBT Nuggets, and I'd like to get some initial exposure to Linux. Figured as easy as the CompTIA exams tend to be it wouldn't be too painful to get the t-shirt (cert) at the same time.

You should do LPIC or RHCSA if you're not into self-directed learning

# ¿ Apr 4, 2015 00:20

evol262: Nov 30, 2010; #!/usr/bin/perl

Japanese Dating Sim posted:

It looks like LPIC-1 and Linux+ are identical; if you get one you get the other. Interesting.

And - I'm actually asking here - what do you mean "not into self-directed learning"? I'd be studying these on my own; do you just mean that the alternative would be spinning up a few *nix VMs and going at it?

The alternative would be finding something you can use Linux for, deciding whether or not to do rpm or deb distros (rpm is more enterprise friendly and big on the web, companies using deb are almost invariably startups or pure web shops), and doing something with it.

Or following the deployment/admin guides and actually doing the tasks. Or following a RHCSA book.

I say RHCSA over LPIC because it involves actually doing stuff instead of just memorizing various command line utilities and config file locations. I'd honestly say the FreeBSD handbook teaches you more about Linux and how to do stuff with it than LPIC-1.

Just spinning up VMs is tough, because what do you do with them once they're up? Linux is quite literally a different general purpose operating system, and unlike, say, IOS or JunOS (which is relatively single purpose), you need to use it for real stuff frequently to get comfortable using it and to ingrain it in your head.

# ¿ Apr 4, 2015 01:19

evol262: Nov 30, 2010; #!/usr/bin/perl

Sheep posted:

The old book doesn't cover some pretty major changes (new services syntax & systemd for example) so you might as well just wait, honestly.

Firewalld is the other huge change. Service syntax is the same, unless you mean systemctl (which isn't strictly needed) or actual systemd unit files, which fall under systemd and are really well documented and easy to read

# ¿ Apr 9, 2015 05:22

evol262: Nov 30, 2010; #!/usr/bin/perl

evilskillit posted:

Piggybacking on this question. I've been the only IT staffer for a while at a place that was small and is now less small. The environment was Linux & BSD when I got here and keeping things going has been interesting. I've picked up some of the skillset but I still feel like I could be a lot more polished. Also I'm stalling out a bit trying to replace the old infrastructure with newer up to date stuff that's KVM/Docker based. I feel like taking some classes towards this path might help keep my momentum up and also give me a piece of paper to use as leverage when I ask for that raise that I badly need and hopefully deserve.

Traditional virt and containers have completely different paradigms. Use containers for app deployment (with configuration baked in) and maybe CI testing. But they're not a replacement for virt.

Also, plain KVM is nasty to implement in most businesses.

evilskillit posted:

I went to Redhat's page and took their proficiency test. Because I tend to use manpages and google when I need to use a command rather than having them all committed firmly to memory it recommended that I start with their noob class and work my way up. Work is going to pay for me to do this, but time is always a factor. Any suggestions as to what might be my best course of action? I'm looking at Redhat because I'm trying to replace our old Debian based server with a new CentOS 7 box, plus Redhat is basically industry standard, right?

RHEL/CentOS are industry standards outside of the web/cloud, where it's anything goes. But that's mostly because "business" apps like Oracle and Tivoli and whatever are certified on RHEL.

But the tests are goals based. "Configure the server X way". You can look at manpages if you want to during the test (they're live systems), but having some flags memorized helps you get it done in time. Because there's a long list of stuff to do and a time limit.

Also, it's not the LPIC, and there's a nontrivial amount of "redhat-isms" that you may or may not know if you're used to Debian or whatever (kickstart stuff, RPM stuff, yum options which help, subscriptions and entitlements). Take the RHCSA fast track course and go from there.

# ¿ Apr 13, 2015 21:56

evol262: Nov 30, 2010; #!/usr/bin/perl

Tab8715 posted:

I'm strongly led to the conclusion most CompTIA certifications are worthless when real vendor certifications exist.

Yes and no. I mean, I don't necessarily think a lot of CompTIA certs are great, and they're not on the same level as high level vendor certs, but the amount of CCNAs I've interviewed who don't know non-Cisco-marketing terminology for basic concepts is embarrassing.

# ¿ May 22, 2015 20:01

evol262: Nov 30, 2010; #!/usr/bin/perl

Certs are useless without experience and always have been. CCIEs with experience are worth their weight in gold

# ¿ Jun 2, 2015 23:19

evol262: Nov 30, 2010; #!/usr/bin/perl

doomisland posted:

The general point they were trying to make is certs ~~dont~~ might not mean poo poo and they'll take dudes who they know are good with nothing to their name over someone with every CCIE Cisco offers.

Sounds like someone has a chip on his shoulder and/or is a bad interviewer. Again, certs are not a substitute for experience. You still need to interview candidates. Good CCIEs are great. Certs establish some familiarity with best practice even if braindumped, which "poking at MPLS" won't tell you. You shouldn't devalue them, but you shouldn't value them in a vacuum either. Does this make sense? The world is not black and white, and, as a generalization, CCIEs (and certs in general) are valuable

# ¿ Jun 3, 2015 02:16

evol262: Nov 30, 2010; #!/usr/bin/perl

Ozu posted:

Anyone familiar with the Asghar Ghori RHCSA/RHCE books? Worthwhile? From what I understand Michael Jang is the standard but his RHEL 7 book isn't coming out until December.

There's currently a very slow readthrough happening. Slow mostly because I'm busy at work. It's ok, but there are some badly written parts, confusing parts, [url=http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3698237&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=5#post445815910]not-best-practice parts[/quote], etc.

In general, I'd say that the official training docs (if you take a RHCSA/RHCE course from Red Hat, fast track or not) are better than Ghori or Jang, and they've been available for a long time, but not everyone wants to go through an official course, so...

# ¿ Jul 1, 2015 21:27

evol262: Nov 30, 2010; #!/usr/bin/perl

Uh, :files:, I guess. I don't have to pay for the docs, so I've never worried about that, but 30 seconds on Google shows me that they're readily available with a little Google-fu. I have no idea what SA's policy is on this and whether I'm allowed to post a query, but check your PMs.

# ¿ Jul 2, 2015 20:12

evol262: Nov 30, 2010; #!/usr/bin/perl

Guess I should read the Jang one, too. Hope it's better than Ghori

# ¿ Nov 14, 2015 03:33

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 12:57

evol262: Nov 30, 2010; #!/usr/bin/perl

Been gone for a year

# ¿ Nov 15, 2015 18:31

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > The IT Certification Megathread: Straight Outta CompTIA