I have an RHCSA. I did the fast track class the week before. It was helpful for the test. I don't think it's a worthless test, but if you do manage RHEL systems all the time, it's fairly basic. You are expected to know basics with Bash like piping, redirection, regex, etc. I did find out about systemd-tmpfiles utility, which I didn't know existed.
Here's the objectives:
RHCSA exam candidates should be able to accomplish the tasks below without assistance. These have been grouped into several categories.
Understand and use essential tools
Access a shell prompt and issue commands with correct syntax
Use input-output redirection (>, >>, |, 2>, etc.)
Use grep and regular expressions to analyze text
Access remote systems using ssh
Log in and switch users in multiuser targets
Archive, compress, unpack, and uncompress files using tar, star, gzip, and bzip2
Create and edit text files
Create, delete, copy, and move files and directories
Create hard and soft links
List, set, and change standard ugo/rwx permissions
Locate, read, and use system documentation including man, info, and files in /usr/share/doc
Note: Red Hat may use applications during the exam that are not included in Red Hat Enterprise Linux for the purpose of evaluating candidate's abilities to meet this objective.
Operate running systems
Boot, reboot, and shut down a system normally
Boot systems into different targets manually
Interrupt the boot process in order to gain access to a system
Identify CPU/memory intensive processes, adjust process priority with renice, and kill processes
Locate and interpret system log files and journals
Access a virtual machine's console
Start and stop virtual machines
Start, stop, and check the status of network services
Securely transfer files between systems
Configure local storage
List, create, delete partitions on MBR and GPT disks
Create and remove physical volumes, assign physical volumes to volume groups, and create and delete logical volumes
Configure systems to mount file systems at boot by Universally Unique ID (UUID) or label
Add new partitions and logical volumes, and swap to a system non-destructively
Create and configure file systems
Create, mount, unmount, and use vfat, ext4, and xfs file systems
Mount and unmount CIFS and NFS network file systems
Extend existing logical volumes
Create and configure set-GID directories for collaboration
Create and manage Access Control Lists (ACLs)
Diagnose and correct file permission problems
Deploy, configure, and maintain systems
Configure networking and hostname resolution statically or dynamically
Schedule tasks using at and cron
Start and stop services and configure services to start automatically at boot
Configure systems to boot into a specific target automatically
Install Red Hat Enterprise Linux automatically using Kickstart
Configure a physical machine to host virtual guests
Install Red Hat Enterprise Linux systems as virtual guests
Configure systems to launch virtual machines at boot
Configure network services to start automatically at boot
Configure a system to use time services
Install and update software packages from Red Hat Network, a remote repository, or from the local file system
Update the kernel package appropriately to ensure a bootable system
Modify the system bootloader
Manage users and groups
Create, delete, and modify local user accounts
Change passwords and adjust password aging for local user accounts
Create, delete, and modify local groups and group memberships
Configure a system to use an existing authentication service for user and group information
Manage security
Configure firewall settings using firewall-config, firewall-cmd, or iptables
Configure key-based authentication for SSH
Set enforcing and permissive modes for SELinux
List and identify SELinux file and process context
Restore default file contexts
Use boolean settings to modify system SELinux settings
Diagnose and address routine SELinux policy violations
Red Hat reserves the right to add, modify, and remove objectives. Such changes will be made public in advance through revisions to this document.
