LPIC 1 Exam 101 102 review

[snoopy51]

LPIC 1 Exam 101, 102
Basic Linux System Administration

The two certification exams test the basic administration skills that are common across all Linux distribution. The underlying objective is to be “vendor neutral” as much as possible. For the official LPI exam objectives be sure to check out the link at http://www.lpi.org/en/lpic.html. Detailed objectives for each exam are available from:

Exam 101 objective: http://www.lpi.org/en/obj_101.html

Exam 102 objective: http://www.lpi.org/en/obj_102.html

Please note for Exam 101, you have a choice of Exam 101 RPM or Exam 101 Debian. The main difference is questions on using RPM or Debian’s software installation method. Be sure to register for the right exam of your choice! Once you pass the 101 and 102 exam, you are certified as LPIC level 1 for 10 years.

Exam 101, 102 Statistics


Number of Questions:..........................90
Time:............................................. ..120 min
Level of Difficulty:..............................6/10
Score format:....................................Numeric score
Passing grade:...................................500 (out of 800)
Question format…………………………………….Multiple choice and fill in the blank
Exam cost………………………………………………$100 per exam

Despite the fact there are 90 questions, only 65 questions counted toward your score. There is no indication which question will be score during the exam!

LPIC exams are targeted for administrators with 12-24 months of experience working with Linux. You can acquire the necessary skill for exam 101 and 102 by attending instructor led classes. A sample training course is available at this link: http://www.nsu.edu/vbhec/WebBasedCer...nux_instr.html You can obtain a list of LPI approved classes from the link http://www.lpi.org/en/latm.html

Lab setup

I used 3 Pentium 4 PCs connected to Internet through cable modem/DSL routers. One PC is installed as a Fedora Core 2 Linux Server, with the second PC as a Fedora Core 2 Linux Workstation, SuSe Professional 9.1 and Knoppix 3.7. The third PC is my Windows XP SP2. Initially, I installed SuSe Professional 9.1 and Fedora Core 2 on my Windows XP SP2 with Virtual PC 2004. However, virtualization eliminated some of hardware installation learning experience and practical troubleshooting techniques. I switched to install them natively. My objective is not to simply pass the certification exam but learn through practical experience as well. That was a wise decision as I did encountered a problem with module kudzu in the Fedora Core 2 with my 3Com Ethernet network adaptor card! The cost is an extra PC but the troubleshooting experience is priceless!

Reference

One of first book I acquired in late 2003 was Linux Administration – A Beginner’s Guide (by Steve Graham, Steve Shah), published by McGraw-Hill. This is an excellent introductory book written in clear and comprehensible style. Another book I acquired around the same time was Linux in a Nutshell (by Ellen Siever, Stephen Figgins, Aaron Weber) published by O’reilly. I used the above books primary as a quick reference for various features in Linux. When you have some idea what command you want but aren't sure just how it works or what combinations of options give you the exact output required, this book is the right place to turn. It is suitable for novice as well as experience users.

One book I found useful in my Linux education is Setting Up LAMP (by Eric Rosebrock and Eric Filson) published by Sybex. I installed a Fedora Core 2 server utilizing Qmail, Apache, MySQL and PHP with IPtables using the information from this book. This book is not oriented to any exam objective but the project experience is invaluable since the book guided you from start to finish. However, be prepared to spend at least 6-8 weeks or more with this book due to the complexity of several major products!

Believe it or not, the Linux man page is one of the most important resources. In fact, I think you will have some difficult time passing the exam unless you have a lot of previous experience or you read the man pages for every command and configuration file. No doubt there are a lot of rarely used switches. The explanation of what the command does and how it operates cannot be surpassed anywhere.

There is abundant Linux information available in the web. The IBM Linux LPI tutorials at
http://www-106.ibm.com/developerwork...-lpir21-i.html, is often mentioned. I found not that particularly useful. The content is light and they gloss over many topics, are very dated with many omissions of new LPI objectives. May be this is suitable as a first read to get the feel of LPI exam. However they do have many other excellent and useful Linux tutorials and articles in their web site!

The Linux Documentation Project (www.tldp.org) maintained an extensive and update-to-date ManPages, How-To, FAQs and Tutorials. It is suitable for experienced users as well novice user! Otherwise, the Newsgroup, comp.os.linux, offers excellent info as well!

I found Michel Bisson's LPI Study Guides at http://linuxint.net/DOCS/ very useful. These are free and a particular strong source of reference. The guide is structured by exam objectives from LPI. As of this writing, he had not yet fully completed the LPI102 Guide. It is almost there with a few more sections to go.

There are many more reference and study guides available depending on your level of expertise in Linux. A good example is the complete reference material in the Red Hat web site for various versions of Red Hat Linux releases. As you search through the web and your local book stores, you will find that many books and preparation guides are few years old. LPI updated and re-arranged their exam objectives in early 2003. A classical example is that USB devices are not covered in earlier books and study guides!

Finally, I found one book which became my central focus point for exam preparation; Ross Brunson’s Exam Cram 2: LPIC 101 and 102 Exam published by Que in October 2004. This is the most current book geared to the LPI exam objectives. True to its name, the LPIC Exam Cram 2 is focused on what you need to know to pass the LPIC exam. The Exam Cram 2 Method of Study provides you with a fairly concise method to learn the exam topics. The book includes alert tips, exam notes, acronyms, memory joggers and exam taking tips in order to help you pass the exam. Another distinctive trade mark is a tear-out “Cram Sheet” for last minute exam review. A CD is included with ExamSim, a third party exam simulator designed specifically for Linux/Windows users featuring randomly chosen questions with each practice session. You can have Training Mode with answer button and Exam Mode with running timer. The book came with over 300+ exam practice questions as well as the complete book in PDF format. The practice questions in the book were well written and the answers were clearly explained for the correct answer as well as the incorrect answers. Please note that the practice questions in ExamSim are not written by Ross Brunson!

Exam topic as listed in Exam Cram 2 book:

LPIC EXAM 101

• Linux Installation.
• Using the Linux Shell.
• Basic Vi Skills.
• Hardware.
• Partitioning and File Systems.
• File Systems and Commands.
• XFree86 Configuration and Troubleshooting.
• Text Processing.
• Software Installation.

LPIC EXAM 102

• Linux Boot Process and Runlevels.
• Using Linux and GNU Documentation.
• Managing Users and Groups.
• System Administration.
• Kernel Configuration and Custom Compilation.
• Linux Shells and Scripting.
• Linux Printing.
• Basic Networking.
• Network Services.
• Security.

As you can see from the list, it is fairly comprehensive list. For example, in Chapter on Security topic alone, the subtopic included:

• Using TCP Wrappers to Secure a Service.
  
• Allow and Deny Files.
  
• Understanding Permission Problems.
  
• Finding Files by Permissions.
  
• Validating Package Integrity.
  
• Validation Methods.
  
• Secure Shell.
  
• SSH Components.
  
• Using SSH Client Utilities.
  
• Using SSH Sans Password Prompts.
  
• Using Firewalls for Security.
  
• Understanding Basic iptables.
  
• iptables’s Three Chains.
  
• Using the iptables Command.
  
• Configuring an iptables Chain

By no means can Ross Brunson go into excruciating detail for each sub topic. Many of sections can be a subject of a whole book by itself. I found that Ross’s writing style is concise and very readable. This is an exception in generally dry technical subject matter!

Practice Questions

At the time of writing, there are many practice questions available including but not limited to:

Linux Praxis (free):

http://www.linux-praxis.de/lpisim/lpi.html

Another German web site called ph-home.de has free practice questions:

http://www.ph-home.de/linux-test/lpi-1/index.php

ExamForce practice test:

http://www.examforce.com/customer/home.php?cat=277

Boson practice test:

http://www.boson.com/products/70165.htm[/font]

I used exclusively Linux Praxis and Ross Bronson’s exam prep questions from his book. I felt confident enough that I did not purchase any practice questions! One thing I did noticed during the exam, for some strange reason, the LPI exam tends to ask many questions on file, command locations and command line options.

Summary

Over all, the test is not easy but fair. They are not difficult exams! To fully understand and comprehend the material, a lab with at least 2 or 3 PCs is needed. A major consideration if you don’t have the necessary hardware!

Comments and remarks were based on my exam experience. Your educational background and preparation method may produce a different result.

My recommendation for LPIC 1 preparation:

1. Read the entire Exam Cram 2 book at least twice.
2. Supplement your reading with other books and resource.
3. Try everything on your favorite distro in a server and workstation mode.
4. Study the questions and know why the correct one is chosen and the reason for the incorrect answers.
5. Play close attention to command line options.

In summary, taking the LPIC exams can be a good personal assessment of your Linux system administrator knowledge and a rewarding experience. Although computerized exams may not be a perfect gauge of your knowledge but with strong study habit and relevant experience this can improve your chances in this competitive IT world.

[tripwire45]

Kudos, snoopy. Great information. Well done. Consider your back patted. :`) I'll let you know how the lab configuration works when installed in VMware rather than on separate hunks of iron.

[snoopy51]

Trip:

It was Gort32's recommendation not to use Virtual PC 2004 or VMware. I took his advice and spend over three hours to troubleshoot my 3COM NIC problem on Fedora Core 2.

But the strange thing, I did not experience the same problem with Fedora Core 3. Yes, they fixed the kudzu module in Core 3!

[tripwire45]

Trip:

It was Gort32's recommendation not to use Virtual PC 2004 or VMware. I took his advice and spend over three hours to troubleshoot my 3COM NIC problem on Fedora Core 2.

But the strange thing, I did not experience the same problem with Fedora Core 3. Yes, they fixed the kudzu module in Core 3!

Sigh. There goes my plan.