Everything You Need To Know To be A System Administrator.

CLASS 02

INTRO.

There’s always an option for following your passion.

Never forget that.

If you think that starting a career as a Linux system administrator is the job that will help you change your life, then you must prepare yourself to acquire all the knowledge, skills and mindset of a real Linux system administrator.

This is not something that you can learn and reach effortlessly.

I mean… in order to get what you want first you need to create a plan, work that plan and dedicated yourself to understand everything you put your eyes on.

Well! not everything.

But you need to focus on foundations of this role.

One thing I want to mention before we start is…

If you already decided that you want to be a Linux system administrator, then start reading this class carefully, and never stop when you feel tired or confused.

I know…

I used to do that too. Always push yourself to complete the class and to look for answers and explanations about what made you feel confused.

Here’s my twitter, find me there or send me an email and ask me. I’ll be glad to answer.

Now, stay dedicated and stay focused because by the end of this article you will gain ideas about:

How to create your own career path to be a Linux system administrator.

What is like to be a Linux system administrator.

What is the difference between a system administrator and system engineer.

What are the best certifications out there to choose as a beginner.

The three methods to study for any certifications.

NOTE: Always put your notebook and a pen next to you so you can write what’s important.

Foremost, you should know that even the most famous tech professionals, experts, and CEOs in the IT field started with basic job positions, such as a help desk, junior system administrator/engineer or network administrator/engineer. Because everyone starts from the bottom, and it’s all about how bad you want to succeed.

So let’s first talk about the Linux system administrator/engineer job position.

What is like to be a system administrator?

A System Administrator ( referred to as sysadmin ) is the person who manages and maintains servers within a production environment, especially a multi-computing system. His job is to perform contiguous maintenance tasks and operations to keep up with the client, server, storage, and network services; and to make sure that the system is running in optimal performance.

A sysadmin is one of the most important roles in any organization. Managing servers is a very crucial task. If something unusual happened to the servers, the company will start losing money immediately.

Bear in mind that solving an issue within a server might take hours, days or even weeks to solve. These require the administrator to have many technical and non-technical ( characteristic ) skills.

The question that might be shaking in your mind now is “What exactly a system administrator do?”

Sysadmins’ responsibilities can diverse from an organization to another. But in general, this is what a sysadmin do within an organization:

• Install and configure OS on a server.
• Manipulate the kernel to be compatible with the hardware for performance stability.
• Manage various services.
• Handle storage partitions.
• Checking logs to stop problems before they occur.
• Perform backup and restore.
• Security administrations with SELinux and other tools.
• Perform updates and upgrades.
• Manages access to users, reset passwords, file systems, files permission.
• Write scripts using Python or any other programming language or Bash scripting.
• Handle cron jobs and auto-started operations.
• Help users use the system properly.
• Intend meetings and propose buying specific hardware.

What is the difference between a sysadmin and a sys engineer?

Well! A system engineer is a person responsible for building, monitoring and designing an IT system using different resources ( hardware and software resources).

Also, a sys engineer is responsible for configuring, installing, updating the systems and creating solutions to problems that might interrupt the availability of the servers. As you can see, both jobs have very similar tasks. So the truth is, the job titles can deceive you sometimes.

What’s important is the job functions and responsibilities. In some companies, a system administrator might be doing assignments of a system engineer.

Take a look at these two job responsibilities found in the famous jobs website indeed:

Engineer:

You can see that both jobs share most of the responsibilities as you can realize that both jobs have a respected paid salary.

After understanding what is like to be a Linux system administrator, let’s discuss the best certification that will help you reach one of these two job positions.

Keep in mind that most of the people who work in the IT field are self-taught people. That means they learned what they are doing through experiences and practical skills.

So regardless of what degree do you have or even if you don’t have one; The secret of getting a sysadmin ( or any other IT job ) job position is to be eligible enough to work in a real production environment.

So how can you prove to the employer that you have the abilities and skills to work in his company?

That’s where IT certifications came as a proof of your capabilities.

As a beginner, you need to study hard and smart, put a lot of time and effort to learn every basic concept about Linux. But the most essential thing is to get a linux certification.

So here are the major Linux certification that will improve your resume as a beginner:

CompTIA Linux+: Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA) is one of the famous certifications provider in the world. The non-profit association provides IT certifications in different professional fields including networking, security, computing support, Linux, Cloud, and mobility.

The Linux+ certification is the beginners’ portal to the open-source Linux world. Why? CompTIA doesn’t require any prerequisites from test takers to pass the exams.

The objective of the certification is to test the candidates and see if they understand the theory behind different administrative tasks. Also, it pushes them to be very comfortable with any Linux distro.

In order to get certified, you need to pass two exams, LX0–103 and LX0–104, each exam has different objectives. For example, the exam LX0–103 test you in;

How to work with the command line.

How to perform basic maintenance tasks, how to deals with user accounts, perform a backup and restore; and reboot or shut down a system.

How to install and configure workstations with the basic need like networking and security.

While the LX0–103 exam tests you in:

Shell scripting and how to deal with the shell.

How to handle GUI and desktops.

How to deal with system services.

The basic of networking.

How to keep your system secure.

Linux+ is a very demanding certification. It proves to an employer that you have a fundamental knowledge of what it takes to be responsible for a Linux environment.

Every exam composes of 60 multi-choice and fills in the blank questions that you need to answer in 90 minutes. However, the two exams cost 438$ ( 219 for each exam)

RHCSA: Red hat is the first leading company that provides enterprises with different Open source technologies and solutions. Enterprises choose Red hat to get high performing cloud, virtualization, storage, and operating system technologies. Not only this but, Red Hat has a list of IT certification in different categories include, system administration, engineering and architecting; development, application, virtualization and cloud administration.

The Red Hat Certified System Administrator is the basic certification that a beginner might start with. Unlike other certification exams that test you with fill in the blank or multi-choice questions, In RHCSA you should pass a hands-on exam and solve different administration tasks including:

• maintenance tasks.
• Work with the command line.
• install and configure a computer running Linux.
• Configure basic networking.
• Secure any Linux distribution.
• Manage file systems, user accounts, and access groups.
• Other…

In order to get the certification, you will need to pass a 2.5 hours practical exam (EX200) in the latest Red Hat distro which has the number 7.

Why RHCSA? Forget about the enterprise good reputation. The RHCSA certification will guarantee to the employer that you are eligible to work and handle real-world scenarios, thus, it will probably give a high chance of getting a job.

The exam cost 400$. After being certified, you will join the Red hat Certification Central. You can meet employers, join communities and participate in projects. Also, you will be able to pass the Red hat certified system engineer RHCSE.

In general, RHCSA will give a lot of opportunities to get jobs with a high paid salary.

LPI: Linux Professional Institute is a non-profit organization that supports careers for open source professionals. LPI is the biggest Linux certification vendor in the world. The institute provides Linux certifications based on levels and the LPIC-1 system administrator is in level 1. The objective of the exam is to test candidates to perform the following missions:

• maintenance tasks.
• Work with the command line.
• install and configure a computer running Linux.
• Configure basic networking.
• Secure any Linux distribution.
• Manage file systems, user accounts, and access groups.
• Other…

The good thing is, the objectives were created based on real-world scenarios. Also, there are no prerequisites to pass the certification. That means every beginner can register and pass the exam directly. In LPIC-1, you need to pass two exams ( 101 and 102 ). the validity of the certification is 5 years and the subtotal of the two exams is 400$ ( 200$ for each exam).

LFCS: Linux Foundation is a non-profit organization that provides many Linux certifications. The organization is supported by Linux creator Linus Torvald. The foundation’s certification was created to let applicants develop strong foundational skills to use different Linux distributions.

The goal of the Linux Foundation Certified System Administrator ( LFCS ) is to prove that the certification holder is well informed and have the competence required to be responsible for a Linux environment.

In order to be certified, test takers must pass a 2 hours performance-based exam in one of the two distributions, either Ubuntu or CentOS. The LFCS focus on the following objectives:

• Essential Commands.
• Operation of Running Systems.
• User and Group Management.
• Networking.
• Service Configuration.
• Storage Management.

Furthermore, the exam costs 300$. LFCS is a good certification to start with as a beginner. Because it lets you pass practical challenges and scenarios. As a result, applicants will be more comfortable with the tasks that they will be responsible for.

How to study for the certification?

You have three options to study for any certification, which are:

Certification vendor training: Every certification vendor will provide test takers a free or non-free online training. This can be a series of videos or ebooks and lab challenges. Keep in mind that this option might be expensive but it is very recommended since it comes from the certification provider.

Local IT Training Center: You can look for a local IT training center that provides real-life training with hands-on labs. You can meet with teachers, ask questions and share ideas with other candidates. The local center might be expensive for only a few hours of training.

Depend on Self-taught skills: This might be your best choice. There are a lot of learning platforms online that provide free and paid content that will help you pass any certification. This method requires you to be disciplined and dedicated more the other methods and to put a lot of hard work because you will be your own teacher. Most of the videos and course are free but it’s okay to buy some as long as they can provide you with useful information.

That’s it for this class, the next class will reveal some Linux distribution and everything about them. You can access the class here