CentOS

Hello All!
I've got some free time after work (2 to 2.5 hours in weekdays) and I'm considering taking the path to become a Red Hat Certified System Administrator

If anyone made it so far to become a RHCSA or even a RHCE would you please share your experience: How did you prepare for the exams?
have you got some good resources (whether it paid or free) for the study and preparation for Red Hat System Administration I (RH124) and beyond?
(books, printed or pdf and videos)
for the people who live in Canada (Specially Ontario) can you find a decent job as a RHCSA/RHCE?
Can I prepare for the exam with just a MacBook and Centos 7 on VirtualBox or do I have to buy some other hardware?
any ideas, thoughts and help would be appreciated

If at all possible, I'd recommend getting some sort of machine and putting CentOS on bare metal, then using that to run KVM. The Jang books are usually considered to be the best study guides, I don't know if the CentOS-7 one is out yet.

I should add that I'm not certified, though, so maybe someone with more actual experience can say something.

How did you prepare for the exams?

Read official docs and practice. Configure various services and break them.

have you got some good resources (whether it paid or free) for the study and preparation for Red Hat

I used the rapid track, but that was some time ago.

One thing that kind of freaked some people out is that they'll give you a "broken" machine and you have to fix it. It's not as bad as it sounds. But just be aware.

Also,consider taking a peek at this website: Certdepot
Giles - the author of the website was a primary technical reviewer of the latest book from Sander van Vugt ( Red Hat RHCE/RHCSA 7 Cert Guide )

One of my guys (I´m a team lead in the nordics) told me that the exam is not that easy since some stupid knowledge are necessary especially SElinux which is pretty much used by no one... Otherwise I would say that you have the chance to put your hands on the books from the course, you are good to go (we have them but i don´t know where to find them)

If you wish to pass the exam, I have some remaining vouchers that my guys are not going to use.

I think you underestimate how much selinux is used.

I used this book to prepare myself and then attended the one-week RHCSA course (sponsored by my employer). It is much easier to pass the exam if you attend the course, but it is not required.

TrevorH wrote:I think you underestimate how much selinux is used.

I don´t underestimate it. I have worked for medium and huge enterprises for the last 15 years and now I´m a team lead, Nobody used SElinux for a very simple reason : too complicated and brings too many issues for a production environment. 2 Red Hat instructors told me that nobody wants to use it and that´s why Red Hat decided to deprecate the SElinux dedicated course and exam for the version 7 of RHEL ...

SELinux has improved substantially in the last few years. It is now built into Android too. Our instructor put a lot of emphasis on it and I would never run an internet-facing production server without it.

Great for you. Me I don´t see the goal to use SElinux in a production environment (see what SElinux provides but still)