Exam preparation

Igal 5

Hi-

I'm really confused about information available online for the exam. It says that for the exam we need to know http, dns, ftp and other services and the ways to configure, however the course provided does not have any information about it. Also, user quota is marked as optional within the course, but it seems like it is a part of the exam itself. Now, don't get me wrong, all these topics are important, but isn't it why we have 201 and 211 certifications now instead?!

Linux Foundation pages seem to be abandoned by the administrators and the information is not up to date.

Some people wrote that they do not want to teach exactly for the exam, but then I ask myself what was the point to pay 200 dollars for an irrelevant information provided?!

 

I have my exam soon and I am really confused with all that.

Instead of mastering my skills to meet the time limits, I have to learn stuff that might even not be on the exam....

coop

I don't mean to be nasty, but a comment like:

"Instead of mastering my skills to meet the time limits, I have to learn stuff that might even not be on the exam...."  exhibits an attitude that will need to be improved if you want to do anything with your training and hopeful certification, such as have a career in system administration.  Any course can only cover a subset of real world needed knowledge, and as we have said many times, we do not teach to the exam alone.

There is material that might be on the exam that is not covered in LFS201 but is covered in LFS101x (which is free).  There should not be material on the exam that is not at least mentioned in LFS201; more complicated subjects may be only slightly mentioned in 201 and covered more thoroughly in 211; I would not expect them to be on the LFCS exam because they simply take too much time (it is all performance based, there are no multiple choice type games on the test.)  We also cover material that we know is unlikely to be on the exam because we think you should learn about it. 

The LF course preparation people do not prepare the certification exams and we are in fact barred from seenig them.  This is a standard industry practice that helps insure other companies can prepare teaching materials and prevents the courses from being weak and flimsy because they teach only what is on the exam.  We rely on the same public materials you do and make educated inferences.  The exams are designed by committees who tend to overdo it on listing what should be on an exam and tend to do double coverage.  We have told them this and things have improved.  But do you really think that in a few minutes on an LFCS exam you will be asked to fullly set up a DNS or HTTP server?

Finally $200 is very cheap for a course such as this, especially when bundled with certification exam.  ANd let me remind you that if you fail you get to take it again for free, something no other training organization I am aware of offers.  So I always tell people to take it the first time with the attitude that it is practice-- and hopefully you will pass on the first go without being too anxious since you know it is not the end.

I am sorry you are so disappointed.  Not much we can do about it.

 

 

 

Igal 5

You ar enot being nasty at all and I appreciate your reply.

You have to agree with me some things though:

When taking exam you are stressed

The time frame is not friendly at all

You have no outside information, such as Google or StackOwerflow you can use

When you are getting ready for the exam and if you do not work in this particular field, it might be odd to emulate properly all the tasks that could possibly appear during the test, so lack of precicion on topics to cover is somewhat not professional

 

Lastly, Linux Foundation offers a bundle: buy 201 course + register for the exam for 500 USD; 101 is for free.

Great deal, but no one really mentiones the fact that for the exam you will also have to take 211, which costs additional 300 dollars!

 

fcioanca

Hi, LFS201 is a good preparation for LFCS, along with LFS101. LFS211 is good preparation for LFCE.

Igal 5

Thank you for your reply.

There is an inconsistency here though:

201 teaches firewalld, LFCS has questions on iptables

201 teaches both SELinux and AppArmor, which one we are going to see on the exam is a mystery - and both aren't that easy

201 does not mention configuring such services as https - LFCS has questions on them too

 

As I mentioned earlier, I really want to know all that and I will, but I need to pass the exam first to find a relevant job.

coop

All exam situations are artificial due to finite time and pressures.  When I was a professor I avoided exams and gave take home problems where people had as much time as needed.  Of course, in the real world, the ability to perform under pressure with narrow time is relevant, like in an emergency outage, but those are not the kind of problems you are likely to see on the exam.  you are also unlikely to get something where the best way to deal with it is to "think outside the box" since the exam has to be graded in as automatic a fashion as possible.

FCioanca is right.  LFS201 is only for LFCS.  If you really think you can get all the way to an LFCE with a small amount of cheap training, that is unrealistic.  You can of course do it all for free, many people do, but because the exams cost money, the course doesn't add much to the cost.  Good luck on the exam

fcioanca

Again, we do have to stress that there is a firewall between training and certification. We encourage you to go through LFS101, which we consider a prerequisite for LFS201, as some details are covered there, but not in LFS201. LFS201 is a good preparation course, but it does not mean that it will teach you everything. Preparing for a hands-on exam starts by taking courses, but you also have to do self study and practice a lot - that is the best way to prepare yourself. The more you practice, the better you become and the more prepared you will be for the exam as well.

Good luck with your studying and with the exam!

coop

on specific points:

the reason iptables is not covered in detail in LFS201 (it is in LFS211) is it would be much too long and firewalld is the future.  LFS201 is already very very long, hundreds of pages, something like 40+ sections, about 100 labs etc.  

As far as selinux or apparmor, you have a choice of distro.  If you are choosing anything other than centos, I would be shocked if there was an selinux question as I doubt very much it is operative on the exam machiens as it is a pain to set up and rarely is.  LIkewise apparmor appears only on some distros by default.

Remember, the exam is *only* 2 hours I believe.  YOu can only have a not large number of questions and they can't give you something that might take an hour (once again I'm basing this on common sense, not inside knowledge).

Prepare but do not overprepare to the extent you are so stressed your mind goes blank when you take the exam.  Take it as a challenge, not as a one time proposition that determines the rest of your life.  I don't know the exact passing grade, but I do know from comments people make you can get quite a bit wrong and pass.

 

Igal 5

Thank you for clarifying things and answering all my questions, the picture is way clearer now.

Best Regards,