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LFCE exam domains & competences

k0dard
k0dard Posts: 93
in LFS211 Class Forum

Hello,

I’m preparing to pass LFCE exam and I’ve been studying a lot, however when I look at the LF Certification Preparation Guide (https://resources.linuxfoundation.org/LF+Training/LF_Training_WP_CertificationPrepGuide_October2018+(6).pdf) there are some points in Domains & Competences section that are not very clear to me. Some of them I find quite abstract while other seem theoretical or otherwise impossible to do on a command line (for example Train team members on new technology or changes to existing systems)

So if someone could clarify what following points mean practically, I would be very grateful :)

  • Maintain the integrity and availability of hardware
  • Develop and test disaster recovery plans
  • Support incident management for outages/trouble
  • Define a capacity planning strategy
  • Script automation tools to make work faster and more accurate
  • Update the kernel and ensure the system is bootable

When I say "practically" I mean specifying package(s) one should use to perform given point.

For example, to Run commands on many systems simultaneously one can use parallel-ssh on ubuntu or pssh on redhat.

Thanks in advance for your help!

Comments

  • coop
    coop Posts: 834

    you will have to ask the exam and certification support team; we don't write or administer the exams. However ,the list you are quoting does show the symptoms of design by committee. Given the fact it is a performance exam without essay questions, I think you can ignore most of the items on your list, important as they might be. and keep in mind retake is free so don't stress too much for the first attempt

  • mstepien
    mstepien Posts: 243

    Hi @k0dard,

    For any exam-related questions please reach out to our Customer Support Team at trainingsupport.linuxfoundation.org.
    Thank you,
    Magda
    The Linux Foundation Training Team

  • k0dard
    k0dard Posts: 93
    edited April 2021

    @coop Thanks for your advice !
    @mstepien OK, I'll do that and post back, thank you

  • aimcorp
    aimcorp Posts: 17

    @k0dard said:
    @coop Thanks for your advice !
    @mstepien OK, I'll do that and post back, thank you

    Hey @k0dard,

    Did you ever get to take the LFCE exam? Can you share your experience? I **don't ** want to know about the specifics of the exam questions.

    Just to check with you if the Dom&Com are relevant to the actual exam.

    I am getting ready to take mine, too. I have until 22 Feb 22, so planning to book the first try pretty soon.

    I'd love to head some of your feedback.

    Cheers!
    Andrei.

  • k0dard
    k0dard Posts: 93

    Hello Andrei,

    Yes, I passed LFCE in June.

    Concerning my original question in this post, @coop was right saying that you can ignore all the items on the domains and competences list that seem 'theoretical' or in any way not doable on CLI.

    As for the exam itself, it is hard, IMO a lot harder that LFCS and you really have to know what you're doing in order to do well enough to pass since as you know you only have 2 hours.

    One advice I could give you is to learn really well the essential commands (the ones you would surely be using a lot in future, whatever you'd be doing i.e. grep, sed, cut, tr, iptables, systemctl... with all the details and finesses) and maybe some essential services (the ones that are most widely used IRL, i.e. apache). I gave these examples but you decide for yourself what do you think you'll most likely need in future and what do you like also, and those things you learn really really good.

    Also, I can share my tactics:

    I go through questions first time, not taking too much time reading everything but trying to find harder questions (harder meaning worth more points, let's say 6+) which I know I can answer. I do those first to secure the points. If I encounter a problem (something unexpected, solution not working) which I can't resolve fast or I see a 'hard' question I'm not sure about how to solve, I mark the question for later and I continue. At this first passage I also do questions that I find super easy (and hence fast to do).
    In parallel I also keep a notepad (the one you have at disposal in the exam environment) and note the questions I finished.
    Every next passage through questions I go for easier and easier questions (4+, 3+, 2) still skipping everything I can't do really fast.
    After doing everything I could do fast, I go back to marked questions (hard ones that I couldn't solve) and put some time trying to solve these, look at man pages and help, etc.. Time being precious it's better to sacrifice more time to solve a 6 points question that to struggle with 2 or 3 points question.

    That said I must also say that it is important to read questions carefully and be sure to do everything that is demanded because if you for example setup a web server and you forget to enable the service so that it restarts automatically, that's some easy points lost...

    And also remember there's always a second try, so no stress !

    Hope all that helps and don't hesitate to write if you have other questions :)

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