Becoming a certified Linux Administrator it means you can perform maintenance tasks with the command line, install and configure a computer running Linux and be able to configure basic networking. Lots of infrmation is on Linux Professional Institute website.
The certification is valid for 5 years afer successfully passing LPI 201 and LPI 202 exams, which are 60 multiple-choice and fill-in-the-blank questions in 90 minutes.
Sounds pretty straight forward, right?
It depends on your professional background, time available, ability to learn, to memorize and make connections. Yep, memorizing is key for these exams. If you ever worked with the command line, you would know how many options are there for one command. As an example, have a look at how many options the ls command has, by quickly typing man ls in your terminal:
ls syntax
ls [OPTION]... [FILE]...
Description
List information about the FILEs (the current directory by default). Sort entries alphabetically if none of -cftuvSUX nor –sort is specified.
| -a, –all | Do not ignore entries starting with “.“, providing visibility to hidden files (those starting with a “.”) |
| -A, –almost-all | Do not list implied “.” and “..“. |
| –author | With -l, print the author of each file. |
| -b, –escape | Print C-style escapes for nongraphic characters. |
| –block-size=SIZE | Scale sizes by SIZE before printing them. For example, ‘–block-size=M‘ prints sizes in units of 1,048,576 bytes. See SIZE formatbelow. |
| -B, –ignore-backups | Do not list implied entries ending with “~“. |
| -c | With -lt:, sort by and show the ctime (time of last modification of file status information); with -l:, show ctime and sort by name; otherwise: sort by ctime, newest first. |
| -C | List entries by columns. |
| –color[=WHEN] | Colorize the output. WHEN defaults to ‘always‘ or can be ‘never‘ or ‘auto‘. |
| -d, –directory | List directory entries instead of contents, and do not dereference symbolic links. |
| -D, –dired | Generate output designed for Emacs‘ dired mode. |
| -f | Do not sort, enable -aU, and disable -ls –color. |
| -F, –classify | Append indicator (one of */=>@|) to entries. |
| –file-type | Similar to –classify, except do not append ‘*‘ |
| –format=WORD | Formats according to the following: across -x, commas -m, horizontal -x, long -l, single-column -1, verbose -l, vertical -C. |
| –full-time | Like -l –time-style=full-iso. |
| -g | Like -l, but do not list owner. |
| –group-directories-first | Group directories before files. Can be augmented with a –sortoption, but any use of –sort=none (-U) disables grouping. |
| -G, –no-group | In a long listing, don’t print group names. |
| -h, –human-readable | With -l, print sizes in human-readable format (e.g., 1K, 234M, 2G). |
| –si | Like –human-readable, but use powers of 1000, not 1024. |
| -H, –dereference-command-line | Follow symbolic links listed on the command line. |
| –dereference-command-line-symlink-to-dir | Follow each command line symbolic link that points to a directory. |
| –hide=PATTERN | Do not list implied entries matching shell PATTERN (overridden by -a or -A). |
| –indicator-style=WORD | Append indicator with style WORD to entry names: none (default), slash (-p), file-type (–file-type), classify (-F). |
| -i, –inode | Print the index number of each file. |
| -I, –ignore=PATTERN | Do not list implied entries matching shell PATTERN. |
| -k, –kibibytes | Use 1024-byte blocks. |
| -l | Use a long listing format. |
| -L, –dereference | When showing file information for a symbolic link, show information for the file the link references rather than for the link itself. |
| -m | Fill width with a comma separated list of entries. |
| -n, –numeric-uid-gid | Like -l, but list numeric user and group IDs. |
| -N, –literal | Print raw entry names (don’t treat e.g., control characters specially). |
| -o | Like -l, but do not list group information. |
| -p, –indicator-style=slash | Append “/” indicator to directories |
| -q, –hide-control-chars | Print ? instead of non graphic characters. |
| –show-control-chars | Show non graphic characters as-is (default unless program is ‘ls‘ and output is a terminal). |
| -Q, –quote-name | Enclose entry names in double quotes. |
| –quoting-style=WORD | Use quoting style WORD for entry names: literal, locale, shell, shell-always, c, escape. |
| -r, –reverse | Reverse order while sorting. |
| -R, –recursive | List subdirectories recursively. |
| -s, –size | Print the allocated size of each file, in blocks. |
| -S | Sort by file size. |
| –sort=WORD | Sort by WORD instead of name: none (-U), extension (-X), size (-S), time (-t), version (-v). |
| –time=WORD | With -l, show time as WORD instead of modification time: “atime” (-u), “access” (-u), “use” (-u), “ctime” (-c), or “status” (-c); use specified time as sort key if –sort=time. |
| –time-style=STYLE | With -l, show times using style STYLE.
STYLE may be one of: “full-iso“, “long-iso“, “iso“, “locale“, “+FORMAT“. FORMAT is interpreted like ‘date‘; if FORMAT is “FORMAT1<newline>FORMAT2“, FORMAT1 applies to non-recent files and FORMAT2 to recent files; if STYLE is prefixed with ‘posix-‘, STYLE takes effect only outside the POSIX locale. |
| -t | Sort by modification time, newest first. |
| -T, –tabsize=COLS | Assume tab stops at each COLS instead of 8. |
| -u | With -lt:, sort by and show access time; with -l: show access time and sort by name; otherwise: sort by access time. |
| -U | Do not sort; list entries in directory order. |
| -v | Natural sort of (version) numbers within text. |
| -w, –width=COLS | Assume screen width COLS instead of current value. |
| -x | List entries by lines instead of by columns. |
| -X | Sort alphabetically by entry extension. |
| -Z, –context | Print any SELinux security context of each file. |
| -1 | List one file per line. |
| –help | Display a help message and exit. |
| –version | Display version information and exit. |
I found an useful ‘dictionary’ of bash commands here https://ss64.com/bash/
A while ago, there was only one exam, but I think I prefer it broken down in two parts, like it is now. They say the first exam is easier to pass than the second one and I heard many saying they only practice questions and memorize the answers. It doesn’t work for me and it wouldn’t be feasible in the long run. I am the one that reads the forward and the aknowledgements, so you can get an idea :))
In real life work situations it’s unlikely to come across only exam based issues and my goal is not passing an exam, but rather become a self sufficient Linux Admin.
The Objectives of LPIC-1 Exam 101 are:
- System Architecture
- Linux Installation and Package Management
- GNU and Unix Commands
- Devices, Linux Filesystems, Filesystem Hierarchy Standard
I will not get into Exam 102 objectives for now, one bridge at a time 🙂
‘Til next time, a fun fact about Linux: Google has its own Linux Distribution for its internal Employees. Its called Goobuntu
