LPIC 3 – 300 – Linux Enterprise Professional Certification

Mixed Environment: also named as LPIC – 3 300. It provides for an enterprise-level professional certification program that represents the highest level of proficiency in distribution-neural Linux. It requires a candidate to have an active LPIC – 2 certification. The validity of this certification is 5 years. It covers the following areas of interest:

◉ OpenLDAP Configuration and Authentication Backend

◉ Samba – Basics, Share Basics, User & Group Management

◉ Samba – Name Services and Domain Integration

◉ Working with Windows and Linux Clients.

Apart from LPIC – 3 300, there are two more specialization certifications at this level. Passing any one of the three grants the certification for that specialty. Its prerequisites and validity periods are the same as that for LPIC 3. The other two certifications are:

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LPIC-3 300: Linux Enterprise Professional Mixed Environment

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Benefits of Becoming an LPI Member

Recently, Linux Professional Institute (LPI) launched a formal membership program for holders of its professional level certifications. This program includes holders of LPIC-1 certifications or higher, as well as those certified in the growing list of Open Technology topics.

Membership allows certificate holders to incrementally update their knowledge and prolong the lives of their certifications. It also changes the governance model of LPI and gives the ultimate authority over LPI to the people that it certifies. Since this program is new, there is an option for holders of inactive certifications, too. Read on for more details.

Impetus for the membership program

Incorporating as a non-profit organization in Canada in 1999 required LPI to define a unit of membership (with voting control) for itself, in contrast to for-profit companies that offer shares for this purpose. Initially, these members were the founding open source professionals and advocates that championed LPI's formation. However, the intention was always to hand over the reins of the organization to the certification holders through the mechanism of membership.

It has taken some time and a lot of work behind the scenes, but that goal was institutionalized in LPI's bylaws and culminated in the launch of the membership program this past summer.

What does it mean to be a member of LPI?

For LPI, the new program means that certification holders that become members are now the ones who vote for the Board of Directors. You don't have to be a member to run for a board position, though, since a board needs a diverse set of skills to be effective. Board elections are an annual occurrence along with an Annual General Meeting (AGM) of all members.

To make membership meaningful and appealing to certification holders, the board wanted a focus other than members’ role in governance. This structural change also afforded LPI the opportunity to transition from getting people their first or next job to helping more broadly in their careers and communities. This objective explains the various initiatives that have already launched and are being developed.

On a practical level, membership offers long-term benefits to those who obtained certifications. No one needs to become a member to maintain their certifications. The advantage of membership  is that  you don’t have to wait for your certification to expire and then retake the tests. Instead, you can keep your knowledge and your certification up to date by engaging in regular, small-scale activities that offer you a kind of continuing  education credit called Professional Development Units (PDUs).

Here is the background. Certifications, like university and college degrees, demonstrate a level of knowledge and experience at a fixed point in time. While they are extremely valuable, they also have a shelf life.  At the rate in which technology changes, this value can diminish quickly. Fortunately, LPI certifications age well.

However, as with most professions, LPI expects certification holders to keep and  update their knowledge along with changes in the field. This can be done through continuing education, as well as the use and expansion of the skills and knowledge that accompanied earlier training and credentials.

This is where the membership program steps in. Members can demonstrate their growth by engaging in education, work experience in the field related to the certification, and community participation to earn PDUs. 

Active certification holders can join before submitting any PDUs, but will need to submit PDUs as part of their member obligations by the end of a three-year cycle. This cycle commences with the membership. Holders of inactive certifications will need to submit some PDUs before joining in order to demonstrate that they are still active users of open source software. After joining, the same three-year PDU cycle will start as well.

Thus, PDUs play a critical role in maintaining the value of an LPI certification by allowing a certification holder to demonstrate a combination of experience, credentials and continuing education. The idea of a membership option without the PDUs was considered but rejected because members would have to be expunged if their certifications became inactive. Furthermore, if we didn’t require PDUs, we'd have to differentiate between the folk that have a certification and may have exceeded those expectations from members who actively demonstrate their growth beyond the certifications. This would get confusing.

LPI members who want to undertake high-level campaigns to help the free and open source community can also join our Member Engagement Committee. This may also be a good step toward a board position.

Is It worth becoming a member?

If you just want to extend the active date of your certification, there's little need to join as a member. Nothing is changing in the existing certification programs, including the five-year expiration date of certifications. They are still publicly displayable and a testament to your skills. Plus, five years should be plenty of time to leverage the value of the certification or attain a higher level credential.

Afterward, if you ever need to dust off your certifications, you could become a member for one year. That will reactivate the cert for whatever needed purpose. The cost would be about 35% of the cost of taking one exam and less than 20% of the cost of retaking LPIC-1. In addition, if you had an LPIC-2 go inactive and wanted to get LPIC-3 certification, reactivating the LPIC-2 and carrying on would be much less expensive than retaking LPIC-1 and LPIC-2. Even the 3 year membership is 90% of the cost of an exam and 45% of the cost of retaking LPIC-1.

However, our intention is to make the economic value to the member exceed the costs of joining irrespective of the extensions to the certifications’ active dates. Thus, we have added direct benefits in the form of discounts and other perqs from us and our partners.

Members will shape the future of LPI

We hope that people who choose membership will take seriously their role in  governance. Ultimately, it is up to the members to (help) shape LPI going forward. If you think there's something more that LPI, as an organization, should be doing (or should stop), please get involved. Or at least come to the AGM and shoot your mouth off for a while. Hmm, maybe that should be listed as a member benefit, too.

Source: lpi.org

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LPIC 2 – Linux Engineer

It is the second of LPI’s multilevel professional certification. It enables the candidate to administer small to medium-sized networks. To qualify for this certification, the candidate needs to have an active LPIC -1 Certification. However, the LPIC-1 and LPIC-2 exams can be taken in any order. The validity of this certification is 5 years. This certification covers the following topics:

1. System StartUp
2. Linux Kernel
3. FileSystem and Devices
4. Capacity Planning
5. Advanced Storage Device Administration
6. Network Configuration & System Maintenance
7. File Sharing and Network Client Management
8. Domain Name Server
9. Web and Email
10. System Security

To become LPIC-2 certified the candidate must be able to:

◉ perform advanced system administration, including common tasks regarding the Linux kernel, system startup and maintenance;

◉ perform advanced Management of block storage and file systems as well as advanced networking and authentication and system security, including firewall and VPN;

◉ install and configure fundamental network services, including DHCP, DNS,  SSH, Web servers, file servers using FTP, NFS and Samba, email delivery; and

◉ supervise assistants and advise management on automation and purchases.

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201-450: Linux Engineer - 201 (LPIC-2 201)

202-450: Linux Engineer - 202 (LPIC-2 202)

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LPIC 1 – Linux Administrator

This certification enables a candidate to perform command-line maintenance tasks, install and configure a Linux system, and its basic networking. It validates a candidate’s ability to manage a real-world system administration. This certification does not require any prerequisites. The validity of this certification is 5 years. A candidate is required to pass both 101 and 102 exams to qualify for the certification. The main topics covered by this certification are:

1. System Architecture
2. Linux Installation
3. Package Management
4. GNU and Unix Commands
5. Linux Filesystems, Filesystem Hierarchy Standard and Devices
6. Shell & Shell Scripting
7. Desktops and Interfaces.
8. Administration
9. System Services
10. Fundamentals of Networking
11. Security

To become LPIC-1 certified the candidate must be able to:

◉ understand the architecture of a Linux system;

◉ install and maintain a Linux workstation, including X11 and setup it up as a network client;

◉ work at the Linux command line, including common GNU and Unix commands;

◉ handle files and access permissions as well as system security; and

◉ perform easy maintenance tasks: help users, add users to a larger system, backup and restore, shutdown and reboot.

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101-500: Linux Administrator - 101 (LPIC-1 101)

102-500: Linux Administrator - 102 (LPIC-1 102)

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Exploring the Linux locate command

The Linux locate command lets you easily find files in the filesystem. It works by maintaining a system-wide database of "all files which are publicly accessible". The database itself is updated periodically by a background process. Because of this approach it returns results much faster than the find command, which only looks for files when you tell it to. Depending on your system, the locate command may need to be configured initially, or it may be pre-configured to work out of the box.

The Linux locate command is easy to use. If you want to find a file named "foo", just use this locate syntax:

locate foo

The locate command returns all files it knows whose name contains the string "foo", like "foo1", "foobar", etc.

You can also use the usual filename wildcard characters, including ? and *. For instance, this locate example command will list every Java file on your system:

locate "*.java"

(Be prepared, that can be a very long list.)

Finally, you can also perform a case-insensitive search using the locate command with the -i argument, like this locate command example:

locate -i "*.java"

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vi/vim delete commands and examples

vi/vim editor FAQ: Can you share some example vi/vim delete commands?

The vim editor can be just a little difficult to get started with, so I thought I’d share some more vim commands here today, specifically some commands about how to delete text in vi/vim. (vim is the modern version of the older vi.)

vi/vim delete commands - quick reference

A lot of times all people need is a quick reference, so I’ll start with a quick reference of vim delete commands:

x   - delete current character

dw  - delete current word

dd  - delete current line

5dd - delete five lines

d$  - delete to end of line

d0  - delete to beginning of line

:1,.d

delete to beginning of file

:.,$d

delete to end of file

If those commands don’t make sense on their own, the next sections will provide a brief description of each vim delete command.

vim delete character command

When you’re in “command mode” in the vim editor (just hit the [Esc] key and you’ll be there) and you want to delete the character at the current cursor position, just use the vim delete character command -- the lowercase letter x -- like this:

x

That command deletes the character at your current cursor position. If instead you want to delete ten characters, you can press the letter x ten times, or you can use this command instead:

10x

vim delete word commands

When you’re in command mode in the vi editor and you want to delete the current word, use the vi delete word command:

dw

Just like the delete character command, if you want to delete the next five words, just precede the dw command with the number 5, like this:

5dw

vim delete line commands

When you’re in command mode in the vi editor and you want to delete the current line, use the vi delete line command:

dd

Just like the delete character and delete word commands, if you want to delete the next five lines, just precede the dd command with the number 5, like this:

5dd

delete to end of line or beginning of line

To delete all the characters from your current cursor position to the beginning of the current line, use the d0 command, like this:

d0

Similarly, to delete from your current cursor position to the end of the current line, use the d$ command, like this:

d$

Whenever you’re working with vi, the letter 0 (zero) typically refers to the beginning of the current line or the beginning of the file, and the $ character typically refers to the end of the current line or end of file, so I find these commands fairly easy to remember.

delete to beginning or end of file

To delete all the lines from the beginning of the file to your current cursor position in vim, use this command:

:1,.d

That command can be read as “From line 1 to the current position, delete”, or if you prefer, “Delete from line 1 to the current line position.”

Similarly, to delete everything from the current line to the end of the file, use this vim delete command:

:.,$d

Again, that can be read as “From the current position to the end of file, delete.” 

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