What does the LPIC-1: Linux Administrator path on CertGrid cover?

33 hands-on guides across 13 tracks, about 621 minutes of reading in total. The LPI first level: both package families, side by side. Each guide is a walkthrough with real commands and real output rather than a summary.

Are these hands-on labs or written guides?

Written guides built around commands you run yourself. Every step shows the command and the output you should see, so you can follow along on your own machine or cluster and check each result as you go. CertGrid does not host a live terminal or a managed cluster - you bring the environment, and the guide tells you exactly what to do in it.

Do I need my own environment to follow along?

Yes, and that is deliberate. The guides are written against real systems, and the value is in running the commands rather than reading them. Most guides say up front what they assume you have - a Linux host, a cluster, a database - and several start by setting that up.

Can I read any of the LPIC-1: Linux Administrator guides for free?

Yes. 6 of the 33 guides are free to read with no account and no payment, and the remaining 27 need path access.

Does buying a CertGrid practice exam unlock these guides?

Yes. Path access to these guides is included when you own the matching CertGrid practice exam, and it is also sold on its own if you only want the guides.

How much does access to the LPIC-1: Linux Administrator path cost?

One-time access is $7.99. That covers all 27 paid guides in this path, including any added to it later.

LPIC-1 Guides, Labs and Troubleshooting

Start Here3 guides

Two exams, the 200-800 scale, and both package families from the first page.

Concepts 14 min

LPIC-1 exam format and topic weights

Two papers, both required - and how to tell, in one command, which kind of machine you have been dropped onto.

Both exams

Updated 29 Aug 2026
Concepts 15 min

LPIC-1 lab: Debian and RPM package families

dpkg and rpm answering the same three questions - and the places their answers do not line up.

Both exams

Updated 29 Aug 2026
Concepts 15 min

Finding your way on an unfamiliar machine

Why which can lie to you, what decides which program runs, and how to read a manual page you did not know existed.

Both exams

Updated 29 Aug 2026

101: System Architecture3 guides

Firmware and boot, runlevels and targets, kernel modules, hardware. Weight 8.

Concepts 18 min

Boot, firmware, and what the kernel was told

Find out whether a machine booted UEFI or BIOS, read the parameters it was handed, and see where 3.6 seconds of startup actually went.

101-500 - Topic 101 System Architecture (weight 8)

Updated 29 Aug 2026
Concepts 17 min

Targets, runlevels, and what the kernel found

What replaced runlevels, why runlevel is not even installed, and how to inventory hardware from files that do not exist on any disk.

101-500 - Topic 101 System Architecture (weight 8)

Updated 29 Aug 2026
Hands-on Lab 22 min

Kernel modules, devices and udev

What the kernel has loaded, where those modules live as files, and how a device node and an interface name come to exist at all.

101-500 - Topic 101 System Architecture (weight 8)

Updated 31 Aug 2026

101: Installation and Packages3 guides

Disk layout, bootloaders, shared libraries, dpkg and rpm side by side. Weight 12.

Hands-on Lab 18 min Paid

dpkg and rpm, the low-level tools

What each family's base tool can tell you about an installed package - and the one verb Debian has that RPM does not.

101-500 - Topic 102 Installation and Packages (weight 12)

Updated 29 Aug 2026
Configuration 15 min Paid

Repositories, and verifying what is installed

Where each family keeps its sources, and how to prove a binary still matches the package that delivered it.

101-500 - Topic 102 Installation and Packages (weight 12)

Updated 29 Aug 2026
Hands-on Lab 24 min Paid

Shared libraries and what a binary needs

What a program loads before it runs, the three places the loader looks, and which one silently wins.

101-500 - Topic 102 Installation and Packages (weight 12)

Updated 31 Aug 2026

101: GNU and Unix Commands5 guides

The shell, streams and pipes, regular expressions, text processing. Weight 23.

Hands-on Lab 16 min Paid

Streams, pipes and redirection

Which stream a pipe actually carries, and why the order of > and 2>&1 changes the answer.

101-500 - Topic 103 GNU and Unix Commands (weight 23)

Updated 29 Aug 2026
Hands-on Lab 18 min Paid

Regular expressions and the text tools

grep, cut, sort, uniq, sed and awk against one small file - and where xargs becomes necessary.

101-500 - Topic 103 GNU and Unix Commands (weight 23)

Updated 29 Aug 2026
Hands-on Lab 20 min Paid

Processes, signals and job control

Find a process, stop it politely, stop it rudely, and read the exit status that tells you which happened.

101-500 - Topic 103 GNU and Unix Commands (weight 23)

Updated 29 Aug 2026
Hands-on Lab 24 min Paid

The filters that process text streams

The commands objective 103.2 names, on one file - including the two whose output is wrong unless something else runs first.

101-500 - Topic 103 GNU and Unix Commands (weight 23)

Updated 31 Aug 2026
Hands-on Lab 26 min Paid

Archives, cpio, dd, and the globs the shell expands

Four archive formats measured against each other, cpio in all three modes, and a glob that behaves differently in two shells on the same machine.

101-500 - Topic 103 GNU and Unix Commands (weight 23)

Updated 31 Aug 2026

101: Devices and Filesystems3 guides

Partitions, integrity, mounts, quotas, permissions and the FHS. Weight 15.

Hands-on Lab 20 min Paid

Partitions, filesystems and fstab

From a bare disk to a filesystem that mounts itself at boot - and why the fstab line uses a UUID.

101-500 - Topic 104 Devices and Filesystems (weight 15)

Updated 29 Aug 2026
Concepts 14 min Paid

Why fstab uses UUIDs, and checking a filesystem

What makes a device name unreliable, the identifiers that are not, and how to run fsck safely.

101-500 - Topic 104 Devices and Filesystems (weight 15)

Updated 29 Aug 2026
Hands-on Lab 24 min Paid

Permissions, ownership, and the two kinds of link

The mode a file gets and why, the three bits above the nine - including one that survives a numeric chmod - and what a link really is.

101-500 - Topic 104 Devices and Filesystems (weight 15)

Updated 31 Aug 2026

102: Shells and Scripting3 guides

Customising the environment and writing scripts that survive review. Weight 8.

Hands-on Lab 19 min Paid

Variables, scope and exit status

Why a variable set inside a script vanishes, when it does not, and the number a caller actually sees.

102-500 - Topic 105 Shells and Scripting (weight 8)

Updated 29 Aug 2026
Hands-on Lab 18 min Paid

Tests, loops, and the options that catch mistakes

The test operators that lose marks, why every variable gets quoted, and the two lines that turn a silent failure into a loud one.

102-500 - Topic 105 Shells and Scripting (weight 8)

Updated 29 Aug 2026
Hands-on Lab 26 min Paid

Login shells and which file is read

Three ways to start bash and three different sets of startup files - traced by making each file announce itself.

102-500 - Topic 105 Shells and Scripting (weight 8)

Updated 31 Aug 2026

102: Interfaces and Desktops1 guide

X, display managers and accessibility - the smallest topic on the exam. Weight 4.

Concepts 14 min Paid

The graphical stack that is not installed

Why a headless server still boots to graphical.target, and what X11 forwarding actually needs.

102-500 - Topic 106 Interfaces and Desktops (weight 4)

Updated 29 Aug 2026

102: Administrative Tasks3 guides

Accounts and groups, cron and systemd timers, locale and time. Weight 12.

Hands-on Lab 17 min Paid

Accounts, groups and password ageing

What actually happens when you add a user - three files, a skeleton directory, and the ageing fields most people never look at.

102-500 - Topic 107 Administrative Tasks (weight 12)

Updated 29 Aug 2026
Hands-on Lab 16 min Paid

Scheduling jobs with cron and systemd timers

The five fields, the extra one the system crontab has, and the timer that has replaced most of them.

102-500 - Topic 107 Administrative Tasks (weight 12)

Updated 29 Aug 2026
Hands-on Lab 24 min Paid

Locale, encoding, and what changes with it

Which variable wins, why the same four lines sort two different ways, and how many bytes an accented character takes.

102-500 - Topic 107 Administrative Tasks (weight 12)

Updated 31 Aug 2026

102: Essential System Services3 guides

Time synchronisation, logging, MTA basics and printing. Weight 12.

Hands-on Lab 18 min Paid

Time synchronisation and the system clock

Three different clocks, one of them a lie, and how to prove which one your machine is actually following.

102-500 - Topic 108 Essential System Services (weight 12)

Updated 29 Aug 2026
Hands-on Lab 19 min Paid

Logging, priorities and rotation

Filter a journal by unit, priority and time - and see exactly what logrotate would do before it does it.

102-500 - Topic 108 Essential System Services (weight 12)

Updated 29 Aug 2026
Hands-on Lab 20 min Paid

Mail transport, aliases and printing

Install an MTA, make an alias deliver to a real mailbox, and find out why lpstat says the scheduler is not running.

102-500 - Topic 108 Essential System Services (weight 12)

Updated 29 Aug 2026

102: Networking Fundamentals3 guides

Addressing, routing, name resolution and diagnosing a real fault. Weight 14.

Hands-on Lab 20 min Paid

Addresses, routes and what the mask decides

Read an interface, read a routing table, and predict which packets leave through the gateway before you send one.

102-500 - Topic 109 Networking Fundamentals (weight 14)

Updated 29 Aug 2026
Troubleshooting 19 min Paid

Name resolution, and diagnosing in the right order

Which source answers a name first, how to prove it, and the three checks that separate a network fault from a DNS one.

102-500 - Topic 109 Networking Fundamentals (weight 14)

Updated 29 Aug 2026
Concepts 20 min Paid

Ports, protocols, and the addresses to recognise

Where port names come from, why the same number answers differently for TCP and UDP, and the IPv6 addresses every interface already has.

102-500 - Topic 109 Networking Fundamentals (weight 14)

Updated 31 Aug 2026

102: Security2 guides

Host hardening, sudo, OpenSSH, GnuPG and file integrity. Weight 10.

Hands-on Lab 20 min Paid

SUID, sudo, and who can do what

Why passwd can write a file you cannot even read - and how to audit every program on the machine that has the same power.

102-500 - Topic 110 Security (weight 10)

Updated 29 Aug 2026
Hands-on Lab 18 min Paid

SSH posture, limits, and encrypting a file

Read the SSH server's effective configuration rather than its config file, and encrypt something with a key that never touches the disk.

102-500 - Topic 110 Security (weight 10)

Updated 29 Aug 2026

Readiness1 guide

Fill-in-the-blank questions, two 60-question papers, and the 500-of-800 mark.

Concepts 13 min Paid

Sitting two papers, and what to practise

How to prepare for an exam that asks you to type the answer, not recognise it.

Both exams

Updated 29 Aug 2026

Command Cheat Sheets1 sheet

Searchable references, with the dpkg and rpm spelling of each one.

Reference 11 min

LPIC-1 command cheat sheet

Both families, side by side, for every command that differs between them.

dpkg / rpm · apt / dnf

Updated 29 Aug 2026