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RHCSA (Red Hat Certified System Administrator)

Storage, SELinux, services and the shell, on Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

67 published guides

56 of 67 guides need path access. Unlock RHCSA path

67-guide Red Hat Certified System Administrator learning path · 67 published · about 881 min of reading · 13 learning tracks · reviewed 23 August 2026

Start Here3 guides

What EX200 actually asks, the three machines used throughout, and what RHEL 10 changed.

  1. Concepts 11 min

    RHCSA Exam Format and Objectives

    The published blueprint, the format, and the three things about how it is graded that decide whether you pass.

    EX200, RHEL 10

    Updated 23 Aug 2026

  2. Concepts 10 min

    RHCSA Practice Lab Machines

    One practice node, one utility server and a second client - and which objective needs which.

    RHEL 10 x3

    Updated 23 Aug 2026

  3. Hands-on Lab 13 min

    RHCSA on RHEL 10 Changes

    Five claims about RHEL 10 that circulate in study material, tested one at a time - and two of them are false.

    RHEL 10 vs the internet

    Updated 23 Aug 2026

Essential Tools8 guides

The shell, redirection, grep, links, permissions and finding the answer in the man pages.

  1. Hands-on Lab 13 min

    Shell Help and Command Discovery

    There is no internet in the exam. Learn the three documentation sources that are installed, and why keyword search misses the command you want.

    man -k, man -K

    Updated 23 Aug 2026

  2. Hands-on Lab 14 min

    Shell Redirection and Pipelines

    Send output where you want it - and find out why 2>&1 >file does not do what it looks like it does.

    2>&1

    Updated 23 Aug 2026

  3. Hands-on Lab 13 min

    grep and Regular Expressions

    Search text properly, and stop losing time to the fact that plain grep needs backslashes on +, ? and {}.

    grep -E

    Updated 23 Aug 2026

  4. Hands-on Lab 14 min

    Files, Directories and Links

    Copy, move and delete confidently, then see exactly what separates a hard link from a symlink by breaking both.

    ln vs ln -s

    Updated 23 Aug 2026

  5. Hands-on Lab 16 min

    Linux File and Directory Permissions

    Set permissions three ways, then find out why read on a directory is not enough to read the files in it.

    chmod 711

    Updated 23 Aug 2026

  6. Hands-on Lab 13 min

    Archive and Compression Tools

    Build and unpack archives in all three compression formats, and understand the warning tar prints about leading slashes before it costs you.

    tar -czf

    Updated 23 Aug 2026

  7. Hands-on Lab 15 min

    SSH, scp and rsync Transfers

    Run commands on another machine and move files between them - and stop guessing which of dir and dir/ rsync means.

    rsync -av src/ dst/

    Updated 23 Aug 2026

  8. Hands-on Lab 14 min

    Text Editing with Vim

    The editor you get on every Red Hat machine, the ways to write a file without one, and the swap file that makes a killed editor look like data loss.

    :wq

    Updated 23 Aug 2026

Managing Software5 guides

Repositories, dnf, rpm - and Flatpak, which is new to the RHEL 10 objectives.

  1. Hands-on Lab 13 min Paid

    Package Management with dnf

    Install, remove and above all *find* packages - including the query that answers "which package gives me this command".

    dnf provides

    Updated 23 Aug 2026

  2. Hands-on Lab 16 min Paid

    RPM Repository Configuration

    Write a repository file by hand, then break it two ways - because the error is what you will meet first, and one of the two produces no error at all.

    .repo

    Updated 23 Aug 2026

  3. Hands-on Lab 15 min Paid

    RPM Queries and Local Package Installation

    Interrogate the package database, then see exactly why rpm -i on a downloaded package fails where dnf install ./file.rpm succeeds.

    dnf install ./file.rpm

    Updated 23 Aug 2026

  4. Hands-on Lab 16 min Paid

    Flatpak Repositories and Applications

    Both new RHEL 10 objectives, on a real remote - including the two failures that stop a first attempt dead.

    flatpak remote-add

    Updated 23 Aug 2026

  5. Hands-on Lab 13 min Paid

    dnf Updates and Transaction History

    Check for updates, read the transaction log, and reverse a package operation you should not have run.

    dnf history undo

    Updated 23 Aug 2026

Users and Groups5 guides

Accounts, passwords and ageing, groups, and configuring privileged access.

  1. Hands-on Lab 14 min Paid

    User Account Management

    Build accounts the way the exam asks, and see what userdel leaves behind when you forget one flag.

    userdel -r

    Updated 23 Aug 2026

  2. Hands-on Lab 15 min Paid

    Passwords and Account Aging

    Set an ageing policy, and read /etc/shadow's nine fields well enough that you never need to guess what one means.

    chage -l

    Updated 23 Aug 2026

  3. Hands-on Lab 15 min Paid

    Group Membership Management

    Manage groups properly, and watch a single missing letter silently remove a user from every group they were in.

    usermod -aG

    Updated 23 Aug 2026

  4. Hands-on Lab 17 min Paid

    Privileged Access with sudo

    Grant root access safely with drop-in files - and see why a typo in sudoers fails open rather than safe.

    visudo -c

    Updated 23 Aug 2026

  5. Hands-on Lab 13 min Paid

    User Switching and Login Shells

    The difference between su and su -, measured - and where the system records who logged in.

    su - user

    Updated 23 Aug 2026

Operating Running Systems9 guides

Boot targets, breaking in to reset a password, processes, tuning profiles and journals.

  1. Hands-on Lab 12 min Paid

    Boot, Reboot and Shutdown

    The commands, and the flag that locks everyone out of the machine while claiming to do nothing.

    shutdown -c

    Updated 23 Aug 2026

  2. Hands-on Lab 13 min Paid

    systemd Targets and Boot Selection

    What a target is, how to change the default, and why isolate is a console command.

    set-default

    Updated 23 Aug 2026

  3. Hands-on Lab 16 min Paid

    Root Password Reset from Boot Loader

    Break into a machine whose root password nobody knows - and get the SELinux step right, which is where this goes wrong.

    rd.break

    Updated 23 Aug 2026

  4. Hands-on Lab 14 min Paid

    Process Discovery and Termination

    Identify what is eating the machine, then stop it - including the process that ignores your first attempt.

    ps --sort=-pcpu

    Updated 23 Aug 2026

  5. Hands-on Lab 11 min Paid

    Process Priority with nice and renice

    Change how much CPU a process gets - and find out exactly which direction an unprivileged user is allowed to move it.

    renice -n 10

    Updated 23 Aug 2026

  6. Hands-on Lab 11 min Paid

    System Tuning with tuned

    Switch tuning profiles, and prove they do something by watching a kernel parameter change underneath them.

    tuned-adm profile

    Updated 23 Aug 2026

  7. Hands-on Lab 13 min Paid

    systemd Journal and System Logs

    Find the log line that explains a failure, by unit, priority, time or kernel.

    journalctl -u

    Updated 23 Aug 2026

  8. Hands-on Lab 15 min Paid

    Persistent systemd Journal Configuration

    Keep the logs that explain a crash - proved by rebooting the machine and reading them afterwards.

    Storage=persistent

    Updated 23 Aug 2026

  9. Hands-on Lab 14 min Paid

    systemd Service State and Enablement

    The distinction that costs more exam marks than anything else in the blueprint, shown as two independent pieces of state.

    enable --now

    Updated 23 Aug 2026

Local Storage6 guides

GPT partitions, physical volumes, volume groups, logical volumes and swap.

  1. Hands-on Lab 17 min Paid

    GPT Partitioning with parted

    Create and delete GPT partitions - and find out why a brand-new partition can report a filesystem you never made.

    parted -s -a optimal

    Updated 23 Aug 2026

  2. Hands-on Lab 10 min Paid

    LVM Physical Volumes

    Turn a partition into something LVM can use, and read the three commands that tell you what it has.

    pvcreate

    Updated 23 Aug 2026

  3. Hands-on Lab 11 min Paid

    LVM Volume Groups

    Pool physical volumes into a group, grow it, and understand the extent size that everything above it is measured in.

    vgextend

    Updated 23 Aug 2026

  4. Hands-on Lab 12 min Paid

    LVM Logical Volumes

    Carve a volume group into usable devices - and see LVM tell you it is rounding your size up.

    lvcreate -l 100%FREE

    Updated 23 Aug 2026

  5. Hands-on Lab 16 min Paid

    Persistent Mounts with UUID and Label

    Write an fstab entry that survives a reboot - and verify it before the reboot, which is the whole point.

    findmnt --verify

    Updated 23 Aug 2026

  6. Hands-on Lab 14 min Paid

    Non-Destructive Swap Configuration

    Grow a running machine's swap on a logical volume or a partition, and control which swap area gets used first.

    swapon --show

    Updated 23 Aug 2026

File Systems6 guides

XFS, ext4 and VFAT, mounting by UUID, NFS, autofs and diagnosing permission faults.

  1. Hands-on Lab 16 min Paid

    XFS, ext4 and VFAT Filesystems

    Make and mount all three filesystems the objective names, and learn the one difference between them that changes how you size a volume.

    mkfs.xfs

    Updated 23 Aug 2026

  2. Hands-on Lab 16 min Paid

    NFS Mounts and Client Packages

    Mount a remote share properly - starting with the missing package whose error message names neither NFS nor a package.

    mount -t nfs

    Updated 23 Aug 2026

  3. Hands-on Lab 14 min Paid

    On-Demand Mounting with autofs

    Mount on demand instead of at boot, and see the mount appear between two commands.

    /etc/auto.master.d

    Updated 23 Aug 2026

  4. Hands-on Lab 13 min Paid

    Extending LVM Volumes and Filesystems

    Grow a mounted filesystem with no downtime - and see what happens when you grow the volume and forget the filesystem.

    lvextend -r

    Updated 23 Aug 2026

  5. Troubleshooting 14 min Paid

    Linux Permission Troubleshooting

    Find out why a file cannot be read when the file's own permissions are perfect - in one command.

    namei -l

    Updated 23 Aug 2026

  6. Hands-on Lab 12 min Paid

    Special Permissions: SUID, SGID and Sticky Bit

    The fourth permission digit: what each of the three bits does, and why /tmp is safe to share.

    chmod 3770

    Updated 23 Aug 2026

Deploy and Maintain5 guides

at, cron and timer units, services at boot, time sync and the bootloader.

  1. Hands-on Lab 13 min Paid

    Scheduled Tasks with cron

    Five fields, three places to put them, and the sixth field that only some of them take.

    crontab -e

    Updated 23 Aug 2026

  2. Hands-on Lab 9 min Paid

    One-Time Jobs with at

    Run something once, at a time you choose, and be able to show it is queued.

    atq

    Updated 23 Aug 2026

  3. Hands-on Lab 13 min Paid

    systemd Timer Units

    The modern scheduler: a unit pair, journal integration, and a calendar expression you can test before trusting.

    OnCalendar

    Updated 23 Aug 2026

  4. Hands-on Lab 11 min Paid

    Time Synchronization with Chrony

    Point a machine at a time server and prove it is actually synchronised, not merely configured.

    chronyc sources

    Updated 23 Aug 2026

  5. Hands-on Lab 15 min Paid

    Boot Loader Configuration

    Add a kernel argument, choose a default kernel, and change the menu timeout - without breaking the one thing you cannot fix from a running system.

    grubby --update-kernel=ALL

    Updated 23 Aug 2026

Basic Networking5 guides

IPv4 and IPv6 with nmcli, name resolution, and restricting access with firewalld.

  1. Hands-on Lab 15 min Paid

    IPv4 Configuration with nmcli

    Set an address, gateway and DNS on a connection profile - and learn why the change does nothing until you bring it up.

    nmcli con mod

    Updated 23 Aug 2026

  2. Hands-on Lab 10 min Paid

    IPv6 Network Configuration

    The same commands with a different prefix - and the two IPv6 addresses every interface has whether you configured them or not.

    ipv6.method manual

    Updated 23 Aug 2026

  3. Hands-on Lab 12 min Paid

    Hostname and Name Resolution

    Set a hostname, resolve a name, and use the one lookup tool that consults the same sources your applications do.

    getent hosts

    Updated 23 Aug 2026

  4. Hands-on Lab 16 min Paid

    firewalld Zones, Services and Ports

    Open a port so it stays open - and see what happens when you forget one of the two flags.

    --permanent --reload

    Updated 23 Aug 2026

  5. Hands-on Lab 9 min Paid

    Network Services at Boot

    Two separate settings must both be right, and only one of them is a service.

    connection.autoconnect

    Updated 23 Aug 2026

Security and SELinux8 guides

Key-based SSH, default permissions, and the SELinux work that fails the most candidates.

  1. Hands-on Lab 15 min Paid

    SSH Key-Based Authentication

    Set it up in three commands, then break it twice - once on the server and once on the client - because that is how you will meet it.

    ssh-copy-id

    Updated 23 Aug 2026

  2. Hands-on Lab 10 min Paid

    Default Permissions and umask

    Why a new file is 644 and a new directory is 755, and where to change it so it sticks.

    umask 027

    Updated 23 Aug 2026

  3. Hands-on Lab 10 min Paid

    SELinux Enforcing and Permissive Modes

    Switch between enforcing and permissive, and understand why one of the three states needs a reboot to leave.

    setenforce 0

    Updated 23 Aug 2026

  4. Hands-on Lab 11 min Paid

    SELinux File and Process Contexts

    Four fields, and the one that actually decides whether an access is allowed.

    ls -Z

    Updated 23 Aug 2026

  5. Hands-on Lab 16 min Paid

    Restoring Default SELinux Contexts

    Turn a 403 into a 200 by changing nothing but a label - and see why chcon is the wrong answer.

    semanage fcontext -a

    Updated 23 Aug 2026

  6. Hands-on Lab 13 min Paid

    SELinux Port Labels

    Why a service refuses to bind to a port that is free, and the one command that fixes it.

    semanage port -a

    Updated 23 Aug 2026

  7. Hands-on Lab 10 min Paid

    SELinux Booleans

    Switch on a rule policy already contains - and do not forget the flag that makes it survive a reboot.

    setsebool -P

    Updated 23 Aug 2026

  8. Troubleshooting 15 min Paid

    SELinux Denial Troubleshooting

    Find the denial, read the four fields that matter, and pick the right one of three fixes - starting with the search command that returns nothing.

    ausearch --input-logs

    Updated 23 Aug 2026

Shell Scripts5 guides

Conditionals, loops, positional parameters and acting on the output of commands.

  1. Hands-on Lab 9 min Paid

    Running Shell Scripts

    The shebang, the execute bit, and why ./script works when script does not.

    #!/usr/bin/bash

    Updated 23 Aug 2026

  2. Hands-on Lab 12 min Paid

    Shell Conditionals with if and test

    Branch on files, strings, numbers and exit status - and see what an unquoted variable does to [ ].

    [ "$V" = "x" ]

    Updated 23 Aug 2026

  3. Hands-on Lab 12 min Paid

    Shell Loops with for, while and until

    Iterate over lists, ranges, files and command output - and find out why {1..$TOP} is not a range.

    while read -r

    Updated 23 Aug 2026

  4. Hands-on Lab 11 min Paid

    Shell Script Arguments

    Read arguments, check you were given enough, and understand why "$@" is right and $* usually is not.

    "$@"

    Updated 23 Aug 2026

  5. Hands-on Lab 13 min Paid

    Command Output in Shell Scripts

    Capture output into a variable, do arithmetic on it, branch on the command's status, and read it line by line.

    $(command)

    Updated 23 Aug 2026

Exam Craft2 guides

Surviving three hours: order of work, verifying your own answers, and what survives a reboot.

  1. Best Practices 13 min Paid

    RHCSA Reboot Persistence Checklist

    The one checklist that decides most of your score, with each item shown failing first.

    --permanent

    Updated 23 Aug 2026

  2. Best Practices 11 min Paid

    RHCSA Exam Time Management

    How to spend the time, measured against how long the work actually takes on a real machine.

    180 minutes

    Updated 23 Aug 2026

Command Cheat Sheets2 sheets

Searchable references for day-to-day work and exam day.

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