RHCSA — Red Hat Certified System Administrator Guide

The RHCSA (EX200) is the premier Linux system administration certification for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). It's a 100% hands-on, performance-based exam that tests real-world Linux administration skills.

Exam Overview

Detail	Value
Exam Code	EX200
Provider	Red Hat
Format	100% hands-on (no multiple choice)
Length	2.5 hours
Passing Score	70%+ (based on automated scoring)
Validity	3 years
Price	~$400 USD
Prerequisites	None — Linux experience recommended

Domain Breakdown

Domain	Weight
Understand and Use Essential Tools	23%
Operate Running Systems	14%
Configure Local Storage	14%
Create and Configure Filesystems	12%
Deploy, Configure, and Maintain Systems	19%
Basic Networking	12%
Manage Users and Groups	5%
Manage Security	14%
Manage Containers	17%

(Note: Categories overlap; Red Hat does not publish exact domain weights — this is based on the current EX200 objectives)

Domain Deep Dives

1. Understand and Use Essential Tools

Shell and Command Line

Bash shell — history, tab completion, command chaining (;, &&, ||)
Input/Output redirection — >, >>, <, 2>, &>, |, tee
Globbing — *, ?, [abc], [!abc], {a,b,c}

Documentation

man and info pages — Searching with /, man -k
/usr/share/doc/ — Package-specific documentation
--help flag

Text Processing

grep, egrep, fgrep — Searching with regex
sed — Stream editor (substitution, deletion, insertion)
awk — Text processing and reporting
cut, sort, uniq, wc, tr, paste, diff, vimdiff

vim

Modes — Normal, Insert, Visual, Command-line
Navigation (h,j,k,l, w, b, 0, $, G, :42)
Editing (i, a, o, x, dd, yy, p, u, Ctrl+r)
Search and replace (:s/old/new/g)

Archives and Compression

tar — Create (-cvf), extract (-xvf), list (-tvf)
gzip, bzip2, xz — Compression and decompression
star, cpio

2. Operate Running Systems

Boot Process

BIOS/UEFI → Boot loader (GRUB2) → Kernel → initramfs → systemd
GRUB2 configuration — /boot/grub2/grub.cfg (don't edit directly), /etc/default/grub, grub2-mkconfig
Boot parameters — rd.break (emergency mode), systemd.unit=rescue.target
systemctl — list-units, list-unit-files, start, stop, restart, enable, disable, status, isolate

systemd Targets

poweroff.target, rescue.target, multi-user.target, graphical.target, reboot.target
Default target — systemctl get-default, systemctl set-default
Emergency mode vs Rescue mode — Rescue (basic system, some services), Emergency (bare minimal)

Process Management

ps — ps aux, ps -ef, ps -eo pid,ppid,cmd,%mem,%cpu
top / htop — Interactive process monitoring
kill, killall, pkill — Signals (SIGTERM=15, SIGKILL=9, SIGHUP=1, SIGINT=2)
nice, renice — Process priority (-20 to 19)
jobs, fg, bg, nohup, screen, tmux

Scheduling

at — One-time scheduled tasks (at now + 2 hours, atq, atrm)
cron — Recurring tasks (crontab -e, /etc/crontab, /etc/cron.d/)
systemd timers — Modern replacement for cron (.timer + .service units)

Logging

journalctl — View systemd journal (-u, -f, --since, --until, -p)
rsyslog — /etc/rsyslog.conf, /etc/rsyslog.d/, log rotation (logrotate)
/var/log/ — messages, secure, boot.log, maillog, cron

3. Configure Local Storage

Disk Partitioning

fdisk — MBR partitioning (2TB max)
gdisk — GPT partitioning (larger disks)
parted — Both MBR and GPT, scriptable
lsblk, blkid — View block devices and UUIDs

LVM (Logical Volume Manager)

PV → VG → LV chain
pvcreate, pvdisplay, pvremove
vgcreate, vgextend, vgreduce, vgdisplay
lvcreate, lvextend, lvreduce, lvdisplay, lvremove
Resizing — lvextend -L +10G /dev/vg/lv + resize2fs or xfs_growfs
Thin provisioning — lvcreate --type thin-pool, --type thin

Stratis (New)

Pool-based storage management, similar to ZFS/Btrfs
stratis pool create, stratis filesystem create, stratis snapshot

VDO (Virtual Data Optimizer)

Deduplication + compression for storage
vdo create --name=vdo1 --device=/dev/sdb --vdoLogicalSize=500G

4. Create and Configure Filesystems

Filesystem Types

ext4 — Journaling, max 16TB file, 1EB volume (default for many distros)
XFS — High-performance, max 8EB file, good for large files (RHEL default)
ext3, ext2 — Legacy
mkfs.ext4, mkfs.xfs, mkfs -t ext4

Mounting

mount, umount — Temporary mounts
/etc/fstab — Persistent mounts (device, mount point, fs type, options, dump, fsck order)
Mount options — defaults, noatime, noexec, nosuid, ro, rw
findmnt, mount -a — Mount all fstab entries

Swap

Swap partition — mkswap, swapon, swapoff
Swap file — dd if=/dev/zero of=/swapfile bs=1M count=4096, mkswap, swapon

Filesystem Features

tune2fs — Adjust ext4 parameters (reserved blocks, check interval)
xfs_admin — XFS parameters (label, UUID)
fsck, e2fsck, xfs_repair — Check and repair filesystems

5. Deploy, Configure, and Maintain Systems

Package Management (RHEL 8/9)

RPM — rpm -ivh, -Uvh, -e, -qa, -qf, -ql, -qi, -V
DNF — dnf install, remove, update, search, info, groupinstall, repolist, history
YUM — Legacy (symlink to dnf), still works
Repositories — /etc/yum.repos.d/*.repo

Kernel Management

uname -r — Current kernel version
dnf update kernel — Install new kernel (boots into new version, keeps old)
/boot/ — vmlinuz, initramfs, System.map
dracut — Build initramfs (initramfs-<version>.img)

System Updates

dnf update — Update all packages
dnf upgrade — Similar to update (handles obsolete packages)
dnf check-update — List available updates without installing

6. Basic Networking

Network Configuration

nmcli — NetworkManager CLI (nmcli dev status, nmcli con show, nmcli con add/up/down)
nmtui — Text-based network configuration UI
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ — Legacy (still supported)
ip addr, ip link, ip route, ip neigh — IP commands (replaces ifconfig)
ss -tulpn — Socket statistics (replaces netstat)

Hostname and DNS

hostnamectl set-hostname — Set system hostname
/etc/hosts — Static hostname resolution
/etc/resolv.conf — DNS nameservers (managed by NetworkManager)
systemd-resolved — Modern DNS resolver

Network Bonding

nmcli con add type bond — Link aggregation
Modes — active-backup, balance-rr, balance-xor, 802.3ad (LACP)
Bond slaves — nmcli con add type ethernet slave-type bond con-name bond-slave-1 ifname eth1 master bond0

Firewall

firewalld — Dynamic firewall management
firewall-cmd — --add-service, --add-port, --add-source, --permanent, --zone
Default zones — public, internal, trusted, dmz, drop, block

7. Manage Users and Groups

User Management

/etc/passwd — User accounts (login:x:UID:GID:comment:home:shell)
/etc/shadow — Hashed passwords, expiration info
/etc/group — Group definitions
useradd, usermod, userdel
groupadd, groupmod, groupdel
passwd, chage, chpasswd

Default Files

/etc/default/useradd — Default values for new users
/etc/login.defs — Password aging, UID/GID ranges
/etc/skel/ — Template files for new home directories

Privilege Escalation

su — Switch user (requires target user's password)
sudo — Execute commands as another user (configured in /etc/sudoers)
/etc/sudoers.d/ — Drop-in configuration files
visudo — Safe editing of sudoers file

8. Manage Security

SELinux

Context-based security — Every process and file has a security context
Modes — enforcing (default), permissive (log only), disabled
getenforce, setenforce 0|1, sestatus
/etc/selinux/config — Permanent mode configuration
ls -Z, ps -Z — View contexts
chcon, restorecon, semanage fcontext — Manage contexts
sealert — Analyze denials, ausearch -m avc — Search audit logs
Booleans — getsebool, setsebool, semanage boolean

SSH Security

/etc/ssh/sshd_config — PermitRootLogin, PasswordAuthentication, PubkeyAuthentication, Port
Key-based authentication — ssh-keygen, ssh-copy-id, ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
sshd -t — Test configuration before restarting

Access Control

File permissions — chmod (u/g/o/a, r/w/x, 755, 644), chown, chgrp
Special permissions — SUID (4xxx), SGID (2xxx), Sticky bit (1xxx)
umask — Default permission mask
ACLs — getfacl, setfacl -m u:user:rwx file

9. Manage Containers (17% — New in RHEL 9)

Podman

Daemonless container engine (no Docker daemon needed)
podman run, podman pull, podman ps, podman images, podman rm, podman rmi
podman exec, podman logs, podman inspect
Rootless containers (run as non-root user)

Container Images

podman search, podman pull — from registries (registry.access.redhat.com, docker.io, quay.io)
Containerfile / Dockerfile — Build custom images
FROM, RUN, COPY, ADD, CMD, ENTRYPOINT, EXPOSE, ENV, USER
podman build -t my-image .

Systemd Integration

podman generate systemd — Generate systemd unit files for containers
podman run --restart=always — Auto-restart container

Container Storage

Volumes — podman volume create, podman run -v
Mounts — --mount type=bind,src=/host,dst=/container
Rootless storage — ~/.local/share/containers/storage/

Skopeo and Buildah

skopeo inspect — Inspect remote images without pulling
buildah bud — Alternative build tool

Essential RHEL Commands

# System
hostnamectl status
timedatectl list-timezones
localectl list-locales

# Storage
lsblk -f
df -hT
du -sh /var/

# LVM
pvcreate /dev/sdb
vgcreate vg_data /dev/sdb
lvcreate -n lv_data -L 50G vg_data
mkfs.xfs /dev/vg_data/lv_data

# Containers
podman pull registry.access.redhat.com/ubi9/ubi
podman run -d --name web -p 8080:80 nginx
podman exec -it web /bin/bash

# SELinux
ls -Z /var/www/html
restorecon -Rv /var/www/html
semanage fcontext -a -t httpd_sys_content_t "/web(/.*)?"

# Networking
nmcli con add type ethernet ifname eth0 con-name static-eth0 ipv4.address 192.168.1.100/24
firewall-cmd --add-service=http --permanent

Study Tips

Practice, practice, practice — This is a performance-based exam. You must know the commands by heart
Use VMs — Install RHEL 9 in a VM and practice all objectives repeatedly
Master LVM — Creating, extending, reducing logical volumes is frequently tested
Know SELinux — Context management, booleans, troubleshooting denials are common
Understand containers with Podman — New to RHCSA, heavily tested in RHEL 9
Time management — 2.5 hours for ~15–20 tasks. Skip hard ones and come back
Read tasks carefully — Understand exactly what's being asked (reboot persistence matters!)
Know systemd — Managing services, targets, timers, and the boot process

Practice Questions

Test your knowledge with our RHCSA practice questions — 50+ hands-on style questions covering all exam objectives.

Start Practice →

Career Impact

RHCSA is the standard for Linux administration:

Linux Administrator — $70k–$100k
Systems Administrator — $75k–$105k
DevOps Engineer — $100k–$140k
Cloud Administrator — $85k–$120k

Next: RHCE (Red Hat Certified Engineer — Ansible Automation)

RHCSA Exam Guide — Red Hat Certified System Administrator (EX200)