On Wed, 26 Jan 2000, Chuck Mead wrote:
> On Wed, 26 Jan 2000, [EMAIL PROTECTED] said:
>
> >TOPIC 2: Network Administration
> >
> >Network Administration was covered during the Level 1 exam. While
> >network connectivity was certainly covered, services used to administer,
> >maintain, debug and create this capability were not addressed. In level
> >2, candidates should be well versed in network administration tools such
> >as ifconfig, route, netstat, whois, nslookup, dig and be capable to use
> >them efficiently when designing, implementing, investigating and
> >debugging network related issues.
> >
> >In Level 1, candidates are familiar with interfacing with popular
> >networking services such has HTTP, FTP, file servers, etc. In level 2,
> >however, candidates must be proficient in the configuration,
> >troubleshooting, and maintenance of the equipment and services
> >responsible for hosting these applications. Level 2 candidates should
> >cover Apache, Samba, sendmail, autofs, and proxy. In addition,
> >candidates should be introduced to network services such as NFS, NIS,
> >POP3 and IMAP, FTP, DNS, and DHCP. Completing these topics in the Level
> >2 Network Administration topic will allow the advanced certification
> >levels to focus on how these services work together to provide corporate
> >enterprise solutions, as well as how these services work with other
> >technologies. At Level 2, candidates will be expected to fully
> >understand, install, configure, maintain and troubleshoot these
> >services, but at level 3 will be required to engineer them into large
> >scale network solutions, as well as fully customize, streamline, and
> >implement them.
>
> It's my opinion that the Level III exams are intended to provide a certification
> avenue for high level Linux folk who want to specialize. For this reason the
> rubber meets the road in *THIS* level for the enterprise level services you've
> mentioned above. We are going to need to pound NFS/NIS, Samba, DNS, IMAP, DHCP,
> SMTP, and I suggest that we add OpenLDAP into the mix. It's being included with
> many of the distro's now and Novell is kicking their contributions out under OSS
> licenses of some type. It may seem like an altogether specialized area but I
> think that we should at least examine the issue to see where it leads.
>
> What am I leaving out???
>
LDAP? Hmn.. Definitely something to survey on, but I think LDAP, though
being packaged, isn't commonly used by Level II sysadmins. It's typically
in a larger environment, or used by specialized individuals. Definitely
fit in something Level III related.. Thoughts?
> >Topic 3: Kernel
> >
> >Kernels were discussed in Level 1 to certify understanding of kernel
> >operations, such as interfacing kernel options during boot, and more. In
> >Level 2, candidates should be capable of customizing, compiling, and
> >patching kernels. In addition, candidates should be familiar with kernel
> >modules and how they interact with the system. For levels beyond Level
> >2, LPI will be able to focus on performance tuning, security tuning, and
> >even kernel development.
>
> I think we will have to include some kernel performance and security issues in
> Level II. Development can wait (if we ever get to it at all).
>
Those things are mentioned for where level 3 is expected to go. Minor
performance and security related things for the kernel will be addressed,
but areas focusing on them are specialized, and left available for level
3+
>
> >Topic 5: Security
> >
> >In Level 1, candidates were expected to view system logs and such to
> >evaluate security issues such as invalid logins, root hacks, and more.
> >In level 2, candidates should be familiar with security access
> >prevention using concepts such as tcp_wrappers, ipchains, and being able
> >to evaluate system risks with unneeded services on a system with inetd
> >and so forth. Completing this level of certification allows future
> >certifications to focus on implementing network security devices using
> >Linux, and engineering Linux based security options with other security
> >technologies.
>
> I agree with this... I particularly like the ipchains inclusion... we need to
> remember that ipchains is a great tool for controlling and securing
single
> servers as well as a firewall tool for entire networks.
>
Absolutely.
> I am going to bring it up now... what do folks think about testing xinetd? It is
> much more configurable than wrappers and provides a higher level of security
> when properly implemented!
>
Hmn.. I have no opinion one way or other here. I've never used it, nor
heard of it myself. Is that distribution independant?
> >Topic 6: Other Hardware
> >
> >Level 2 candidates are expected to be familiar with working with Linux
> >on laptop and PCMCIA hardware including being able to affectively use
> >APM to manage power consumption. A Level 2 candidate should be
> >comfortable with non IDE hardware, such as SCSI interfaces. In addition,
> >candidates should be accustomed to installing and using specialized
> >peripherals such as cdrom writers, tape backup units, and more. This
> >level of testing will allow advanced certification levels to incorporate
> >user business strategies into corporate solutions.
>
> I'm going to presume that we're interested in the uses of this hardware and how
> to enable it's interaction with the OS. Otherwise we would/will be getting into
> compatibility and driver issues across distro lines... a very ugly situation!
>
It will be difficult to test on, I agree.. but definitelly necessary.
> Perhaps we may want to get into some RAID here... we *are* talking about
> advanced hardware devices here! We should also discuss software RAID as the
> raid1 implementation in the 0.90 raidtools is very nice and quite stable!
>
I had actually mentioned that... in pre-discussion versions of this draft.
Every whom I know deals with RAID is at a specialist of level III level. I
thought RAID would be better served in a level III, as trying to cover it
well enough in level 2, would heavily increase the size of the exam.
Thoughts?
- Kara Pritchard, RHCE
LPI Assistant Director for Program Development
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