Hello! I decided to spend the whole 2021 studying for the LPIC-3 Security certification and take the exam end of December.
And 2022 for the LPIC-3 Mixed Environments one.
I have 2 questions:
Study tips? Beyond man pages, official documentation, self-made labs with VMs, relative books, etc
Are they relative today with the whole Cloud thing? Or should i look elsewhere? For example Linux Foundation offers Kubernetes trainining/certificaiton.
I think the LPIC certs are all still relevant, although cloud is very popular itâs not the only thing that exists like some training companies would lead you to believe. Physical hardware is still important to companies. That said, Iâd learn cloud too and take one of those certs, but I recommend instead of Kubernetes, take AWS and GCP after youâre done with LPIC-3, then after that tackle Kubernetes.
I passed LPIC-1 and 2, and was in the process of studying for LPIC-3 a while back but I never took the test because I became too busy on other projects. When I studied for LPIC-3, I found the study materials lacking. For LPIC-1,2 there seems to be no shortage of training and study guides. When I looked up stuff for LPIC-3, I found one book, but it wasnât produced by an actual publishing company. Granted, that was quite a long time ago, but I am hoping that more study materials have come out since then.
Unfortunately, I canât give you study tips because I got sidetracked from that test, but so long as you feel confident with every objective on the list, you should be fine.
I believe too that I should follow a path like that. I am using certifications as the carrot to put my self into study and become as better as I can in that field.
LPIC-3 -> AWS -> Kubernetes
Hello Konst,
The last time I did a deep dive on LPIâs training resources as well as the web, I only found one or two training resources for LPIC-3 exams - and they were really (as in excess of $5,000) expensive in-person courses that required travel and lodging at the trainer site. GIAC, for example, offers a 5 day course + exam that totals $7,000.
I get the impression that if you are pursuing LPIC-3 level certification, then LPI assumes that you have years (as in more than 10 years) of professional Linux experience. Therefore, you understand the process involved to attain LPIC-3 and are willing to put in the time and effort to pass - even if that means multiple exam re-takes.
Wish you the best.
Jay,
LPIC-3 training material is uncharted territory for you. Donny Tevault said that he had to gather up a bunch of documents and books to study for (and pass) the LPIC-3 exams. I get the impression it wasnât easy even for him because the required infos was not readily available in a centralized source.
I also get the impression that thereâs not a lot of resources for LPIC-3 due to it not being as popular as others. Perhaps people that develop training content donât expect to see as much return for their efforts. I could be wrong.
Hello Jay,
Very few people pursue the senior most LPI and Linux Foundation certifications.
Which, when youâre at that level I think the cert is more or less irrelevant. Combine any LPIC-3 with another major skill, and that person stands out from the crowd. People that pass LPIC-3 are âcan doâ sudoers.
Wish you the best. And thank you for Learn Linux TV. Iâm very grateful.
âcan do sudoersâ
That was great, thank you for that.
Iâm glad the channel has been helpful to you. Iâm excited for the new content thatâs coming, that I hope to reveal as soon as I can finalize plans 
2021 is going to be a huge year for the channel.
I agree with runlinux.run on that few people target the higher lever certifications.
I hold LPIC-1,LPIC-2,LFCS (Ubuntu 18.04), LFCE (Ubuntu 18.04) and the reason is that I use certifications as a carrot to force my self to learn more and more.
Take notice: all LPIC-3 have finalized new exam objectives at the LPI wiki page.
Major updates for the Mixed Environments, updates for the Security as well introducing more modern topics. The Virtualization & HA splits in two, so now there going to be 4 in total LPIC-3.
ps If I ever get the LPIC-3, I will change my linkedin description to âI can do sudoers nowâ
Iâm glad Iâm not the only one that uses certifications to force myself to study. Thatâs the reason I achieved most (if not all) of mine.
Reddit is full of subreddits where certs (and cert training) are heavily promoted as the path to a $100,000 per year IT career. The CCNA subreddit is notorious for this.
Then thereâs the other aspect⌠people that accumulate certifications to fill up their resume.
I will tell you what, in the company I work for, we get all kinds of CCNA resumes and not one gets a glance. Then the resumes with a bunch of certifications listed get passed right over⌠I donât care if youâve got really difficult certs like Offensive Security - it donât matter.
The only reason a person should pursue a cert is two cases:
Certifications are not the golden ticket. And the people that promote them as such (along with saying a degree is a waste of time and money), do the vast majority of people a great disservice. For every person that passes the CCNA and lands a $70,000 per year working in low-cost Podunk, USA there are 5,000 or 10,000 CCNA cert holders that canât get hired even in lowly help desk jobs.
Obviously this topic gets me triggered, because certs and training are sold widely - and most of the marketing promotes false hope. Not to mention that much of the training (especially CCNA) is expensive while at the same time absolutely atrocious quality. Itâs my opinion that all the highly acclaimed CCNA trainers canât teach. You donât need to dig very much to see people who used their resources and training, failing to pass the CCNA exam 3 or more times. Then there is Cisco itself⌠which has never been able to get its certification programs right. In aggregate, all the CCNA cert chasers waste tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions, of their dollars trying to get that CCNA cert every year. (Thereâs a glut on the market of people with a CCNA with zero experience.)
Then there is the flip side where a student crammed for 10 hours per day for months, sits for the exam, passes it, and they still canât do the job.
From what I have seen, Linux certs donât suffer from this sort of problem. Oh, Iâm sure some people donât pursue Linux certs for the right reasons as there are a lot of cert chasers out there. However, I am certain Jay will tell you, if you put in the time to get good at Linux (whether you use a cert to learn or not) - for example, really good at server security or work your way up to competence with even SMB deployments - you will earn a good living.
The hard part about IT is slugging your way through all the crappy stuff and sticking with it until success starts to build for you. Itâs a mental game. You against you.
^ That post is absolute TRUTH. Wow, great job! You hit the nail on the had with pretty much everything youâve said.
As a management-level person at my day job, I can definitely say thatâs basically how it is. But Iâd also like to add a few things too.
Like @runlinux.run mentioned, some people get certification after certification, and that alone doesnât add value. Training courses sell their services as if theyâre the secret weapon to success. At the end of the day, it depends on the hiring manager. If you nab a great paying job, it mightâve been because of your certifications, or maybe the hiring manager couldnât possibly care less about certifications and hired you because of your passion. And the thing is, often they wonât tell you why they hired you. And usually, a person will be so excited about the job they wonât even ask. Whether or not you should ask is a different debate altogether.
I like to think of certifications as two things - a metric, and a portfolio.
Using Certs as a Metric
As you learn and grow in IT, youâll reach individual âstagesâ. I like to think of it as kind of like leveling up in an RPG game. Lame example, but it works. As you get more experience, you gain more skills, and you reach the next level. At a certain point, you can take a certification exam as a personal test to gauge your knowledge. Be careful here though, because if you put too much emphasis on this, your certification exam will cause you to get discouraged. Always have the mindset âdust yourself off and try againâ if you fail.
But as a metric, you can use it to test your knowledge on a particular thing. An example use of this system might be:
In that example, youâre using certifications as a way to measure yourself. If you fail a cert, take another 1-2 months and study your week areas. When you pass it, youâve âleveled upâ your knowledge another tier and start working on the next. The beauty of that system is that the new certs you get, typically ârenewâ the previous ones automatically, so you donât focus on renewing certs in-between, you keep your eyes on moving upward.
Will the hiring manager care about your certifications? Maybe, maybe not. Youâll never know. But the certs will still be of value to you either way.
Using Certs to fill a Portfolio
As a hiring manager myself, I wouldnât personally hire someone just because of a particular certification. Show me a portfolio. Show me what youâve done. Examples:
Use Github like crazy
As you study for your certs, using a system similar to the one above, put all of your code/scripts/notes in Github and make it public. Seriously, do not underestimate the value of this. Start early. Keep building it up. When itâs time for an interview, make sure you put your best scripts in your portfolio.
Be active in the community
Speaking for myself, you can impress me by fixing bugs. It doesnât have to be code, you can even just submit pull requests to other popular software projects to do simple things like fix spelling errors in the ReadMe files, update some documentation, it doesnât matter how difficult. Just fix something, even something as simple as removing an unneeded space. And keep doing it. If I see you active in the community around whatever youâre interviewing for, that impresses me. Put examples of this in your portfolio.
Use a similar Screen-name everywhere
Use the same screen-name in Github that you use on other career-related or IT-related services. Perhaps I can search for your Github handle, and that leads me to a stack overflow post where you solved a problem for someone. Or perhaps I search for your Github handle and I find that youâve been posting in a Linux (or similar) forum and youâve been helping people.
Be courteous
Avoid âRTFMâ responses. Avoid being rude online. Just like I mentioned it helps you if I search for your name or username and find all kinds of things youâve done and I see how active you are, if youâre rude to people then I wonât be as likely to hire you because I may be afraid youâd be rude to coworkers.
Create something
I donât care if itâs a simple script or an advanced GUI application. Create something, and maintain it during the entire time youâre studying for certs. You could create an awesome project on Github that a lot of people appreciate. It also demonstrates how you collaborate with others on a project.
Do certs matter?
To me, yes. If I see only certs and nothing else, that tells me you can pass a test. But if the certs are part of your portfolio, and your portfolio has other great things too, the certs definitely add value for sure. It shows you have a drive to study, read, and learn. And your involvement in the community shows me that your certs are not just filler, you are achieving them because youâre passionate.
Above all, have fun!
Donât let IT become a burden or a stress. Have fun with it. Recompile the Linux kernel. If it fails, donât get annoyed, have fun figuring out why. Install Linux on an extra laptop and/or server and make it do things. Install Linux on your toaster if you can, set up VMs on VirtualBox or Proxmox and try to customize subnets and VLANs. Practice locking down the servers so no one else can see them. Keep having fun, and document what you learn online in a public place, and make sure your scripts and contributions are public and easy to link back to you.
Hello @Konst,
You might not be needing these as by now you are probably searched and found them. And Iâm certain there are more out there that an hour or two of searching online to be discovered. But in any case, I found these LPIC-3 exam prep infos online regarding LPIC-3:
LPIC-3 304: Virtualisation & High Availability Study Guide
Self-study sources are listed in the above link.
Sander van Vugt: Linux High Availability Video Course: Red Hat EX436 and LPIC-3 304
Wish you the very best.
Thanks for posting that.