Certification: A First Look at LPIC-3 Certification
Emmett Dulaney
Among the most respected vendor-neutral certifications in
the industry are those from the Linux Professional Institute (LPI). LPI Level 1
certification (LPIC-1) is the junior-level certification intended to verify the
very basic skills needed by a beginning administrator to work with Linux. There
are two exams that you must pass, and they consist of questions that are
multiple-choice as well as fill-in-the-blank -- the latter question type
making the exams much more difficult than those from many other vendors. LPIC-2
certification also requires passing two exams with the same question types, but
now the topics are much more advanced and you need to be a knowledgeable
administrator to pass.
Since the certification began, LPI has planned three
levels of certification, with the highest level equivalent to what other
vendors refer to as an engineer. While the other two levels fell into place
some time ago, this highest level has been elusive -- until now. In
October of 2006, LPI began beta testing the LPIC-3 exams. The two exams in this
phase are referred to as 301 and 302. Exam 301 focuses on LDAP, capacity
planning and related technologies; exam 302 focuses on Samba and network
file/print services. It is too early for the final objectives to be in place or
for weighting to be applied to them (one of the great things LPI posts for
test-takers to know where to focus most of their attention on), but as soon as
they are finalized, they will posted. Until then, the lists that follow are of
the topics/tasks as they currently exist.
301 Tasks
This exam looks at authentication and naming, requiring a
keen understanding of LDAP.
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