[CLUE-Tech] SAIR exams

[Michael Clark]

I have just taken all four of the SAIR exams for linux, and I was
curious if anyone else on the list had any
experiences/opinions/questions.

Here is my 2cents:

All four books have errata, lots of errata.  They are rough, and you
need to cross-reference the info.  I am sure that new revisions will be
out shortly, but be aware.

The first two exams are very good.  They are pretty straightforward and
anyone with a broad general knowledge of unix administration should be
able to pass.  I would definitely recommend going through the books for
the course at Tattered or Barnes.  The troubleshooting in particular is
rather specific to how SAIR thinks something should be troubleshot.  I
think troubleshooting is more of a style than a multiple choice answer.

The third exam has a few questions that I am quite sure were wrong.
There were also several that were ambiguous at best.  This test will
need to be studied from their material for sure.  They don't get real in
depth, but it is _very_ comprehensive.

The fourth exam is the security and ethics.  Security is fine, ethics is
a little tough to convey in multiple choice.  I have heard that this
exam may be modified, so you may want to wait.  Also, this exam has NO
manuals UNLESS you take their linux courses.  All of the other books can
be purchased in a book store and studied at home.  This should be
rectified, but it is annoying to try to get a certification without a
study guide (they suggest using Maximum Linux Security, which I have and
is a great book).

Overall, I think it's a great idea.  The tests were hard enough that
you're not going to skate through, and broad enough to ensure basic
administrative understanding and skills, while leaving the in-depth
knowledge for the higher levels of certification.  The best feature of
these tests is that they want you to know the common administration
tools (YaST, LISA/COAS and LinuxConf) and the command-line
administration tools.  They really push understanding how to do it if
the common utilities fail.  I would like to see an interactive
shell-based test ;-).

mc

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Michael R Clark
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(303) 320-4523
mclark at techangle.com