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Red Hat Certified System Administrator (RHCSA) - EX200

Overview

The Red Hat Certified System Administrator (RHCSA) is a hands-on, performance-based certification that validates the core skills required to administer Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) systems. Unlike multiple-choice exams, RHCSA requires you to perform real Linux administration tasks on a live system in a controlled environment.

This cert is the foundation of the Red Hat certification path and a prerequisite for the Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE) and many higher-tier Red Hat certifications.

Quick Reference

Detail Info
Exam Code EX200
Full Name Red Hat Certified System Administrator
Provider Red Hat
Format Performance-based (hands-on tasks on a live RHEL system)
Duration 3 hours
Passing Score 210/300 (70%)
Cost $500 USD (varies by region)
Validity 3 years
Delivery Individual exam (in-person testing center) or Remote (RHU Individual Exam)
Current RHEL Version RHEL 9 (latest exam objectives reflect RHEL 9.x)
Prerequisites None formally; recommended Red Hat System Administration I (RH124) and II (RH134) courses or equivalent

📖 Official RHCSA page 📖 EX200 Exam Objectives

What You Need to Do

The exam tests applied skills across these objective categories:

  1. Understand and use essential tools - shell, file management, redirection, regex, file searching, archives, vi/vim editor.
  2. Operate running systems - boot/reboot, runlevels/targets, systemd services, log inspection, processes.
  3. Configure local storage - partitions, LVM (physical volumes, volume groups, logical volumes), filesystems (ext4, xfs), swap.
  4. Create and configure file systems - mount/unmount, automount, NFS, network filesystems, ACLs, SELinux contexts.
  5. Deploy, configure, and maintain systems - kickstart, network config, time sync, firewall (firewalld), selinux modes.
  6. Manage basic networking - hostnames, IPv4/IPv6, network teams/bonds, routing.
  7. Manage users and groups - account creation, password aging, group membership, sudoers.
  8. Manage security - firewalld, SELinux booleans and contexts, basic SSH key setup.
  9. Manage containers - install Podman, run/manage containers, persistent storage with containers, network with containers, build/deploy with podman generate systemd or Quadlet.

The exam is closed-book during the test, but you have access to system documentation: man pages, info, --help flags, and files in /usr/share/doc/.

Exam Domains and Notes

# Domain Notes File
1 System configuration, boot, services 01-system-config.md
2 Storage and filesystems (LVM, partitions, mounts) 02-storage-filesystems.md
3 Users, groups, sudo, permissions 03-users-groups-permissions.md
4 systemd services, logs, time, processes 04-services-systemd.md
5 Networking, firewalld, SELinux, SSH 05-networking-security-selinux.md
6 Containers with Podman 06-containers-podman.md

Study Materials in This Guide

File Description
fact-sheet.md Reference with documentation links and high-yield facts
notes/ Six numbered topic files
practice-plan.md 6-week study plan
scenarios.md 15 hands-on scenario tasks (closest analog to the exam format)
Background Estimated Prep Time
Experienced Linux sysadmin (5+ years) 3-4 weeks
Some Linux experience (1-2 years), no Red Hat 6-8 weeks
New to Linux (Windows / cloud only) 10-12 weeks; budget time for RH124 / RH134 fundamentals

Plan on 1-2 hours of hands-on practice per day in addition to reading.

Lab Setup

You cannot pass RHCSA without hands-on practice. Build a lab.

Free / cheap options

  • Red Hat Developer Subscription (free) - one production-equivalent RHEL license. developers.redhat.com
  • AlmaLinux / Rocky Linux (free, RHEL-compatible) - for additional VMs without subscription.
  • VirtualBox / VMware Workstation Player (free) - hypervisor on your workstation.
  • kvm/libvirt on a Linux host - more realistic.
  • One RHEL 9 VM as the primary system under test
  • A second RHEL 9 (or AlmaLinux) VM for NFS / network tasks
  • 4 GB RAM minimum per VM, 20 GB disk

Cloud alternative

  • AWS EC2 with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 AMI - usable but adds AWS variables to your lab.
  • GCP / Azure equivalents - similar.

Exam-Day Tips

  1. Read every task fully before starting. Some have multiple parts.
  2. Make changes persistent. Many tasks specify "must survive reboot." Verify with reboot before declaring done.
  3. Use man and --help liberally. The exam is open-documentation.
  4. Save your work often. Don't lose progress to a moment of inattention.
  5. Watch the clock. 3 hours total. If a task takes >20 minutes, move on and come back.
  6. Verify each task before moving on. Re-run systemctl status, mount, ls -la, getsebool etc. to confirm.
  7. Reboot at the end. Many "didn't pass" failures come from ephemeral changes that didn't survive reboot.

After RHCSA

Common next steps:

  • Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE) - EX294 - automation with Ansible. RHCSA is a prerequisite.
  • OpenShift Administrator (EX280) - the modern container platform path.
  • Linux Foundation Certified Engineer (LFCE) - vendor-neutral parallel.
  • CompTIA Linux+ - vendor-neutral foundational alternative.

Companion Materials in This Repo