Presentation
If you are serious about passing RHCSA 7 & RHCE 7 exams, you have to build a lab.
There are very limited explanations in books and almost no article on the Internet on this topic (see Additional Resources at the end of this page for useful links).
This page is mainly intended for people wanting to install a KVM host. Other solutions like VirtualBox or VMware workstation can be also considered.
Prerequisites
This task can be split into several steps:
(if you go the VirtualBox way, my explanations stop here)
Installation Steps
- Install a KVM host,
- Configure network settings,
- Set up a local repository,
- Configure a master DNS server,
- Create a VM guest.
Tips
If you prepare for the RHCSA 7 exam, you will need 1 VM for most of the topics and 1 more for a small number of subjects like configuring the Automounter, securely transfer files between systems, connecting to an existing authentication service, building a remote repository or mounting CIFS/NFS shares. Each VM will require 1GB of memory and around 10GB of disk space.
If you prepare for the RHCE 7 exam, you will need 3 VMs in the worst case (KDC+NFS server+NFS client). Each VM will require 1GB of memory and around 10GB of disk space. Don’t forget to at least create 2 network interfaces for 2 of the 3 VMs: you will need them when working with bonding and teaming.
Additional Resources
- concerning the hardware parts, you can read the homelab reddit subsection,
- an article from Dell called KVM Virtualization in RHEL 7 made easy gives you useful information to build a lab,
- Mike Shoup‘s video explains how to setup a KVM environment to prepare for Red Hat exams and provides the associated KVM instructions,
- Jens Depuydt’s blog provides a good article about installing an RHEL 7/CentOS 7 KVM virtualization host,
- Frank Caviggia from Red Hat wrote a presentation about Security in KVM,
- Itfountain website provides a nice video about setting up an RHCSA/RHCE 7 lab in a VMware workstation (57min/2015),
- IBM offers a pretty old but still useful guide on the Best Practices for KVM,
- Lingeswaran’s website provides a series of detailed tutorials about KVM installation & management,
- Red Hat Consulting provides a video about Securing Your Virtual Environment (5min/2016),
- Jamie Nguyen wrote an interesting Libvirt Networking Handbook,
- Keith Rogers provides a procedure to set up KVM on RHEL 7,
- Linuxarena website offers many interesting tutorials about KVM,
- dogfish182 provides scripts to build a VirtualBox lab,
- Ravi Kumar wrote an article about the commands Red Hat uses to reset its virtual lab environment,
- Christian Horn from RedHat discussed nested KVM guests performances,
- Anwar Yacoub wrote a tutorial about setting up a lab on his github.com account,
- RedHat provides all details about its hardware classroom requirements for each course,
- Sander van Vugt provides a video about Installing LABIPA for RHCSA students (36min/2018),
- RedHat provides an article about Setting up KVM on Red Hat Enterprise Linux,
- The voleg.info website provides useful tips and tricks about KVM
- Brandon B. Jozsa offers useful information about KVM installation details.
Hi,
I am using virtual box in windows 8, if i would like create a lab system, i shall need 3 VMs in order to run the testing. Is that possible that i create a master VM as a DNS, Kerboros, NPS and master mail server and another 2 VMs which are server VM and desktop VM? The Master VM will provide the services to server VM and desktop VM. How to link these 3 VMs together so that they can have dns name register in master VM, ipv4 and ipv6 connection are able to ping each other and so does a mail server. Thanks
I’m not expert at Windows 8. Try and you will see if it works.
I have a question… Is it necessary to install KVM in exam and perform all the tasks? Can’t I use vmware workstation in exam?
I am little bit confused in understanding that what kind of tasks are required to perform virtualization during exam? What are the prerequisites ?
Please explain in detail. Thank you
Relax! Just learn how to do it but don’t spend too much time on this. No task on this suject never happened until now.
Vagrant lab-setup for centos or rhel, easy to reset: https://bitbucket.org/allyourco_de/rhel-lab
Can someone please guide me during EX200, which VM will be used Centos 7 or Fedora linux. I know first step is to reset root password during Boot time, will it be same for Centos 7 and fedora Linux.
RHEL 7/CentOS 7 will be used during the exam, not Fedora.
Hi CertDepot,
Need your help!
I am newbie to RHEL7 and Linux OS.
I want to prepare for RHEL7 exam. I have one laptop with 500GB HDD and Intel-i3 1.7 GHz processor.
Need your guidelines to start preparation for RHEL7.
Response appreciated.
Thank you 🙂
You’ve got the minimal configuration. Install Virtual Box and start practicing!
Hi again, CertDepot.
Thanks for you reply to my previous question.
Will I have to create my own VM using KVM when I take the exam?
Or please can you tell me what will be the exam environment?
Currently I have my own labs using Virtual Box on my Centos 7 Host.
I am not really familiar with KVM.
Thanks in advance!
No, you shouldn’t need to create your own VM during the exam.
The exam environment should give you access to a VM. The specific environment (RHEV on KVM, pure KVM, etc) doesn’t really matter to you.
VirtualBox is fine. Get some theorical knowledge about KVM and KickStart and you should be OK.