Linux Professional Institute

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Linux Professional Institute
logo
legal form Non-Profit Organization (Canada)
founding October 25, 1999 in New Brunswick
Seat Toronto , Canada and Sacramento , USA
Managing directors G. Matthew Rice
Website www.lpi.org
LPI
legal form Registered association
founding 2003 in Karlsruhe
Seat kassel
people Reiner Brandt (2nd chairman)
Website www.lpice.eu/de/

The Linux Professional Institute ( LPI ) is a non-profit organization founded in New Brunswick , Canada in 1999 , which develops professional certifications for the GNU / Linux operating system , which are independent of software or training providers (i.e. largely independent of distribution ). So far, a certification program, Linux Professional Institute Certification (LPIC), has been offered, the first stage of which tests general Linux knowledge, as it is important for "ambitious users", system administrators , developers or consultants. The higher levels tend more clearly in the direction of system administration. In Germany, Austria and Switzerland, the Linux Professional Institute is supported by LPI e. V. represented.

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The LPI offers exams which, in sequence, lead to the certificates LPIC-1 (“Junior Level Linux Professional”), LPIC-2 (“Advanced Level Linux Professional”) and LPIC-3 (“Senior Level Linux Professional”). Two exams each must be taken for LPIC-1 and LPIC-2; LPIC-3 consists of a basic exam, LPI-301 (which alone leads to the acquisition of the certificate), and optional specialization exams. The LPI exams can be taken in any order, but you only get a certificate if all the requirements for its acquisition are met, and this includes, in addition to passing the exams for the level in question, possession of the certificate for the level below (if there is a gives).

The exams themselves consist of 60 questions (LPI-301: 50) that must be answered in a maximum of 90 minutes. The questions are either multiple choice questions with either one or more correct answers or text questions where you have to type in the answer (typically the name of a file or a command).

There are two ways to take LPI exams:

  • Via the Pearson VUE exam center , where exams are computerized. Thomson Prometric has not held LPI exams for a while.
  • At events such as trade fairs and congresses ( Cebit , LinuxTag , Chemnitzer Linux-Tage , ...), where the LPI offers tests on paper at reduced prices. If a sufficient number of candidates are mobilized, the LPI will organize paper exams on other occasions as well.

Most of the exams are not only available in English, but also in other languages ​​(German, Japanese, Chinese, French, Portuguese, Spanish).

The LPI does not specify how to prepare for the examinations (compulsory courses, official learning materials, ...), but restricts itself to naming " objectives " for each examination and briefly summarizing its content. The “LPI-ATM” program (“LPI Approved Training Materials”) was intended to certify learning materials for completeness in terms of the examination objectives and didactic sense, but was discontinued worldwide in 2009; the regional organizations of the LPI are free to continue the program. In addition to LPI-ATM-certified learning materials, there are books in bookshops, free or freely available study material from the Internet, and of course the classic Linux howtos and manuals that are part of most Linux distributions to prepare for LPI exams .

The LPI has delivered more than 245,000 certification exams and issued over 80,000 certificates worldwide. The discrepancy arises on the one hand from the fact that two exams are necessary for most certificates and on the other hand from the fact that not every candidate actually passes every exam. The LPI does not publish more precise data (such as how the 80,000 certificates are distributed over the levels LPIC-1, LPIC-2 and LPIC-3).

Validity period

In principle, LPIC certificates are valid indefinitely; however, the LPI “urgently” recommends certificate holders to recertify themselves at least every 5 years (and underpins this by setting the status of existing certificates to inactive 5 years after purchase ). Originally, no recertification should be required at all; The LPI's change of heart was based on its desire to obtain accreditation with the National Organization for Competency Assurance (NOCA), a quality assurance organization for certificate providers. A recertification mechanism is one of the prerequisites for such an accreditation. For a while there was a re-certification period of 10 years. Recertification can be achieved either by taking the exams originally required for the certificate again or by taking the exams for a higher-quality LPIC certificate, in which case the 5 years are also restarted for the lower certificates. The LPI has been considering a special recertification test, but this is no longer an issue. Specifically, this means that someone who took the LPI101 exam on September 2, 2004 and LPI102 on March 1, 2005, will receive an LPIC-1 certificate, which should be recertified by March 1, 2010. To do this, he can either take the LPI101 and -102 exams again or tackle LPIC-2; if he is issued an LPIC-2 certificate on April 1, 2008, both his LPIC-1 and LPIC-2 certificate will remain active until March 31, 2013. The LPI promises to revise the content of the examination objectives of the individual exams every 2.5 years and recommends recertification at the same interval.

Recertification at LPIC-3 level is a little more complicated. The rule here is that the actual LPIC-3 certificate (which is acquired by passing the LPI-301 exam) is recertified either by taking LPI-301 again or by taking any specialization exam (LPI-302 to LPI-306). However, specialization exams can currently only be recertified by repeating the relevant exam.

Sponsors

The biggest sponsors are IBM , Bradford Learning , Linux-Magazin , Linuxcare , Maxspeed , SGI , Turbolinux , Novell , Hewlett-Packard , Linux Journal and Wave Technologies .

Course of the exam

The order of the two tests (x01 and x02, see below) is arbitrary. The tests are carried out on a PC in a room that is monitored either by a person or by a camera. There is a small number of different questionnaires, each selected from a large supply of questions in such a way that certain psychometric conditions are fulfilled (they are also recompiled from time to time to reduce the usefulness of published memory logs ( brain dumps )). The examinee is presented with one of these questionnaires, whereby the order of the questions can be arbitrary. It is permitted to skip questions or to correct answers that have already been given within the examination period. Passing or failing, along with the number of points achieved, is displayed on the screen immediately after the test has been completed. After the exam has been completed, the examination center issues a printout of the examination certificate stating the overall result and performance in the respective subject areas.

As an alternative to this, exams are offered at trade fairs and other events in which the person to be examined receives a printed questionnaire on which their own answers can be identified. These answer sheets are evaluated centrally by the LPI. It can take several weeks for the test results to be received.

The certificate (including a credit card-sized certificate card) will be sent by LPI headquarters in Cobourg , Ontario , Canada after the minimum number of points has been achieved in both exams .

If the exam is not passed, it can be repeated after one week at the earliest. If the minimum number of points is not achieved for the second time, you must wait 30 days before you can start again.

New exam content

Since February 1, 2015 there is new content for the LPIC-1 exams in version 4.0. The previous material was supplemented with additional content and the existing was updated. Version 5.0 was introduced on October 29, 2018. The topic of virtualization was newly introduced and outdated content was updated or deleted. There is a transition period for candidates who want to continue taking exams from the previous version.

The next changes will affect LPIC-2 and LPIC-3. The new questions are valid for the LPIC-2 exams from November 1, 2013 and for LPIC-3 from October 1, 2013.

Certificate "Linux Essentials"

Since June 2012 the Linux Professional Institute has offered an additional certification program “Linux Essentials”, which is primarily aimed at schools and young people and is intended to serve as an introduction to the open source world. The exam includes questions about the Linux and open source community, common distributions, important open source applications and their use, licenses, working with desktop and command line, simple scripts in script languages ​​such as Bash, Perl and Python, and questions about security and to file permissions. The detailed current learning objectives can be found in the organization's wiki.

Certificate "DevOps Tools Engineer"

The Linux Professional Institute also offers an additional certificate for DevOps . Contents are container management, continuous integration and version management . There is only one exam.

exam

Number of questions: 60
Duration: 90 minutes

Software development

Modern software development
Standard components and platforms
Source control
CI / CD

Container management

Use of containers
Container orchestration
Container infrastructure

Operation of software

Monitoring
Log management and analysis

Certificate LPIC-1 ("Linux Server Professional Certification")

To obtain this certificate, exams 101 and 102 must be passed. These exams are available in English, Japanese and German. You have 90 minutes for each exam.

In the past, you could choose between two variants of exam 101, which either contained questions about package management with rpm (Red Hat, SUSE, Mandriva, ...) or with dpkg (Debian, Ubuntu, Xandros, ...). But since 2006 this has no longer been possible; both areas are checked.

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Exam 101

Number of questions: 60
Duration: 90 min
Minimum score: 500 (out of a total of 800)

System architecture

Define hardware settings
Boot process
Change a run level, shut down and restart

Linux installation and package management

Situation-dependent division of a hard disk
Install boot manager
Shared libraries
Dealing with Debian Package Management
Dealing with the RPM and YUM

GNU and Unix commands

Working on the command line
Applying filters to text streams
Basic work with files
Streams, pipes, redirects
Process management
Process priorities
Search and modify texts with regular expressions
Basic work with the Vi editor

Drives, file systems, directory structure and file system hierarchy standard (FHS)

Partitioning
Checking the integrity, monitoring inodes, simple repairs of a file system
Mount and unmount file systems
Manage quotas
File rights
Hard and soft links
Find system files and applications and store them in compliance with the FHS

Exam 102

Number of questions: 60
Duration: 90 min
Minimum score: 500 (out of a total of 800)

Shell, Scripts and SQL

Customizing a shell environment
Adapt existing shell scripts or write new ones
Searching and changing data in a database

User interface and desktop

Install and configure the X server.
Set up display manager
Accessibility

Administrative tasks

Create, remove, block and change users and groups
Automated, time-controlled system administration tasks
System language, keyboard layout, time zones

Important system services

System time
System logging
Basic tasks of a mail transfer agent (MTA)
Manage Printers

Network basics

Internet protocol, network masks, routes
Network configurations
Detect and fix network problems
Addressing a DNS server

safety

Know which system configurations contribute to security
System security
Data encryption

Certificate LPIC-2 ("Linux Network Professional Certification")

To obtain this certificate, exams 201 and 202 must be passed. These exams are available in English, Japanese and German.

You have 90 minutes for each exam. If pilot questions are asked that are not included in the assessment of the exam, 120 minutes are available.

In principle, it is possible to take exams at LPIC-2 level before obtaining the LPIC-1 certificate. However, you can only get the LPIC-2 certificate yourself if you have an active LPIC-1 certificate.

Exam 201

Number of questions: 60
Minimum score: 500 (out of a total of 800)
Topics:

Exam 202

Number of questions: 60
Minimum score: 500 (out of a total of 800)
Topics:

Certificate LPIC-3 ("Linux Enterprise Professional Certification")

Since October 2013 the certification is no longer divided into a core and a specialization exam, but the certificate is achieved by passing an exam. For this purpose, a new exam 300 ("Mixed Environments") was created, which replaces both 301 and 302. The other specializations (currently 303 and 304) alone lead to the LPIC-3 certificate.

Exam LPI-300 ("Mixed Environments")

The LPI-300 exam primarily deals with Samba and the integration of Linux and Windows systems. Replaces exams 301 and 302 since October 2013

Exam LPI-303 ("Security")

The LPI-303 exam covers the topics of cryptography, access control (ACLs, SELinux, other MAC systems), application security (DNS, Apache, FTP, OpenSSH, ...), operational and network security. Passing this exam leads to the LPI-303: Security specialization.

Exam LPI-304 ("High Availability and Virtualization")

The LPI-304 exam addresses the topics of virtualization (Xen, KVM and others), load balancing and redundant storage, cluster management and message infrastructures for high availability. Passing this exam leads to the specialization "LPI-304: High Availability and Virtualization".

Exam LPI-305 ("Mail and Messaging")

This exam is in preparation. Work on LPI-305 began in 2010.

Exam LPI-306 ("Web and Intranet")

This test is being planned.

Exam LPI-301 ("Core"; withdrawn since the end of 2013)

The LPI-301 exam deals with the LDAP directory service, authentication, troubleshooting, network integration and capacity planning. Unlike the other LPI exams, the LPI-301 exam has 50 questions instead of 60; the duration is 90 minutes anyway.

Exam LPI-302 ("Mixed Environments"; withdrawn since the end of 2013)

The LPI-302 exam is primarily concerned with Samba and the integration of Linux and Windows systems.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ About - Linux Professional Institute ( Memento from March 1, 2014 in the Internet Archive ). Retrieved February 26, 2014.
  2. ↑ See e.g. B. LPI and Ma3bar host Open Source 'Train-the-Trainer' workshops for the Middle East. Archived from the original on June 14, 2010 ; accessed on May 7, 2017 .
  3. ^ LPI - Certification Policies . Retrieved April 7, 2014.
  4. ↑ Examination content - Objective Maintenance Schedule
  5. ↑ Exam 101 Objectives | Linux Professional Institute. March 2, 2019, archived from the original on March 2, 2019 ; accessed on March 2, 2019 .
  6. ↑ LPI revises objectives for LPIC-2 and LPIC-3 Linux certification programs . Archived from the original on June 22, 2013 ; accessed on May 7, 2017 . Article dated June 18, 2013.
  7. ↑ heise online - Die Woche: Linux as a school subject, article from March 8, 2012
  8. ↑ heise online - New LPI Certificate Linux Essentials Article from March 6, 2012
  9. ↑ LinuxEssentials (DE) - LPI Wiki. Retrieved January 12, 2018 .
  10. ↑ Press release on version 3.0 by LPI Central Europe and LPI eV from March 31, 2009. Archived from the original on January 25, 2010 ; accessed on May 7, 2017 .
  11. ↑ LPIC-3 - Senior Level Linux Certification . Archived from the original on October 20, 2011 ; accessed on May 7, 2017 .
  12. ↑ https://wiki.lpi.org/wiki/LPIC-304_Objectives_V2

literature

Web links