CYBERSECURITY JOB HUNTING GUIDE
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    • Get a cheap degree
  • (Employment) fraud & scams
    • Suspicious Offer
    • Second Offer
    • Certification Scams
    • Fraud with courses
  • Analyzing a job ad
    • The Header
    • Building a Bridge
    • The Responsibilities
    • Desired Skills
    • Preferred Qualification
    • Benefits
    • Own skills vs job ad
    • Dealing with poorly written job ads
  • Resume writing
    • Templates
    • Building a draft
    • Resume in Detail
    • Understand the company
    • ATS and tailoring
    • Last Step
  • Cover letter
    • Writing a cover letter
  • Preparation & Interview
    • Organize your job hunt
    • SWOT Again (interview)
    • Twitter
    • The interview
    • Interview Questions Designed To Trick You
    • Post interview tasks
  • I did it all, but...
    • You are not alone
    • Try Something New
    • Why You'll Fail in Cyber Security
  • Yes, I got a job!
    • Two, or more offers?
    • Continued learning
    • Moving up
    • Lessons learned
  • Conclusion
  • Additional things
    • Reviews (labs, courses, certs) >
      • CompTIA A+
      • CompTIA Network+
      • CompTIA Security+
      • CompTIA Server+
      • CompTIA PenTest+
      • DroneSec DSOC
      • Defensive-Security Purple Labs
      • FAA Part 107
      • INE eCPPT & PTP
      • Letsdefend review
      • Microsoft AZ-500
      • RangeForce SOC 1
      • RangeForce SOC 2
    • Work In A Different Country >
      • The Work Permit
      • Working in the US
      • Studying in the US
      • Studying in Germany
      • Work in a different country
    • Other Resources >
      • Useful Links >
        • All about careers
        • Red resources
        • Blue resources
      • YouTube
      • Twitch
      • Podcasts
      • Books
      • Udemy
      • Thanks
    • Contributors
  • Stefan Waldvogel, where can I help?
  • Home
  • Introduction
    • Things you should know
    • The strategy
  • Paths into Cybersecurity
    • First steps
    • SWOT Analysis
    • How much time do you need?
    • Calculate& Evaluate Knowledge
    • Imposter syndrome
    • Time Management
    • Cybersecurity Domains
    • Cloud Security
    • Financial advice >
      • Credit score
    • The salary
    • Advocacy for underrepresented groups
  • Goal Setting & Career paths
    • Find your career in 5 steps
    • Cybersecurity career options
    • Career finding with LinkedIn
    • Transferable Skills (general)
    • Transferable IT Skills
    • Find a path with job descriptions
    • The I do not know path
    • Do you know “garbage” jobs?
    • “Bonus” knowledge
    • Learning & Motivation
    • Particular vs. any job
    • Pentester path (start)
    • Pen Testing as Career
    • SOC Analyst as career
    • Security Engineer as career
    • Compliance & Risk as career
    • How to find a career (IAM Engineer)
    • Find a company
  • Networking
    • Networking like a pro
    • LinkedIn
    • Referrals & Skills
    • LinkedIn Recruiters >
      • Working with a recruiter
    • Cyber Community
    • Networking University
    • Mentoring
    • Build your personal brand
    • Goal of Networking
  • Hands-on
    • The home lab >
      • Designing a home lab
      • Ways to create a home lab
      • Hypervisors >
        • VirtualBox
        • VMWare Player
        • QEMU/KVM
      • Docker
      • Operating Systems >
        • Kali Linux >
          • Installing Kali with VirtualBox
        • Parrot
        • BlackArch
        • Red Hat Enterprise Linux >
          • RHCSA
        • Security Onion >
          • Installation Security Onion
        • Metasploitable2
        • Ubuntu
        • Windows >
          • Windows in a VM
          • Windows with Virtual Machine Manager
          • Preparing Windows logging
          • John Strand's ADHD VM
      • Firewalls >
        • pfSense Installation
        • pfSense configuration for Security Onion
    • Volunteer Work
    • Note Taking
    • Red labs >
      • Cyberseclabs
      • HackTheBox >
        • HackTheBox Academy
      • INE red side
      • RangeForce
      • Offensive Security
      • TryHackMe
      • Virtual Hacking Labs
    • Red tools & techniques >
      • Atomic Red Team
      • DVWA
      • Metasploit
      • OSINT tools
      • OWASP Juice Shop
    • Blue labs >
      • Blue Team Labs Online
      • DetectionLab (free)
      • INE
      • Letsdefend >
        • LetsDefend password stealer
      • Opensecuritytraining (free)
      • PurpleLabs
      • RangeForce
    • Blue tools >
      • Install a Canary Token
      • CyberChef
      • EDR Lima Charlie installation
      • EDR LimaCharlie configuration
      • EDR Velociraptor (free)
      • EDR Bluespawn (free)
      • DeepBlueCLI (logs Powershell, free)
      • Raccine (ransomware protection, free)
      • Install RITA (detects C2 traffic, free)
      • Sandboxes >
        • Joe's Sandbox
      • SIEM ELK Stack
      • SIEM Graylog >
        • Getting started with Graylog
        • Install Graylog
        • Graylog Windows agent
        • Graylog Linux agent
        • Graylog as application
      • Suricata with RangeForce
      • Identifying IoCs with RangeForce
      • What2Log
  • Certifications, Degree & Courses
    • Overview
    • Free & Affordable Resources
    • Pick your cert
    • Skill Assessment
    • Get a cheap degree
  • (Employment) fraud & scams
    • Suspicious Offer
    • Second Offer
    • Certification Scams
    • Fraud with courses
  • Analyzing a job ad
    • The Header
    • Building a Bridge
    • The Responsibilities
    • Desired Skills
    • Preferred Qualification
    • Benefits
    • Own skills vs job ad
    • Dealing with poorly written job ads
  • Resume writing
    • Templates
    • Building a draft
    • Resume in Detail
    • Understand the company
    • ATS and tailoring
    • Last Step
  • Cover letter
    • Writing a cover letter
  • Preparation & Interview
    • Organize your job hunt
    • SWOT Again (interview)
    • Twitter
    • The interview
    • Interview Questions Designed To Trick You
    • Post interview tasks
  • I did it all, but...
    • You are not alone
    • Try Something New
    • Why You'll Fail in Cyber Security
  • Yes, I got a job!
    • Two, or more offers?
    • Continued learning
    • Moving up
    • Lessons learned
  • Conclusion
  • Additional things
    • Reviews (labs, courses, certs) >
      • CompTIA A+
      • CompTIA Network+
      • CompTIA Security+
      • CompTIA Server+
      • CompTIA PenTest+
      • DroneSec DSOC
      • Defensive-Security Purple Labs
      • FAA Part 107
      • INE eCPPT & PTP
      • Letsdefend review
      • Microsoft AZ-500
      • RangeForce SOC 1
      • RangeForce SOC 2
    • Work In A Different Country >
      • The Work Permit
      • Working in the US
      • Studying in the US
      • Studying in Germany
      • Work in a different country
    • Other Resources >
      • Useful Links >
        • All about careers
        • Red resources
        • Blue resources
      • YouTube
      • Twitch
      • Podcasts
      • Books
      • Udemy
      • Thanks
    • Contributors
  • Stefan Waldvogel, where can I help?
  CYBERSECURITY JOB HUNTING GUIDE

RHCSA

Author: Stefan Waldvogel

What you have to know to get RHCSA certified

Overview
This and the related articles are about the Red Hat Certified System Administrator (RHCSA). The articles follow this book loosely: RHCSA Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 (UPDATED): Training and Exam Preparation Guide (EX200), Second Edition (www.amazon.com/gp/product/1775062147/).

The book uses Windows as host and VirtualBox as a hypervisor. I will use RHEL (as host) and Virtual Machine Manager (as a hypervisor). I will not cover all relevant topics, but I use this website to learn and you can follow if you want (you need the book, too). I will highlight my own path and write about of what is different to the book.

Why this certification?
I am not so focused on the certification itself, but I want the knowledge. As a blue teamer, I defend systems, and I want to understand Linux servers enough to do this task.
You might google for the salary... you see numbers >80K. Do not trust this number too much, but it is a valuable certification. We have about 1,100 open jobs in the US with this cert as a requirement. -> This is a low number. Do not take this certification if you are looking for a job unless you know what you are doing.
One positive side is: In the US, we have about 7,900 RHCSA certification holders (according to LinkedIn). This is a small number, and with this certification, you stand out. It shows you have a strong background in Linux as an Administrator.
A huge advantage over other Linux certs is, RHCSA does not expire, it "only" becomes "non-current". This means, you can list RHCSA on your resume after 3 years and you do not have to pay to keep the certification. This is one reason why I picked RHCSA over Linux+/LPIC-1.

Alternatives
CompTIA's Linux+ ($319) is an alternative and about the same level. The same counts for LPIC-1. LPIC-1 needs two exams to pass and each exam is $200. Linux+ and LPIC-1 are "paper" exams, you answer a bunch of questions. RHCSA is a hands-on exam and therefore it prepares you better for a job.

What next?
RHCE is the next level and in the US we have about 860 open positions.


RHCSA skill path
If you want you can take RH024. This is a free introduction course (videos) and the book follows this path.

The exam
The exam is performance based. You get 2 VMs and you have to perform some tasks. This is a very realistic approach and I like it a lot. 

Price for RHCSA
$400 +tax.

Exam objectives

Configurations must persist after reboot without intervention.
source:www.redhat.com/en/services/training/ex200-red-hat-certified-system-administrator-rhcsa-exam?section=Objectives
​
Creating the lab environment
Download RHEL and set up the network for our lab. The book suggests a 192.168.0.0/24 subnet, but I do not like the idea to use a standard network range. This particular subnet is probably reserved for your home network. Separate these networks if you can. I use 192.168.20.0/24 but you can pick every other class C range.
Picture
Picture
Now, we have the network and we can install RHEL. Follow the book, the steps are very similar.
If you set up the network, you have to save it. Sometimes it does not work, check it again. The book uses putty to connect to both VMs. We have RHEL and we can use ssh to connect to the test VMs.
Picture
The book introduces some basic Linux commands and vim. Vim is (in my opinion) a painful software and as long as you not work with binaries I would go for nano (or gedit if you have a gui).
Most books go far beyond an exam and have a lot of details. I wouldnd spend too much time on ls, pwd, cd and other commands unless you are an absolute beginner.
If you are unsure about a command use the manual. It could look like this: man vim. 

Next:
© 2021. This work is licensed under a CC BY-SA 4.0 license​