LPIC-304 Objectives V2(restructured)

Introduction

The description of the entire LPIC-3 programme is listed here.

Version Information

These objectives are version 2.0.0(restructured) DRAFT.

A objectives for version 2.0.0 are here.

The version 1.x objectives can be found here.

Notes on restructuring

This DRAFT tries to re-align the High Availability topics after they became messy due to technically required changes. This draft as shown here in details is quite rigorous as it aligns the High Availability aspects in a way similar to the Virtualization topic which leads to one large topic in High Availability:

• Topic 331: High Availability
  • 331.1 High Availability Concepts and Theory (weight: 5)
  • 331.2 Load Balanced Clusters (weight: 5)
  • 331.3 Failover Clusters (weight: 5)
  • 331.4 Cluster Storage (weight: 3)
  • 331.5 Clustered File Systems (weight: 3)
  • 331.6 High Availability in Enterprise Linux Distributions (weight: 1)

This is the consequent alignment to the structure of the Virtualization part of the exam. On the other hand this is an intense change to the structure of the exam.

A possible compromise may sub-divide the High Availability aspects into several topic:

• Topic 331: High Availability Clustering
  • 331.1 High Availability Concepts and Theory (weight: 5)
  • 331.2 Load Balanced Clusters (weight: 5)
  • 331.3 Failover Clusters (weight: 5)
• Topic 332: Cluster Storage
  • 332.1 Cluster Storage (weight: 3)
  • 332.1 Clustered File Systems (weight: 3)
• Topic 333: High Availability in Enterprise Linux Distributions
  • 333.1 High Availability in Enterprise Linux Distributions (weight: 1)

The content of this compromise would be identical to the objectives drafted below, just the division into topics would change. The technical amount of changes will remain the same in all cases as it is specified by the technical evolution!

Translations of Objectives

The following translations of the objectives are available on this wiki:

• English
• Spanish

Objectives

Topic 330: Virtualization

330.1 Virtualization Concepts and Theory (weight: 10)

Weight	10
Description	Candidates should know and understand the general concepts, theory and terminology of Virtualization. This includes Xen, KVM and libvirt terminology.

Key Knowledge Areas:

• Terminology
• Pros and Cons of Virtualization
• Variations of Virtual Machine Monitors
• Migration of Physical to Virtual Machines
• Migration of Virtual Machines between Host systems
• Cloud Computing

The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:

• Hypervisor
• Hardware Virtual Machine (HVM)
• Paravirtualization (PV)
• Container Virtualization
• Emulation and Simulation
• CPU flags
• /proc/cpuinfo
• Migration (P2V, V2V)
• IaaS, PaaS, SaaS

330.2 Xen (weight: 9)

Weight	9
Description	Candidates should be able to install, configure, maintain, migrate and troubleshoot Xen installations. The focus is on Xen version 4.x.

Key Knowledge Areas:

• Xen architecture, networking and storage
• Xen configuration
• Xen utilities
• Troubleshooting Xen installations
• Basic knowledge of XAPI
• Awareness of XenStore
• Awareness of Xen Boot Parameters
• Awareness of the xm utility

The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:

• Domain0 (Dom0), DomainU (DomU)
• PV-DomU, HVM-DomU
• /etc/xen/
• xl
• xl.cfg
• xl.conf
• xe
• xentop

330.3 KVM (weight: 9)

Weight	9
Description	Candidates should be able to install, configure, maintain, migrate and troubleshoot KVM installations.

Key Knowledge Areas:

• KVM architecture, networking and storage
• KVM configuration
• KVM utilities
• Troubleshooting KVM installations

The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:

• Kernel modules: kvm, kvm-intel and kvm-amd
• /etc/kvm/
• /dev/kvm
• kvm
• KVM monitor
• qemu
• qemu-img

330.4 Other Virtualization Solutions (weight: 3)

Weight	3
Description	Candidates should have some basic knowledge and experience with alternatives to Xen and KVM.

Key Knowledge Areas:

• Basic knowledge of OpenVZ and LXC
• Awareness of other virtualization technologies
• Basic knowledge of virtualization provisioning tools

The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:

• OpenVZ
• VirtualBox
• LXC
• docker
• packer
• vagrant

330.5 Libvirt and Related Tools (weight: 5)

Weight	5
Description	Candidates should have basic knowledge and experience with the libvirt library and commonly available tools.

Key Knowledge Areas:

• libvirt architecture, networking and storage
• Basic technical knowledge of libvirt and virsh
• Awareness of oVirt

The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:

• libvirtd
• /etc/libvirt/
• virsh
• oVirt

330.6 Cloud Management Tools (weight: 2)

Weight	2
Description	Candidates should have basic feature knowledge of commonly available cloud management tools.

Key Knowledge Areas:

• Basic feature knowledge of OpenStack and CloudStack
• Awareness of Eucalyptus and OpenNebula

The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:

• OpenStack
• CloudStack
• Eucalyptus
• OpenNebula

Topic 331: High Availability

331.1 High Availability Concepts and Theory (weight: 5)

Weight	5
Description	Candidates should understand the properties and design approaches of high availability clusters.

Key Knowledge Areas:

• Understand the most important cluster architectures.
• Understand recovery and cluster reorganization mechanisms.
• Design an appropriate cluster architecture for a given purpose.
• Application aspects of high availability
• Operational considerations of high availability.

The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:

• Active/Passive Cluster, Active/Active Cluster
• Failover Cluster, Load Balanced Cluster
• Shared-Nothing Cluster, Shared-Disk Cluster
• Cluster resources
• Cluster services
• Quorum
• Fencing
• Redundancy
• Mean Time Before Failure (MTBF)
• Mean Time To Repair (MTTR)
• Service Level Agreement (SLA)
• Desaster Recovery
• Replication
• Session handling

331.2 Load Balanced Clusters (weight: 5)

Weight	5
Description	Candidates should know how to install, configure, maintain and troubleshoot LVS. This includes the configuration and use of keepalived and ldirectord. Candidates should further be able to install, configure, maintain and troubleshoot HAProxy.

Key Knowledge Areas:

• Understanding of LVS / IPVS.
• Basic knowledge of VRRP.
• Configuration of keepalived.
• Configuration of ldirectord.
• Backend server network configuration.
• Understanding of HAProxy.
• Configuration of HAProxy.

The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:

• ipvsadm
• syncd
• LVS Forwarding (NAT, Direct Routing, Tunneling, Local Node)
• connection scheduling algorithms
• keepalived configuration file
• ldirectord configuration file
• genhash
• HAProxy configuration file
• load balancing algorithms
• ACLs

331.3 Failover Clusters (weight: 5)

Weight	5
Description	Candidates should have experience in the installation, configuration, maintenance and troubleshooting of a Pacemaker cluster. This includes the use of Corosync. The focus is on Pacemaker 1.1 for Corosync 2.x.

Key Knowledge Areas:

• Pacemaker architecture and components (CIB, CRMd, PEngine, LRMd, DC, STONITHd).
• Pacemaker cluster configuration.
• Resource classes (OCF, LSB, Systemd, Upstart, Service, STONITH, Nagios).
• Resource rules and constraints (location, order, colocation).
• Advanced resource features (templates, groups, clone resources, multi-state resources).
• Pacemaker management using pcs.
• Pacemaker management using crmsh.
• Configuration and Management of corosync in conjunction with Pacemaker.
• Awareness of other cluster engines (OpenAIS, Heartbeat, CMAN).

The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:

• pcs
• crm
• crm_mon
• crm_verify
• crm_simulate
• crm_shadow
• crm_resource
• crm_attribute
• crm_node
• crm_standby
• cibadmin
• corosync.conf
• authkey
• corosync-cfgtool
• corosync-cmapctl
• corosync-quorumtool
• stonith_admin

331.4 Cluster Storage (weight: 3)

Weight	3
Description	Candidates are expected to have the experience and knowledge to install, configure, maintain and troubleshoot DRBD devices. This includes integration with Pacemaker. DRBD configuration of version 8.4.x is covered. Candidates are further expected to be able to manage LVM configuration within a shared storage cluster.

Key Knowledge Areas:

• Understanding of DRBD resources, states and replication modes.
• Configuration of DRBD resources, networking, disks and devices.
• Configuration of DRBD automatic recovery and error handling.
• Management of DRBD using drbdadm.
• Basic knowledge of drbdsetup and drbdmeta.
• Integration of DRBD with Pacemaker.
• cLVM
• Integration of cLVM with Pacemaker.

The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:

• Protocol A, B and C
• Primary, Secondary
• Three-way replication
• drbd kernel module
• drbdadm
• drbdsetup
• drbdmeta
• /etc/drbd.conf
• /proc/drbd
• LVM2
• clvmd
• vgchange, vgs

331.5 Clustered File Systems (weight: 3)

Weight	3
Description	Candidates should know how to install, maintain and troubleshoot installations using GFS2 and OCFS2. This includes integration with Pacemaker as well as awareness of other clustered filesystems available in a Linux environment.

Key Knowledge Areas:

• Understand the principles of cluster file systems.
• Create, maintain and troubleshoot GFS2 file systems in a cluster.
• Create, maintain and troubleshoot OCFS2 file systems in a cluster.
• Integration of GFS2 and OCFS2 with Pacemaker.
• Awareness of the O2CB cluster stack.
• Awareness of other commonly used clustered file systems.

The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:

• Distributed Lock Manager (DLM)
• mkfs.gfs2
• mount.gfs2
• fsck.gfs2
• gfs2_grow
• gfs2_edit
• gfs2_jadd
• mkfs.ocfs2
• mount.ocfs2
• fsck.ocfs2
• tunefs.ocfs2
• mounted.ocfs2
• o2info
• o2image
• CephFS
• GlusterFS
• AFS

331.6 High Availability in Enterprise Linux Distributions (weight: 1)

Weight	1
Description	Candidates should be aware of how enterprise Linux distributions integrate High Availability technologies.

Key Knowledge Areas:

• Basic knowledge of Red Hat Enterprise Linux High Availability Add-On.
• Basic knowledge of SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension.

The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:

• Distribution specific configuration tools
• Integration of cluster engines, load balancers, storage technology, cluster filesystems, etc.

Reference Material

Virtualization Theory and Concepts:

• Xen: http://www.xen.org/support/documentation.html
• KVM: http://www.linux-kvm.org/page/Documents
• QEMU: http://wiki.qemu.org

Load Balancing:

• LVS: http://www.linuxvirtualserver.org/Documents.html
• HAProxy: http://haproxy.1wt.eu/#docs

Cluster Management:

• Pacemaker: http://clusterlabs.org/wiki/Documentation
  • including: cluster glue, resource agents: http://www.linux-ha.org/wiki/Main_Page
• Red Hat Cluster Suite: http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/csgfs/
  • including: OpenAIS/corosync: http://www.corosync.org and http://www.openais.org

Cluster Storage:

• DRBD: http://www.drbd.org/docs/about/
• GFS: http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/csgfs/
• OCFS2: http://oss.oracle.com/projects/ocfs2/documentation/