LPIC-1 Certified Linux Administrator (102-500) Practice Exam

The LPIC-1 Certified Linux Administrator (102-500) certification validates your proficiency in administering and maintaining Linux systems. This globally recognized credential demonstrates your ability to perform essential tasks like user management, security, networking, and basic troubleshooting, making you a valuable asset in any Linux environment.

Who should take This Exam?

This certification caters to a wide range of individuals seeking to:

• Launch their Linux career: Newcomers to Linux administration can establish a strong foundation and gain industry recognition.
• Advance their IT career: IT professionals with Linux experience can solidify their skills and enhance their marketability.
• Validate their knowledge: Demonstrate your understanding of essential Linux administration tasks to employers and clients.
• Prepare for higher-level certifications: This certification forms the foundation for further Linux certifications like LPIC-2.

Responsibilities of an LPIC-1 Certified Linux Administrator

• User Management: Create, manage, and secure user accounts, implement password policies, and assign appropriate permissions.
• File System Management: Understand and navigate the Linux file system, create and manage directories, manipulate files and permissions.
• Networking: Configure basic network interfaces, manage network services, and troubleshoot network connectivity.
• Process Management: Monitor and manage running processes, identify and terminate problematic processes.
• Package Management: Install, update, and remove software packages using system package managers.
• Basic Security: Implement basic security measures, manage firewall rules, and configure access controls.
• Basic Scripting: Understand and utilize basic scripting concepts for automation tasks.

Exam Details 

• Format: 60 multiple-choice questions
• Time Limit: 90 minutes
• Passing Score: 500 (out of 600)
  
• Language: English and other languages depending on location

Course Outline

The important topics covered in the LPIC-1 Certified Linux Administrator 102-500 exam are -

Topic 105: Shells and Shell Scripting - Total Weight: 8

105.1 Customize and use the shell environment

• Setting environment variables (e.g. PATH) at login or when spawning a new shell.
• Writing Bash functions for frequently used sequences of commands.
• Maintain skeleton directories for new user accounts.
• Setting command search path with the proper directory.

105.2 Customize or write simple scripts

• Using standard sh syntax (loops, tests).
• Using command substitution.
• Test return values for success or failure or other information a command provides.
• Executing chained commands.
• Performing conditional mailing to the superuser.
• Correctly select the script interpreter through the shebang (#!) line.
• Managing the location, ownership, execution and suid-rights of scripts.

Topic 106: User Interfaces and Desktops - Total Weight: 4

106.1 Install and configure X11

• Understand the X11 architecture.
• Basic understanding and knowledge of the X Window configuration file.
• Overwriting specific aspects of Xorg configuration, such as keyboard layout.
• Understanding the components of desktop environments, such as display managers and window managers.
• Managing access to the X server and display applications on remote X servers.
• Awareness of Wayland.

106.2 Graphical Desktops

• Awareness of major desktop environments
• Awareness of protocols to access remote desktop sessions

106.3 Accessibility

• Basic knowledge of visual settings and themes.
• Basic knowledge of assistive technology.

Topic 107: Administrative Tasks - Total Weight: 12

107.1 Manage user and group accounts and related system files

• Add, modify and remove users and groups.
• Managing user/group info in password/group databases.
• Creating and managing special purpose and limited accounts.

107.2 Automate system administration tasks by scheduling jobs

• Managing cron and at jobs.
• Configuring user access to cron and at services.
• Understanding systemd timer units.

107.3 Localisation and internationalisation

• Configuring locale settings and environment variables.
• Configuring timezone settings and environment variables.

Topic 108: Essential System Services - Total Weight: 12

108.1 Maintain system time

• Setting the system date and time.
• Setting the hardware clock to the correct time in UTC.
• Configuring the correct timezone.
• Basic NTP configuration using ntpd and chrony.
• Knowledge of using the pool.ntp.org service.
• Awareness of the ntpq command.

108.2 System logging

• Basic configuration of rsyslog.
• Understanding of standard facilities, priorities and actions.
• Query the systemd journal.
• Filter systemd journal data by criteria such as date, service or priority
• Configure persistent systemd journal storage and journal size
• Delete old systemd journal data
• Retrieve systemd journal data from a rescue system or file system copy
• Understand interaction of rsyslog with systemd-journald
• Configuration of logrotate.
• Awareness of syslog and syslog-ng.

108.3 Mail Transfer Agent (MTA) basics

• Creating e-mail aliases.
• Configuring e-mail forwarding.
• Knowledge of commonly available MTA programs (postfix, sendmail, exim) (no configuration)

108.4 Manage printers and printing

• Basic CUPS configuration (for local and remote printers).
• Managing user print queues.
• Troubleshooting general printing problems.
• Adding and removing jobs from configured printer queues.

Topic 109: Networking Fundamentals - Total Weight: 14

109.1 Fundamentals of internet protocols

• Demonstrating an understanding of network masks and CIDR notation.
• Knowledge of the differences between private and public “dotted quad” IP addresses.
• Knowledge about common TCP and UDP ports and services (20, 21, 22, 23, 25, 53, 80, 110, 123, 139, 143, 161, 162, 389, 443, 465, 514, 636, 993, 995).
• Knowledge about the differences and major features of UDP, TCP and ICMP.
• Knowledge of the major differences between IPv4 and IPv6.
• Knowledge of the basic features of IPv6.

109.2 Persistent network configuration

• Understanding basic TCP/IP host configuration
• Configuring ethernet and wi-fi network configuration using NetworkManager
• Awareness of systemd-networkd

109.3 Basic network troubleshooting

• Manually configuring network interfaces, including viewing and changing the configuration of network interfaces using iproute2.
• Manually configuring routing, including viewing and changing routing tables and setting the default route using iproute2.
• Debugging problems associated with the network configuration.
• Awareness of legacy net-tools commands.

109.4 Configure client side DNS

• Querying remote DNS servers.
• Configuring local name resolution and use remote DNS servers.
• Modifying the order in which name resolution is done.
• Debug errors related to name resolution.
• Awareness of systemd-resolved

Topic 110: Security - Total Weight: 10

110.1 Perform security administration tasks

• Auditing a system to find files with the suid/sgid bit set.
• Setting or change user passwords and password aging information.
• Being able to use nmap and netstat to discover open ports on a system.
• Set up limits on user logins, processes and memory usage.
• Determining which users have logged in to the system or are currently logged in.
• Basic sudo configuration and usage.

110.2 Setup host security

• Awareness of shadow passwords and how they work.
• Turning off network services not in use.
• Understanding the role of TCP wrappers.

110.3 Securing data with encryption

• Perform basic OpenSSH 2 client configuration and usage.
• Understanding the role of OpenSSH 2 server host keys.
• Performing basic GnuPG configuration, usage and revocation.
• Using GPG to encrypt, decrypt, sign and verify files.
• Understanding SSH port tunnels (including X11 tunnels).