Who is the course for
We recommend that candidates become a Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE®) or,
at a minimum, a Red Hat Certified System Administrator (RHCSA®) before
attempting this exam, but neither is required.
Required skills
Candidates for this exam should:
- Red Hat recommends that candidates for the Red Hat Certificate of
Expertise in Ansible Automation exam (EX407) have taken Automation with
Ansible (DO407) or have equivalent experience working with Ansible to
configure systems.
- Red Hat also recommends candidates have earned Red Hat Certified System
Administrator (RHCSA) or higher or have equivalent systems administration
experience.
Preparation
Red Hat encourages you to consider taking Automation with Ansible I (DO407)
to help prepare. Attendance in this course is not required; students can choose
to take just the exam.
While attending Red Hat classes can be an important part of your preparation,
attending class does not guarantee success on the exam. Previous experience,
practice, and native aptitude are also important determinants of success.
Many books and other resources on system administration for Red Hat products
are available. Red Hat does not endorse any of these materials as preparation
guides for exams. Nevertheless, you may find additional reading helpful to
deepen your understanding.
Exam format
This exam is a performance-based evaluation of your ability to use Ansible to
automate system configuration and application deployment. Performance-based
testing means that you must perform tasks similar to what you perform on your
job.
You will be required to develop Ansible playbooks that configure systems for
specific roles and then apply those playbooks to systems to implement those
roles. You will also be asked to demonstrate your ability to run Ansible
playbooks and configure an Ansible environment for specific behaviors. You will
be evaluated on whether you have met specific objective criteria.
Scores and reporting
Official scores for exams come exclusively from Red Hat Certification
Central. Red Hat does not authorize examiners or training partners to report
results to candidates directly. Scores on the exam are usually reported within 3
U.S. business days.
Exam results are reported as total scores. Red Hat does not report
performance on individual items, nor will it provide additional information upon
request.
Scores and reporting
Official scores for exams come exclusively from Red Hat Certification
Central. Red Hat does not authorize examiners or training partners to report
results to candidates directly. Scores on the exam are usually reported within 3
U.S. business days.
Exam results are reported as total scores. Red Hat does not report
performance on individual items, nor will it provide additional information upon
request.
Course outline
To help you prepare, the exam objectives highlight the task areas you can
expect to see covered in the exam. Red Hat reserves the right to add, modify,
and remove exam objectives. Such changes will be made public in advance.
You should be able to:
- Inventories
- Modules
- Variables
- Facts
- Plays
- Playbooks
- Configuration files
Install and configure an Ansible control node
- Install required packages
- Create a static host inventory file
- Create a configuration file
Configure Ansible managed nodes
- Create and distribute SSH keys to managed nodes
- Configure privilege escalation on managed nodes
- Validate a working configuration using ad-hoc Ansible commands
Create simple shell scripts that run ad hoc Ansible commands
Use both static and dynamic inventories to define groups of hosts
Utilize an existing dynamic inventory script
Create Ansible plays and playbooks
- Know how to work with commonly used Ansible modules
- Use variables to retrieve the results of running commands
- Use conditionals to control play execution
- Configure error handling
- Create playbooks to configure systems to a specified state
Use Ansible modules for system administration tasks that work with:
- Software packages and repositories
- Services
- Firewall rules
- File systems
- Storage devices
- File content
- Archiving
- Scheduled tasks
- Security
- Users and groups
Create and use templates to create customized configuration files
Work with Ansible variables and facts
Create and work with roles
Download roles from an Ansible Galaxy and use them
Manage parallelism
Use Ansible Vault in playbooks to protect sensitive data
Use provided documentation to look up specific information about Ansible
modules and commands