EX300 - experience and lessons

2019.09.27 EX300 failed at 29 points!

• Date: 2019-09-27
• Exam type: classroom
• Score: 29

System1 did not boot successfully due to the root file system was corrupted. This happened when I tried to shrink the root filesystem to allocate disk space for the iSCSI back store.

I did it because I didn't check the available space carefully. Actually /dev/vda still had much free space not partitioned.

Shrinking a root filesystem is dangerous.

The root cause is poor time management. iSCSI was the 2nd last question while I only had 40 mins left. So at that time, I was nervous and didn't check the disk space carefully.

2019.10.07 EX300 passed at 271 points.

• Date: 2019-10-07
• Exam type: kiosk
• Score: 271

Due to the failed exam last time, I decided to have a better time schedule. After the network setup, I prepared the iSCSI back store immediately and reboot the server to verify.

Then I chose the most indepent tasks like httpd, script, mariadb, to finish as they are only related to one system.

When the last two parts, samba and nfs, were finished, I still had 1 hour left.

Unfortunately, kerberized NFS didn't work even if I had exercised it in my own lab many times before the exam.

Time schedule:

• basic settings including IP/Firwall/SELinux/IPV6/Bonding/teaming, 40 mins
• SMTP, 5mins
• iSCSI, 20 mins
• NFS, 20 mins
• SMB, 20 mins
• MariaDB, 20 mins
• HTTPD, 20 mins
• Script, 10 mins

A KIOSK exam is not as good as a classroom one as it has only one Laptop.

• It's slow than a classroom computer
• Its monitor is smaller than a classroom desktop