New Remote Exam ISO just released

[PetrCihlar]

An updated version of Remote Exam ISO has been released.
Version RHRE.v20230630.F.40d671d
Based on newer Fedora, has better support for newer computers
Can be downloaded here:
https://red.ht/rhrex
Beware, the computer must have 8GB of RAM at least
Secure Boot must be disabled in BIOS
Cheers!

( Feb14, corrected the ISO link to match latest RH update )

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[Fran_Garcia]

Hey Peter,

Excellent news, thanks for that! Are the old isos deprecated? Can they still be used?

Thanks!

[PetrCihlar · Accepted solution]

RH recommends using the latest ISO. However, the old ISO can still be used for some time if it boots and you can pass the compatibility test with it. 

[r_upendar]

Hi Petr,

Just to bring to your kind attention, it's taking hours to download the image where the ISP's bandwidth is 50MBps.

Is there any alternative to make the downloads quicker?

Thanks

Upendar

[PetrCihlar]

Hi Upendar

I think you mean 50 Mbps, not 50 MBps (network speeds are referred to in bits per second, not bytes, usually)

Considering the ISO size is 2.5 GB, downloading it on the 50Mbps line would take
2500MB * 8 = 20000 Mb
20000 / 50 = 400s = 6.7 minutes

If your network is really 50 MBps, the download time would be even only 50 seconds.

As you know, Red Hat asks candidates to download the ISO and test the compatibility 2-3 days ahead of the exam. So I see no issue there. Of course, if somebody forgets about the exam, gets a reminder call from RH, and starts downloading the ISO when already expected to be in, he is not going to make it because the downloaded ISO has to be put onto the USB stick and booted, which consumes additional about 20 minutes. Besides, some compatibility issues may occur, camera, and mic must be adjusted.

You may correct my calculation if I am wrong. But I think I am not.

It is not much about your Internet connection speed. I agree the cloud storing the ISO may be slow sometimes. Unfortunately, there is no other location for the ISO I could offer, you may try to download it at a different time, maybe the line will be faster. It is important not to leave the preparations to the last day.

Regards

[Fran_Garcia]

hey Petr,

while I agree with the sentiment, it seems there's something wrong with AWS or the bandwidth it was to Europe. My provider in Spain is only able to download the ISO at a few kbytes/s, while if I use a VPS/Cloud Instande in America, it's _MUCH_ faster. Granted, my Internet is otherwise fine if I download other ISOs ie, from the Red Hat CDN or elsewhere.

It's not terrible because I can get the iso in about 1h or so, but definitely looks odd. This has been happening for some months now, but this thread gave it back to my attention.

Cheers

Fran

[r_upendar]

Hi Petr,

Thanks for your response.

Looks like, the S3 bucket where the ISO image is stored cannot provide the expected speed to transfer the files over the internet across the globe. It's offering 10KBps at the max and this transfer rate kept on fluctuating, irrespective of the internet service provider's bandwidth.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/static.redhat.com-training-certification/rhrexboot.iso

It says 2 days left to download after downloading the 587MB of 2.3GB.

It's kind of testing our level of patience.

If this issue can be fixed, people will probably feel comfortable with setting up their systems for the Redhat remote exams.

Thanks & Kind Regards

Upendar

[PetrCihlar]

Hi Upendar and Fran
I have no doubt you tested it properly and you observed the slowness. It must have been something temporary, I tested the link you provided and the download time was exactly 5 minutes. Let's hope the Amazon issue or whatever it was is resolved. I cannot store mp4 here so I put the video inside the presentation file as slide 2.
Regards
Petr

[SoorajT]

Hi Peter,

May I know why iso image is getting downloaded from https://s3.amazonaws.com/static.redhat.com-training-certification/rhrexboot.iso ?? 

We can trust this ? Why it is not getting downloaded from the given official link itself ? 

SOORAJ T

[PetrCihlar]

you can trust it. I think it was redirected by load balancer based on traffic or geolocation to another amazon server.