Questions about getting ready for your Red Hat remote exam?

[Deanna]

This thread is dedicated to connect you with Red Hat subject matter experts who can help answer your questions regarding Red Hat remote exams. Please see the following resources for Red Hat Remote Exams below:

• Remote Exams Announcement
• Technical Documentation for "Getting ready for your Red Hat remote exam"
• Remote Exams FAQ

For questions on scheduling or redeeming your exams,  please use the Red Hat Certification team comment form here. 

**Our subject matters experts in the Red Hat Learning Community will not be assisting with tasks related to scheduling exams. 

[Mostafa1]

Yes that's correct, I think 2 keyboards at the same time will not be
allowed.
Closing the laptop lid will need an external monitor.

[msamedgoksoy]

Hi,

As I understand from old posts, during the remote exam I can drink coffee and water also eat some small snacks which the proctor is aware of them. But I couldn't find any information about smoking cigarettes. With informing proctor can I smoke cigarettes during exam or smoking only permitted at break time?

[cmattern]

Issue with booting exam USB.

I've downloaded the exam USB from the link in my schedule confirmation email twice, matched the sha256sum of the isos, burned to two different USB sticks using both Image Writer and dd but I am unable to boot the image on any of 3 PCs.

I inspected the usb in my and found a valid GPT layout:

# fdisk -l /dev/sdc
GPT PMBR size mismatch (4823449 != 120963071) will be corrected by write.
The backup GPT table is not on the end of the device.
Disk /dev/sdc: 57.68 GiB, 61933092864 bytes, 120963072 sectors
Disk model: USB DISK 3.0
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 05EEA806-02AF-4C16-9AD0-96DC5D1798BC

Device Start End Sectors Size Type
/dev/sdc1 2048 4095 2048 1M BIOS boot
/dev/sdc2 4096 106495 102400 50M EFI System
/dev/sdc3 106496 413695 307200 150M Linux filesystem
/dev/sdc4 413696 3895295 3481600 1.7G Linux filesystem

with the 4th partition being encrypted:
# cryptsetup isLuks /dev/sdc4
# echo $?
0

To validate that this is not my hardware I created a new RHEL9 USB using the same Image Writer on the same laptop and was able to install from that.

Any advice here would be greatly appreciated.

[Rilindo]

Can you describe what happens when you boot the exam image? Is it a blank screen or do you see some activity on the screen? If you do see some activity, what were the messages?

Finally, can you provide the hardware specs of the laptop/desktops you are booting the image from?

[cmattern]

Thanks for asking! I ended up talking to a really nice person in Support who was willing to look at a video of what was going wrong and help me understand that I was running into a collision with Secure Boot on my laptop which I had skimmed over in the prep documentation <SHAME> once I took care of that I was fine. 

[cmattern]

FWIW I pulled a third copy of the ISO based on the "Getting ready for your Red Hat remote exam" doc (tr-remote-exams-preparation-ebook-f27382-202103-en_2.pdf) just in case and its sha256sum is the same. In a mad scientist moment I added the legacy boot flag to partition 1 and then 2, still no joy.

[cmattern]

I have a ticket open now and when we get this resolved I'll loop back here and share how we resolved the issue in case anyone else bumps into it.

[rozhdestvenskiy]

I got another quick question: can I acess gnu.org during the exam? I'm asking because even in --help or man pages the explanation of some command options is more compressed compared to gnu.org. I just want to clarify if it's allowed or not? Or maybe there is another allowed dedicated resource you can search for the needed info? Thanks.

[cmattern]

You can only use what's in the test environment.  It's all in there, perhaps a bit terse at times, but it is in there. I suspect part of the reason, beyond exam integrity, is showing that we know how to use the tools in the OS.

[yajith]

Hello,

Few questions about the name on the Red Hat account vs. the Govt. issued IDs. My full name happen to be bit long so I always use just a part of it in most places possible.

Since there is an ID verification at the exam, I have updated my name on the Red Hat account to have the full name.

1. Exam scheduler Red Hat Exam Scheduler is still showing the short name. Does this mean I need to wait or get a support case logged to have it fixed before I can schedule an exam ?

2. Is it not possible anymore to use a "preferred name" instead of the actual full name on things like the certs?