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. 

[ocp4ever]

Exam creators, can you build a "self-check" capability into the exams?  Like those in the class labs "lab grade <module>" the exam grading scripts are too much of a black box.

[mjbrightfr]

Fully agree with this ... I find the question wording to be so succinct and ambiguous, and so open to (mis)interpretation.

It would be a real help to know for each task - "you got it", or "you didn't"

[GaryF]

I'm trying to create a LiveUSB for my exam.  I downloaded the Fedora Media Writer and the latest RHREX iso, and I installed the bits on my USB key.  When I boot on a small (old) box that I usually run RHEL on, it hangs as soon as it gets to the BIOS splash screen.  If I try to boot it on my laptop, it says the boot image "did not authenticate."

I looked at the USB key from a Windows box and it saw 3 drives on the USB key, none of which were readable by Windows.

So I've tried two different computers and two different USB keys, and they fail in different ways.  Any suggestions?

[Sanju7]

@GaryF Error on your laptop "boot image did not authenticate" will be because of the security reasons in the BIOS. 

Please be informed that the exam image (ISO) is NOT secure boot compliant and you need to have a system with secure boot disabled on it in order to boot from ISO. Secure boot will be enabled by default on most of the computers.

You'll find this feature in BIOS under security to enable or disable it. But, Red Hat will not recommend to make any changes to the BIOS settings on the system as it may impact the regular boot. You may take help of any local technicians or do it at your own risk. 

[GaryF]

Hm.  Thanks @Sanju7.  I think I'll try disabling it.  I'm not worried about losing protection, considering that Secure Boot has already been broken multiple ways.  If it does mess up the regular boot, I assume I can just restore the setting.

Any advice for the older system that hangs at the boot splash page?

[Sanju7]

@GaryF For me, it is important to know more details about specifications of the other computer you using and what exactly happens when you try to boot from live USB. You can check whether boot from USB is enabled in BIOS. Also, ensure you're booting from UEFI mode not Legacy along with secure boot option which was already discussed.

Recommend you to contact the live chat support on this link - https://red.ht/remote-exam-chat

[GaryF]

It's an Acer Aspire AX3200-U3600A, vintage 2008, with... 4GB RAM.  Whoops.  It runs RHEL9 just fine so I assumed it would run the exam environment.  But no such luck: it freezes as soon as it displays the boot splash screen.  Presumably because it has half the required RAM?

I assume it's not worth checking UEFI mode &etc?

[Sanju7]

Minimum 8gb RAM is the requirement. If that's not fulfilling then as you said, it is not necessary to check other things. Good that you've have an alternative laptop which is booting to get security error. You can try making necessary changes as discussed (at your own risk) and see if that boots fine. If it boots fine, you can use the same to take the exam

[GaryF]

It's the same system I used to take my last exams, 3-4 yrs ago.  But obviously the exam system has changed since then.

[Sanju7]

The previous version of ISO has minimum requirement of 4gb of RAM. But the latest one (current version in use - 202306) which was released in June'23 need minimum of 8gb of RAM