Associated preparation
Certifications
The exams this site prepares for, with the labs that train the skills they measure. Seven out of eight are hands-on: the final state of the machine is what gets graded.
- 8 certifications
- 7 hands-on exams graded in a real environment
- 404 labs in the catalogue to practise for them
These are not exam questions, and this site is not affiliated with any vendor. The objectives are the vendor’s, and their page is linked for every certification.
By track
Choose your exam
Each track reads from left to right: start with the first certification, the next one builds on it.
Linux and Ansible
Administer, then automate.
Red Hat EX200
Red Hat Certified System Administrator
Hands-on 67 labs
A fully hands-on exam: you are given Red Hat Enterprise Linux machines and tasks to complete, and the state of the system at the end is what gets graded.
Prepare for this certification (in French)
Practice exam (in French) Course track (in French) Official objectives
The Linux Foundation
Linux Foundation Certified System Administrator
Hands-on 61 labs
The same job as the RHCSA, without a mandated distribution: the exam runs in a terminal, on a distribution you pick from those offered.
Prepare for this certification (in French)
Practice exam (in French) Course track (in French) Official objectives
Red Hat EX294
Red Hat Certified Engineer
Hands-on 93 labs
Automation with Ansible, on Red Hat Enterprise Linux machines. The RHCSA is its prerequisite, and the exam stays entirely hands-on.
Prepare for this certification (in French)
Kubernetes
Deploy, administer, then secure.
CNCF
Certified Kubernetes Administrator
Hands-on 25 labs
Administering a cluster: installation, upgrades, networking, storage, etcd backups and troubleshooting, in a terminal, on real clusters.
Prepare for this certification (in French)
Practice exam (in French) Course track (in French) Official objectives
CNCF
Certified Kubernetes Application Developer
Hands-on 21 labs
The point of view of whoever ships an application: Pod design, configuration, observability, rolling updates and service access.
Prepare for this certification (in French)
Practice exam (in French) Course track (in French) Official objectives
CNCF
Certified Kubernetes Security Specialist
Hands-on 19 labs
Securing the cluster and what runs on it: hardening, admission, network policies, image supply chain and runtime detection. The CKA is its prerequisite.
Prepare for this certification (in French)
Practice exam (in French) Course track (in French) Official objectives
Terraform
Understand, then operate.
HashiCorp 003/004
HashiCorp Certified: Terraform Associate
MCQ 61 labs
A question-based exam, not a hands-on one: it covers vocabulary, the resource lifecycle, state and modules. The labs are there to make sense of what the questions describe.
Prepare for this certification (in French)
HashiCorp
HashiCorp Certified: Terraform Authoring and Operations Professional
Hands-on 67 labs
The level above, and this one is hands-on: writing reusable modules, managing shared state, and operating Terraform inside a delivery pipeline.
Prepare for this certification (in French)
Preparing for an exam without confusing preparation and coverage Why 100% coverage does not mean ready, and how to use practice exams.
All but one of these exams are performance-based: you get a machine or a cluster and tasks, and the state you leave is what gets graded. That is exactly what the site’s labs measure, which makes them the best preparation. The exception, Terraform Associate, is a questionnaire: there, labs help you understand what the questions describe.
| Family | Exam format | What the site provides |
|---|---|---|
| RHCSA, LFCS | Hands-on Linux administration, timed | Linux labs on VMs: services, storage, networking, permissions, troubleshooting. |
| RHCE | Hands-on Ansible automation | Ansible labs: roles, inventories, Vault, collections. |
| CKA, CKAD, CKS | Hands-on Kubernetes exams on real clusters | Kubernetes labs on a kubeadm cluster: workloads, networking, storage, RBAC, security. |
| Terraform Associate | Multiple-choice questionnaire | Terraform labs: lifecycle, state and modules. |
| Terraform Professional | Hands-on exam | Labs on module authoring, shared state and operations. |
A number of labs is not a coverage percentage. Official objectives are only shown when the vendor’s blueprint is in the repository; elsewhere the page speaks of associated preparation, and the vendor’s page is the reference.