Chapter 11. Exam 102 Overview

LPI Exam 102 is the second of two exams required for the LPI's Level 1 certification. This exam tests your knowledge on 9 of the 14 major Topic areas specified for LPIC Level 1.

Each Topic contains a series of Objectives covering specific areas of expertise. Each of these Objectives is assigned a numeric weight, which acts as an indicator of the importance of the Objective. Weights run between 1 and 8, with higher numbers indicating more importance. An Objective carrying a weight of 1 can be considered relatively unimportant and isn't likely to be covered in much depth on the exam. Objectives with larger weights are sure to be covered on the exam, so you should study these Topics closely. The weights of the Objectives are provided at the beginning of each Topic section.

Exam Topics are numbered using a level.topic notation (e.g., 1.101, 1.102, 1.113). In LPI's early stages of development, Topics were assigned to exams based on a different scheme from what we see today. When the scheme changed, the Topics were redistributed to Exams 101 and 102, but the pairing of Topic numbers to exams was dropped. As a result, 1.x and 2.x Topics appeared in both Level 1 exams. In the 2002 revision of the Objectives, LPI decided to reformat the numbering scheme to be more scalable for its multiple levels of certifications. Therefore, the exams now use an x.y.z numbering scheme where x equals the LPIC level (e.g., 1 or 2), y equals the Objective Topic (e.g., 101, 102, 201, 202) which are unique to all levels of LPI exams, and z equals the Objective number within the Topic area (e.g., 1, 2, 3, 4, and so on).

The Level 1 Topics are distributed between the two exams to create tests of similar length and difficulty without subject matter overlap. As a result, there's no requirement or advantage to taking the exams in sequence.

The Topics for Exam 102 are listed in Table 11-1.

Table 11-1. LPI Topics for Exam 102

Name	Number of objectives	Description
Kernel	2	Covers kernel module management, as well as building and installing a custom kernel.
Boot, Initialization, Shutdown, and Runlevels	2	Covers details for when you boot, reboot, or change runlevels on a Linux system.
Printing	3	Covers all aspects of printing, including configuring local and remote printers, managing the print queues, and printing files.
Documentation	3	Covers documentation including using local system documentation, using online documentation, and using documentation to work with system users.
Shells, Scripting, Programming, and Compiling	2	Covers the shell and its startup files and writing bash scripts. Despite the name, compiling programs from source is not included (it's covered in Topic 1.102).
Administrative Tasks	6	Covers all of the basic administrative tasks done by a junior level Linux sysadmin, including managing users and groups, user and system environment variables, system logs, job scheduling, data backup, and system time.
Networking Fundamentals	3	Explores TCP/IP, network interfaces, DHCP, and PPP; includes troubleshooting commands.
Networking Services	6	Covers network-related applications and services such as inetd as well as basic Sendmail, Apache, NFS, Samba, DNS, and OpenSSH configuration.
Security	3	Covers security issues such as package verification, SUID issues, shadow passwords, iptables, and user limits.

Exam 102 lasts a maximum of 90 minutes and contains approximately 73 questions. The exam is administered using a custom application on a PC in a private room with no notes or other reference material. The majority of the exam is made up of multiple-choice single-answer questions. These questions have only one correct answer and are answered using radio buttons. A few of the questions present a scenario needing administrative action. Others seek the appropriate commands for performing a particular task or for proof of understanding of a particular concept.

The exam also includes a few multiple-choice multiple-answer questions, which are answered using checkboxes. These questions can have multiple correct responses, each of which must be checked. These are probably the most difficult type of question to answer because the possibility of multiple answers increases the likelihood of mistakes. An incorrect response on any one of the possible answers causes you to miss the entire question.

The exam also has some fill-in-the-blank questions. These questions provide a one-line text area input box for you to fill in your answer. These questions check your knowledge of concepts such as important files, commands, or well-known facts that you are expected to know.