My RHCVA study guide

My journey to becoming a R.H.C.A began in february when i attained my R.H.C.E.While there are a lot of options to choose from (Openstack,JBoss,Puppet,Openshift) , i have settled for the R.H.C.V.A exam.I have extensive backgound in KVM so it was an easy choice for me to make ,considering my work schedule doesnt allow me the luxury of dedicating more than 2 hours in the evening, this should be a smooth ride for me.

For some reason, study guides and tips for attempting R.H.C.E are all over the internet , R.H.C.V.A falls short.This blog will document all the steps i have taken in preparation for the R.H.C.V.A exam.(Please note that i havent attempted the exam yet and this is my personal study guide according to the objectives here https://www.redhat.com/en/services/training/ex318-red-hat-certified-virtualization-administrator-rhcva-exam)

PHASE 1 - Lab setup - Make sure your lab is up to scratch.I selected ovirt for its extensive mailing list, trust me any problem that you will face has already been dealt with so ovirt is a good choice if you are just starting (although you can go with the Redhat 60 day trial for RHEV)

My lab is running on VMware Workstation and is comprised of

1. OvirtEngine - ovirtengine.district10.example.com ,4G Ram , 2 interfaces (Atleast for now), 20G Harddrive
2. OvirtNode - ovirtnode01.district10.example.com, 3G Ram , 2 interfaces (Atleast for now), 30G Hardrive
3. OvirtNode - ovirtnode02.district10.example.com, 3G Ram , 2 interfaces (Atleast for now), 30G Hardrive
4. IPA server - ipa.district10.example.com - For aunthentication , and testing (all my other machines have GUI disabled)
5. NB:On the IPA server ,this is where i have configured my 40G ISCSI storage domain but for some reason that i will share later, i will be moving the storage to a freenas or openfiler appliance

PHASE 2 - Storage -I installed openfiler as my ISCSI storage , moved away from the Centos 7.3 targetcli based ISCSI (Will share reason why)

PHASE 3 - Networking - This is the best part where you need to pay attention.Below are network design scenarios that you can take into consideration.whatever you choose will work.Since i am using ovirt on a VMware workstation , i have gone with the allocating a NIC for every logical network.

Ovirt logical network design recommends segregating traffic by functionality and the functionalities that i have chosen are shown below the image

• Management -network to connect the hypervisor to the rhev manager
• Storage – Network to connect the RHEV-H to ISCSI, NFS
• VM network -
• Display network -
• Migration network -
• Gluster network – Optional (Only if you are using Gluster storage)

Still on PHASE-3 -- trying to setup my environment has been a mind opening exercise especially on the design of the network architecture that ovirt/rhev is supposed to have.

My design is somewhat different from the above diagram and mine uses the model

1 NIC=1 Logical network

This model has raised its own challenges especially when it comes to an issue similar to below

"Imagine 4 interfaces both connected to different networks ,How can I make the network packets go back via the interface where they came from?"

Which lead me to the following links

Keep tuned to this article for more updates

While i would love to continue on my studies on the EX318 exam , i have decided to drop it for the mean time while i persue the puppet EX405 exam. Reason being my closest place to writing this exam is in SA and unfortunately the only center (TorqueIT) that used to offer it no longer offers it.

Redhat now offers kiosk exams via Torque IT in SA via the following link https://www.examslocal.com/ScheduleExam/Home , every exam except those that require serious hardware like RHCVA wont be offered via a kiosk that why i made a personal decision to forgo RHCVA for the puppet exam.