AIX 6.1 Administration (000-104)

Today, I passed and validated my first certification test : AIX 6.1 Administration (000-104).
Now, I have a new status : IBM Certified System Administrator – AIX 6.1
This test is a MCQ of 117 questions with a time limit of 150 minutes,  the following lines list the objectives :

Backup and Recovery (5%)

a.     Recover from a lost root password

b.    Backup AIX OS and data using AIX commands (mksysb, mkcd, tar, backup, etc)

c.     Restore AIX OS and data using AIX commands, including listing backup media contents (restvg, restore, tar, etc)

System Initialization and Boot (7%)

a.     Describe and modify the /etc/inittab and rc files

b.    Describe the different run levels and boot modes

c.     Use commands to manage the boot list and create boot logical volumes (incl. changing the boot list)

d.    Describe the boot process (BIST, POST, mounts, cfgmgr)

e.     Interrupt the boot process and use SMS

f.     Describe booting from different media (disk, network, tape, cd)

g.    Perform system or partition startups, shutdowns and reboots

System and Device Configuration (9%)

a.     Add or remove devices (printers, tape, adapters, using cfgmgr, etc)

b.    Determine / chance device attributes, including WWN, MAC addresses, etc. (lsdev, chdev, lscfg, lsattr)

c.     List, define and change paging space

d.    Configure and manage print subsystem (print queues, default printer, print job management)

e.     Configure system environment (timezone, /etc/environment, etc.)

f.     Add / remove disks (including data migration tasks, using cfgmgr)

Network Administration (9%)

a.     Configure the network (TCP/IP daemons, /etc/hosts, hostname, ifconfig, route, /etc/resolv.conf, etc/netsvc.conf, /etc/ntpd.conf)

b.    Configure network security (/etc/hosts.equiv, .rhosts, etc.)

c.     Verify network availability and debug network problems (ping, ifconfig, netstat, tcpdump, iptrace)

d.    Understand and configure Etherchannel and teaming

e.     Configure NFS (/etc/exports/, biod, nfsd, showmount, etc.)

f.     Configure and use CIFS (very basic)

Security and User Management (7%)

a.     Add, delete, change user and group accounts

b.    Describe and modify user and group management related files, profiles, and set or change the shell environment (/etc/security/user, /etc/security/limits, /etc/security/passwd, /etc/profile/, .profile)

c.     Demonstrate in-depth knowledge of the login process (is getty running, order of the environment being set, etc.)

d.    Set permissions (in more depth than operator)

e.     Configure RBAC (role-based access control)

Install and Maintain AIX (11%)

a.     Determine correct installation source (CD/DVD, NIM, cloning, alternate disk install, etc)

b.    Determine correct installation type (preservation, migration, new/complete overwrite)

c.     Install, check and remove updates, TLs and fixes. Describe lpp statuses and tasks (commit, apply, or reject using lslpp), and debug install errors using lppchk

d.    Describe various options to acquire updates and fixes (SUMA, FLRT)

e.     Install additional IBM and Open Source licensed program products (rpm, rte, bff, etc.)

f.     Install and configure a basic NIM environment (what it is and what must be configured)

g.    Obtain and validate system and device firmware, including considerations for ‘deferred’ and ‘concurrent’ maintenance.

Logical Volume, File and Filesystem management (7%)

a.     Enlarge and reduce file systems

b.    Describe and differentiate between physical volumes and LVMs, logical volumes, physical and logical partitions, and physical disk and physical partition size.

c.     Manage Volume Groups including mirroring (mkvg, varyonvg, varyoffvg, extendvg, exportvg, importvg, lsvg)

d.    Describe and manage different types of Logical Volumes, including mirroring.

e.     Describe and manage different types of filesystems and different logging methods (mkfs, chfs, fsck, mount, snapshot, etc.)

f.     Configure and manage symbolic and hard links

g.    Demonstrate understanding of multipath I/O

Problem Determination and Resolution (15%)

a.     Use logs to identify problems (errlog, alog, syslog, etc.)

b.    Use the diag utility

c.     Use traces, truss, snap and kdb

d.    Describe and use ODM

e.     Configure and use system dump devices

f.     Recover from a full file system

g.    Troubleshoot common boot LED codes and access a system that will not boot

h.     Troubleshoot installation hangs and failures

i.      Debug shell script common interpreter problems (ksh, etc)

j.      Recover a logical volume

k.     Find and correct corrupted filesystems, superblocks, etc.

Process and Performance Management and Tuning (9%)

a.     Use the system resource manager

b.    Understand and use Workload Manager (WLM) at a basic level

c.     Use cron and at at a detailed level

d.    Use tuning tools and parameters (ioo, vmo, no, /etc/tunables, etc)

e.     Use performance monitoring tools (topas, netstat, vmstat, lvmstat, iostat, svmon, nmon)

f.     Monitor and change process execution (ps, nice, kill)

Planning and Documentation (11%)

a.     Understand Workload Partitions (WPARs) and when to use them

b.    Plan HMC configuration (networking, redundancy, users, security, etc.)

c.     Describe the use and function of VIO

d.    Partition planning (micropartitioning, memory planning, HEA/IVE, processor allocation, etc)

e.     Document a system (sysplan, etc)

f.     Find appropriate resources (info center, key center, etc.)

g.    Determine system redundancy requirements (avoiding single points of failure)

h.     Describe applicability and use of Capacity on Demand

HMC and Partition Management (6%)

a.     Apply HMC and Server fixes

b.    Define, add, remove resources from an LPAR (DLPAR and partition profiles, etc.)

c.     Backup and restore the HMC

d.    Use the HMC and ASMI interface,

e.     Understand and use IVM (options, functions, etc.)

f.     Configure and use electronic service agent