EX407 Red Hat Certified Specialist in Ansible Automation Exam

Exam description
The Red Hat Certified Specialist in Ansible Automation exam (EX407) tests your ability to use Ansible to automate the configuration of systems and applications.

By passing this exam, you become a Red Hat Certified Specialist in Ansible Automation, which also count towards becoming a Red Hat Certified Architect (RHCA).

This exam is based on Red Hat® Enterprise Linux® 7.5 and Ansible 2.7.

The material covered in this exam is now included within the curriculum of the Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE) exam (EX294). This new exam tests your ability to use Red Hat Ansible Automation to automate across different functions and scale infrastructure efficiently.

Audience for this exam
System administrators who need to manage large numbers of systems
System administrators who work in a DevOps environment and who wish to automate a large part of their day-to-day workload
Developers who have some basic systems administration background and who wish to incorporate automation into their development process
A Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE) interested in becoming a Red Hat Certified Specialist or Red Hat Certified Architect (RHCA)

Prerequisites for this exam
Successfully complete Automation with Ansible (DO407), or demonstrate equivalent experience working with Ansible to configure systems
Being a Red Hat Certified System Administrator (RHCSA) or higher or having equivalent systems administration experience is recommended, but not required

Study points for the exam
We recommend that candidates become a Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE®) or, at a minimum, a Red Hat Certified System Administrator (RHCSA®) before attempting this exam, but neither is required.

To help you prepare, the exam objectives highlight the task areas you can expect to see covered in the exam. Red Hat reserves the right to add, modify, and remove exam objectives. Such changes will be made public in advance.

You should be able to:
Understand core components of Ansible
Inventories
Modules
Variables
Facts
Plays
Playbooks
Configuration files
Install and configure an Ansible control node
Install required packages
Create a static host inventory file
Create a configuration file
Configure Ansible managed nodes
Create and distribute SSH keys to managed nodes
Configure privilege escalation on managed nodes
Validate a working configuration using ad-hoc Ansible commands
Create simple shell scripts that run ad hoc Ansible commands
Use both static and dynamic inventories to define groups of hosts
Utilize an existing dynamic inventory script
Create Ansible plays and playbooks
Know how to work with commonly used Ansible modules
Use variables to retrieve the results of running commands
Use conditionals to control play execution
Configure error handling
Create playbooks to configure systems to a specified state
Use Ansible modules for system administration tasks that work with:
Software packages and repositories
Services
Firewall rules
File systems
Storage devices
File content
Archiving
Scheduled tasks
Security
Users and groups
Create and use templates to create customized configuration files
Work with Ansible variables and facts
Create and work with roles
Download roles from an Ansible Galaxy and use them
Manage parallelism
Use Ansible Vault in playbooks to protect sensitive data
Use provided documentation to look up specific information about Ansible modules and commands

As with all Red Hat performance-based exams, configurations must persist after reboot without intervention.

Preparation
Red Hat encourages you to consider taking Automation with Ansible I (DO407) to help prepare. Attendance in this course is not required; students can choose to take just the exam.

While attending Red Hat classes can be an important part of your preparation, attending class does not guarantee success on the exam. Previous experience, practice, and native aptitude are also important determinants of success.

Many books and other resources on system administration for Red Hat products are available. Red Hat does not endorse any of these materials as preparation guides for exams. Nevertheless, you may find additional reading helpful to deepen your understanding.

Exam format
This exam is a performance-based evaluation of your ability to use Ansible to automate system configuration and application deployment. Performance-based testing means that you must perform tasks similar to what you perform on your job.

You will be required to develop Ansible playbooks that configure systems for specific roles and then apply those playbooks to systems to implement those roles. You will also be asked to demonstrate your ability to run Ansible playbooks and configure an Ansible environment for specific behaviors. You will be evaluated on whether you have met specific objective criteria.

This exam can also be taken virtually as part of our remote testing format. Find out more about remote exams to see if this is the right choice for you.
Scores and reporting

Official scores for exams come exclusively from Red Hat Certification Central. Red Hat does not authorize examiners or training partners to report results to candidates directly. Scores on the exam are usually reported within 3 U.S. business days.

Exam results are reported as total scores. Red Hat does not report performance on individual items, nor will it provide additional information upon request.

QUESTION 1
Examine the following inventory excerpt file named /home/user/ansible/inventory. [dbservers]
db1.example.com
Which of the following files does Ansible check for variables related to that inventory? (Choose all that apply.)

A. /home/user/ansible/dbservers
B. /home/user/ansible/host_vars/db1.example.com
C. /home/user/ansible/host_vars/db1
D. /home/user/ansible/group_vars/dbservers

Correct Answer: BD

QUESTION 2
Which flags must be accepted as input for a dynamic inventory script?

A. Only –list
B. –host [hostname] and –list
C. –host [hostname] and –inv-list
D. –list and –format [file format]

Correct Answer: B

QUESTION 3
A dynamic inventory must return data in what format?

A. JSON
B. XML
C. YAML
D. INI

Correct Answer: A

QUESTION 4
Which is the default inventory file used by Ansible?

A. ${PWD}/.inventory
B. /etc/hosts
C. /etc/ansible/inventory
D. /etc/ansible/hosts

Correct Answer: D

QUESTION 5
Observe the details of the following dynamic inventory file.
$ ls -l dynamic.py -rw-rw-r–. 1 user user 1928 Mar 30 08:21 dynamic.py
Why will this inventory file cause the ansible command to fail?

A. Ansible cannot use python scripts as inventories.
B. The ansible user must own the file.
C. The file is not executable.
D. The ansible command will not fail using the noted file with the given details.

Correct Answer: C