LPIC-3 Linux Enterprise Professional Mixed Environment 300-100
The LPIC-3 Enterprise Mixed Environment 300-100 certification is the culmination of the multi-level professional certification program of the Linux Professional Institute (LPI) and designed to evaluate the knowledge and skills of Linux systems administrators, to keep pace with evolving technology. Three separate LPIC-3 speciality certifications are available; LPIC-3 mixed environment is the highest Linux certification in the IT industry and is designed for the enterprise-level Linux professional. This certification tests the ability to integrate Linux services in an enterprise-wide mixed environment. Passing any one of the three exams will grant the LPIC-3 certification for that speciality. Furthermore, Candidates will be best prepared for the exam if lower-level certifications are achieved before higher-level certifications through the exams can be taken in any order.
Exam Prerequisites
For the LPIC-3 Linux Enterprise Professional mixed environment (300-100) candidate must have an active LPIC-2 certification to receive the LPIC-3 certification.
LPIC-3 Enterprise Mixed Environment 300-100 Exam Details
However, Before getting started with the preparation the candidates should have a complete understanding of the exam details. This will help you devise a study plan and give a clear idea of the exam format to help you with your preparation and work according to the requisites. The LPIC-3 Linux Enterprise Professional Mixed Environment certification is a pathway to your success but before that let’s understand the exam details.
The LPIC-3 Mixed environment exam is consists of 60 Multiple-choice questions and fill-ups. You are given 90 minutes to complete the exam which must be given at test centers and is not available in an online proctored platform. The LPIC-300 mixed environment exam is available in two languages- English and Japanese and is valid for 5 years. The cost of the exam is $140 USD in India. Moreover, the Minimum passing marks required is 500 out of 800.
| Exam Name | LPIC-3 Enterprise Mixed Environment |
| Exam Code | 300-100 |
| Exam Pattern | 60 Multiple choice and Fill in the Blanks |
| Exam Format | Offline |
| Exam Duration | 90 minutes |
| Validity | 5 years |
| Passing Marks | 500 and above |
Scheduling the Exam
Let us now look at the registration process for LPIC-3 Linux Enterprise Professional Mixed Environment 300-100 exam –
Registration Process
- Before scheduling an appointment with Pearson VUE, you must first register (if not a member) with LPI and obtain an LPI ID
- Registration is free and only takes a few minutes.
- You will need this number to create an account with Pearson VUE to schedule the exam.
- Now that you have registered go to the official exam site and click on the purchase voucher option.
- This will redirect you to the exam voucher page.
- Now select the required exam and place your order.
- Once you place your order, you will receive a confirmation e-mail from Pearson.com. This e-mail includes your exam voucher number — you need this number to register for your exam.
- It is important that you provide a valid e-mail address and that your system does not block messages from Pearson.com.
Exam Retake
- Before retaking an exam after the first failure, you must wait seven (7) days.
- For the second or subsequent failures, you must wait thirty (30) days before retaking the exam.
- Anyone who passes an exam may not retake the exam for at least two (2) years.
LPIC-3 Enterprise Mixed Environment 300-100 EXAM FAQs
Get all you doubts and queries resolved with LPIC-3 Enterprise Professional Mixed Environment 300-100 exam FAQs
LPIC-3 Mixed Environment Course Outline
Understanding the course outline is the next most important step. It familiarises you about the exam format and its objectives. Getting an idea about the course outline helps you with your preparation as each objective is assigned a weighting value. The weights indicate the relative importance of each objective on the exam. Objectives with higher weights will be covered in the exam with more questions. LPIC-3 Mixed Environment Exam outline includes 8 topics along with subtopics to provide further insights into the course. Therefore, it is advisable to create your study plan around these topics to achieve the certification keeping in mind their weightage.
Exam Topics
- Open LDAP Configuration
- Open LDAP as an Authentication Backend
- Configure Samba
- Samba Share Configuration
- Samba User and Group Management
- Samba Domain Integration
- Samba Name Services
- Working with Linux and Windows Client
Topic 390: OpenLDAP Configuration
390.1 OpenLDAP Replication
Description: Candidates should be familiar with the server replication available with OpenLDAP.
Weight: 3
Key Knowledge Area
- Replication concepts
- Configure OpenLDAP replication
- Analyse replication log files
- Understand replica hubs
- LDAP referrals
- LDAP sync replication
The following is a partial list of the used files, terms, and utilities:
- master / slave server
- multi-master replication
- consumer
- replica hub
- one-shot mode
- referral
- syncrepl
- pull-based / push-based synchronization
- refresh Only and refreshAndPersist
- replog
390.2 Securing the Directory.
Description: Candidates should be able to configure encrypted access to the LDAP directory, and restrict access at the firewall level.
Weight: 3
Key Knowledge Areas:
- Securing the directory with SSL and TLS
- Firewall considerations
- Unauthenticated access methods
- User / password authentication methods
- Maintenance of SASL user DB
- Client / server certificates
Terms and Utilities:
- SSL / TLS
- Security Strength Factors (SSF)
- SASL
- proxy authorization
- StartTLS
- iptables
390.3 OpenLDAP Server Performance Tuning
Weight: 2
Description: Candidates should be capable of measuring the performance of an LDAP server, and tuning configuration directives.
Key Knowledge Areas:
- Measure OpenLDAP performance
- Tune software configuration to increase performance
- Understand indexes
Terms and Utilities:
- index
- DB_CONFIG
Topic 391: OpenLDAP as an Authentication Backend
391.1 LDAP Integration with PAM and NSS
Weight: 2
Description: Candidates should be able to configure PAM and NSS to retrieve information from an LDAP directory.
Key Knowledge Areas:
- Configure PAM to use LDAP for authentication
- Configure NSS to retrieve information from LDAP
- Configure PAM modules in various Unix environments
Terms and Utilities:
- PAM
- NSS
- /etc/pam. d/
- /etc/nsswitch.conf
391.2 Integrating LDAP with Active Directory and Kerberos
Weight: 2
Description: Candidates should be able to integrate LDAP with Active Directory Services.
Key Knowledge Areas:
- Kerberos integration with LDAP
- Cross platform authentication
- Single sign-on concepts
- Integration and compatibility limitations between OpenLDAP and Active Directory
Terms and Utilities:
- Kerberos
- Active Directory
- single sign-on
- DNS
Topic 392: Samba Basics
392.1 Samba Concepts and Architecture
Weight: 2
Description: Candidates should understand the essential concepts of Samba. As well, the major differences between Samba3 and Samba4 should be known.
Key Knowledge Areas:
- Understand the roles of the Samba daemons and components
- Understand key issues regarding heterogeneous networks
- Identify key TCP/UDP ports used with SMB/CIFS
- Knowledge of Samba3 and Samba4 differences
The following is a partial list of the used files, terms, and utilities:
- /etc/services
- Samba daemons: smbd, nmbd, samba, winbindd
392.2 Configure Samba.
Weight: 4
Description: Candidates should be able to configure the Samba daemons for a wide variety of purposes.
Key Knowledge Areas:
- Knowledge of Samba server configuration file structure
- Knowledge of Samba variables and configuration parameters
- Troubleshoot and debug configuration problems with Samba
Terms and Utilities:
- smb.conf
- smb.conf parameters
- smb.conf variables
- testparm
- secrets.tdb
392.3 Regular Samba Maintenance
Weight: 2
Description: Candidates should know about the various tools and utilities that are part of a Samba installation.
Key Knowledge Areas:
- Monitor and interact with running Samba daemons
- Perform regular backups of Samba configuration and state data
Terms and Utilities:
- smbcontrol
- smbstatus
- tdbbackup
392.4 Troubleshooting Samba
Weight: 2
Description: Candidates should understand the structure of trivial database files and know how troubleshoot problems.
Key Knowledge Areas:
- Configure Samba logging
- Backup TDB files
- Restore TDB files
- Identify TDB file corruption
- Edit / list TDB file content
Terms and Utilities:
- /var/log/samba/
- log level
- debuglevel
- smbpasswd
- pdbedit
- secrets.tdb
- tdbbackup
- tdbdump
- tdbrestore
- tdbtool
392.5 Internationalization
Weight: 1
Description: Candidates should be able to work with internationalization character codes and code pages.
Key Knowledge Areas:
- Understand internationalization character codes and code pages
- Understand the difference in the name space between Windows and Linux/Unix with respect to share, file, and directory names in a non-English environment
- Understand the difference in the name space between Windows and Linux/Unix with respect to user and group naming in a non-English environment
- Understand the difference in the name space between Windows and Linux/Unix with respect to computer naming in a non-English environment
Terms and Utilities:
- internationalization
- character codes
- code pages
- smb.conf
- dos charset, display charset and Unix charset
Topic 393: Samba Share Configuration
393.1 File Services
Weight: 4
Description: Candidates should be able to create and configure file shares in a mixed environment.
Key Knowledge Areas:
- Create and configure file sharing
- Plan file service migration
- Limit access to IPC$
- Create scripts for user and group handling of file shares
- Samba share access configuration parameters
Terms and Utilities:
- smb.conf
- [homes]
- smbcquotas
- smbsh
- browseable, writeable, valid users, write list, read list, read only and guest ok
- IPC$
- mount, smbmount
393.2 Linux File System and Share/Service Permissions
Weight: 3
Description: Candidates should understand file permissions on a Linux file system in a mixed environment.
Key Knowledge Areas:
- Knowledge of file / directory permission control
- Understand how Samba interacts with Linux file system permissions and ACLs
- Use Samba VFS to store Windows ACLs
Terms and Utilities:
- smb.conf
- chmod, chown
- create mask, directory mask, force create mode, force directory mode
- smbcacls
- getfacl, setfacl
- vfs_acl_xattr, vfs_acl_tdb and vfs objects
393.3 Print Services
Weight: 2
Description: Candidates should be able to create and manage print shares in a mixed environment.
Key Knowledge Areas:
- Create and configure printer sharing
- Configure integration between Samba and CUPS
- Manage Windows print drivers and configure downloading of print drivers
- Configure [print$]
- Understand security concerns with printer sharing
- Uploading printer drivers for Point’n’Print driver installation using ‘Add Print Driver Wizard’ in Windows
Terms and Utilities:
- smb.conf
- [print$]
- CUPS
- cupsd.conf
- /var/spool/samba/.
- smbspool
- rpcclient
- net
Topic 394: Samba User and Group Management
394.1 Managing User Accounts and Groups
Weight: 4
Description: Candidates should be able to manage user and group accounts in a mixed environment.
Key Knowledge Areas:
- Manager user and group accounts
- Understand user and group mapping
- Knowledge of user account management tools
- Use of the smbpasswd program
- Force ownership of file and directory objects
Terms and Utilities:
- pdbedit
- smb.conf
- samba-tool user (with subcommands)
- samba-tool group (with subcommands)
- smbpasswd
- /etc/passwd
- /etc/group
- force user, force group.
- idmap
394.2 Authentication, Authorization and Winbind
Weight: 5
Description: Candidates should understand the various authentication mechanisms and configure access control. Candidates should be able to install and configure the Winbind service.
Key Knowledge Areas:
- Setup a local password database
- Perform password synchronization
- Knowledge of different passdb backends
- Convert between Samba passdb backends
- Integrate Samba with LDAP
- Configure Winbind service
- Configure PAM and NSS
Terms and Utilities:
- smb.conf
- smbpasswd, tdbsam, ldapsam
- passdb backend
- libnss_winbind
- libpam_winbind
- libpam_smbpass
- wbinfo
- getent
- SID and foreign SID
- /etc/passwd
- /etc/group
Topic 395: Samba Domain Integration
395.1 Samba as a PDC and BDC
Weight: 3
Description: Candidates should be able to setup and maintain primary and backup domain controllers. Candidates should be able to manage Windows/Linux client access to the NT-Style domains.
Key Knowledge Areas:
- Understand and configure domain membership and trust relationships
- Create and maintain a primary domain controller with Samba3 and Samba4
- Create and maintain a backup domain controller with Samba3 and Samba4
- Add computers to an existing domain
- Configure logon scripts
- Configure roaming profiles
- Configure system policies
Terms and Utilities:
- smb.conf
- security mode
- server role
- domain logons
- domain master
- logon script
- logon path
- NTConfig.pol
- net
- profiles
- add machine script
- profile acls
395.2 Samba4 as an AD compatible Domain Controller
Weight: 3
Description: Candidates should be able to configure Samba 4 as an AD Domain Controller.
Key Knowledge Areas:
- Configure and test Samba 4 as an AD DC
- Using smbclient to confirm AD operation
- Understand how Samba integrates with AD services: DNS, Kerberos, NTP, LDAP
Terms and Utilities:
- smb.conf
- server role
- samba-tool domain (with subcommands)
- samba
395.3 Configure Samba as a Domain Member Server
Weight: 3
Description: Candidates should be able to integrate Linux servers into an environment where Active Directory is present.
Key Knowledge Areas:
- Joining Samba to an existing NT4 domain
- Joining Samba to an existing AD domain
- Ability to obtain a TGT from a KDC
Terms and Utilities:
- smb.conf
- server role
- server security
- net command
- kinit, TGT and REALM
Topic 396: Samba Name Services
396.1 NetBIOS and WINS
Weight: 3
Description: Candidates should be familiar with NetBIOS/WINS concepts and understand network browsing.
Key Knowledge Areas:
- Understand WINS concepts
- Understand NetBIOS concepts
- Understand the role of a local master browser
- Understand the role of a domain master browser
- Understand the role of Samba as a WIN’S server
- Understand name resolution
- Configure Samba as a WINS server
- Configure WINS replication
- Understand NetBIOS browsing and browser elections
- Understand NETBIOS name types
Terms and Utilities:
- smb.conf
- nmblookup
- smbclient
- name resolve order
- lmhosts
- wins support, wins server, wins proxy, dns proxy
- domain master, os level, preferred master
396.2 Active Directory Name Resolution
Weight: 2
Description: Candidates should be familiar with the internal DNS server with Samba4.
Key Knowledge Areas:
- Understand and manage DNS for Samba4 as an AD Domain Controller
- DNS forwarding with the internal DNS server of Samba4
Terms and Utilities:
- samba-tool dns (with subcommands)
- smb.conf
- dns forwarder
- /etc/resolv.conf
- dig, host
Topic 397: Working with Linux and Windows Clients
397.1 CIFS Integration
Weight: 3
Description: Candidates should be comfortable working with CIFS in a mixed environment.
Key Knowledge Areas:
- Understand SMB/CIFS concepts
- Access and mount remote CIFS shares from a Linux client
- Securely storing CIFS credentials
- Understand features and benefits of CIFS
- Understand permissions and file ownership of remote CIFS shares
Terms and Utilities:
- SMB/CIFS
- mount, mount.cifs
- smbclient
- smbget
- smbtar
- smbtree
- findsmb
- smb.conf
- smbcquotas
- /etc/fstab
397.2 Working with Windows Clients
Weight: 2
Description: Candidates should be able to interact with remote Windows clients and configure Windows workstations to access file and print services from Linux servers.
Key Knowledge Areas:
- Knowledge of Windows clients
- Explore browse lists and SMB clients from Windows
- Share file / print resources from Windows
- Use of the smbclient program
- Use of the Windows net utility
Terms and Utilities:
- Windows net command
- smbclient
- control panel
- rdesktop
- workgroup
Preparatory Guide for LPIC-3 Enterprise Mixed Environment 300-100
There goes a lot of hard work and consistency while preparing for an exam. It is the key to your successful and thriving career and opens a variety of opportunities for you. However, success at obtaining the LPIC-3 Mixed environment certification is not something that can be done overnight or with a blink of an eye. Moreover, it requires focus, time, efficiency, and a clear roadmap. Our preparatory guide here will always help you during your preparation journey. It will take you through all the exam resources and prepare you well for the exam.
Step 1: Review the Exam Objectives
Now, that you have reviewed the exam details it is Important to make sure that you are up to date with the course outline, and nothing is left out. As Mentioned earlier, Course outline is the most important step while preparing for any exam. Furthermore, Acquainting yourself with the exam objectives helps in grasping concepts faster and properly. Given the wide syllabus this exam covers, it is suggested that you refer the Official Exam website. This exam covers 8 topics namely:
- Open LDAP Configuration
- Open LDAP as an Authentication Backend
- Configure Samba
- Samba Share Configuration
- Samba User and Group Management
- Samba Domain Integration
- Samba Name Services
- Working with Linux and Windows Clients
Step 2- Discover your Learning Resources.
Study Guide
The LPIC-3 study guide provides you with complete clarity about the exam contents. It would help you prepare for the exam from the scratch.
Books your best friends.
Groundwork for any test without books appears to be absurd and unproductive simultaneously. You should always reach for credible and authentic books written by expert authors to give you an edge over others. Books are a comprehensive source of information and can sometimes provide you with detailed insights that the study guides may not provide. Books like Linux Textbook LPIC Level 3 300 Exam by authors Kenichi Hamano Akira and Takahashi Motoshin should definitely be in your reading list.
Step 3- Join an Online Community
Having fruitful discussions with people who are in the same boat as yours is always useful as well as enlightening. Joining communities helps you in gaining insights into different aspects of the same problem. Also, It not only widens your arena but also gives a new dimension to the way you think and reach out to problems. They help you stay up to date and reach out to industry experts and professionals while giving you the right exposure for your expertise.
Step 4- Practice Tests are your way ahead.
No matter how much you prepare, your preparation is incomplete without practice tests. Analysing your preparation is an important step towards self-evaluation. Giving a practice test gives you a baseline for understanding where you are starting from. You can use that as the basis for planning the rest of your studying by knowing your strengths and weaknesses and working on key areas. Additionally, you also get to practice your speed and accuracy and boost your confidence. Try outperforming yourself with each subsequent test and earn this certification. Start practising now.
