LPI (Linux Professional Institute) is a non-profit organization located in Canada. It is committed to enabling creative and economic opportunities for different people through open source adoption. This company is focused on promoting the use of open source by supporting the specialists who work with it. To evaluate the skills of these professionals, LPI has the whole certification program. It is revolved around Linux as well as open technology tools (for example, DevOps tools and BSD Specialist).
Certification Program
The LPI certification program includes 3 tracks: Essentials, Linux Professional, and Open Technology. Below are the highlights of these pathways and their certificates:
1. Essentials
The path is intended for those individuals who are at the beginning of their careers in the domain of open source as well as who just want to show their professional competence. It comes with one certification, which is Linux Essentials. This certificate gives attention to processes, programs, and components of Linux OS as well as using a command-line editor. To get this certification, the candidates have to complete the Linux Essentials 010 test.
2. Linux Professional
This group of certificates is created to check the expertise of Linux Systems Administrators. It consists of 5 certifications. The exams can be passed in any order. However, to get any certificate of a higher level, the applicants should first earn the lower-level options. The certifications within this path are as follows:
- LPIC-1
This certification measures the proficiency of the individuals in performing maintenance assignments with the command line as well as installing and setting a computer running Linux and setting basic networking. This certificate requires 2 exams to nail.
- LPIC-2
This certification focuses on administering small to medium mixed networks. Those who plan to get certified need to possess the active LPIC-1 certificate and pass 2 tests.
- LPIC-3 Mixed Environments
This certification is about integrating Linux services in the enterprise-wide mixed environments. LPIC-2 is a prerequisite for this certificate. Furthermore, the students have to take 1 test.
- LPIC-3 Security
As for this certification, it checks the expertise of the specialists in hardening and securing the Linux-based services, servers, and networks enterprise-wide. The professionals who want to obtain this certificate must first earn LPIC-2. Besides that, they need to ace 1 exam.
- LPIC-3 Virtualization and High Availability
This certification takes a look at implementing and planning enterprise-wide virtualization and high availability setups utilizing the Linux-based technologies. To earn this certificate, the individuals need to hold LPIC-2 and complete the related test.
3. Open Technology
The certifications from this track measure the competence of the applicants in open technology tools. It consists of 2 certificates:
- DevOps Tools Engineer
This certification concentrates on the DevOps-related areas. It includes configuration management and monitoring, machine and container deployment, and software architecture and engineering. There is 1 test that leads to this certificate.
- BSD Specialist
This certification evaluates the expertise of the professionals in administering FreeBSD and OpenBSD as well as NetBSD systems. To get certified, the learners have to complete 1 exam.
Career Prospects
The LPI certifications, as well as knowledge of open-source technologies, can be of interest to the specialists from different areas. While preparing for the tests, the applicants may find out new useful information. The certificates cover a variety of topics. Some of them are Linux Kernel, Samba concepts and architecture, DNS and cryptography, and GNU and Unix commands. Besides that, they take a look at the knowledge areas, such as Linux installation and package management, virtualization concepts and theory, network client management, active directory user management, host intrusion detection, and shells and shell scripting, among others.
