RHCE training course.

EX294 is the exam where Red Hat stops asking whether you can administer a system and starts asking whether you can automate administering many. Everything you did by hand for RHCSA, you now write once and run against an inventory — correctly, idempotently, and inside the exam's time.

EnrollAll certifications
Vendor: Red HatLevel: IntermediateWorkload: ~40 hrsExam: EX294
Syllabus

What the course covers

Organised by Red Hat's own objective domains, so what you study maps onto what you are assessed on.

RHCSA-level tasks, automated

The exam assumes everything RHCSA covered and asks for it through Ansible instead: storage, users, services, scheduled jobs, firewall, and SELinux, expressed as tasks rather than commands.

Ansible core components

Inventories static and dynamic, configuration precedence, connection plugins, privilege escalation, and knowing which of the several places a setting can come from actually won.

Control node and managed nodes

Installing and configuring the control node, preparing managed nodes for key-based access and escalation, and building an inventory with groups and group variables that will not surprise you later.

Plays and playbooks

Task structure, variables and facts, loops, conditionals, handlers, blocks with rescue and always, tags, and error handling — plus writing for idempotence rather than merely arriving at the right state once.

Roles and content collections

Writing roles, consuming roles from Ansible Galaxy and from certified collections, role dependencies, and structuring a project so a play stays readable at scale.

Content management

Jinja2 templating, parsing and generating files, Ansible Vault for secrets and vault files in a playbook run, and managing content that differs per host or per group.

How it runs

Labs, prerequisites & the exam

In the labs

Where the hours actually go. Each of these is done, not watched.

  • Build a control node and four managed nodes from scratch, with key-based access and escalation, and prove connectivity across the inventory.
  • Convert a written runbook into an idempotent playbook, then run it twice and show the second run changed nothing.
  • Refactor a sprawling playbook into roles, with a collection dependency and per-group variables.
  • Template a configuration file that differs per host, driven from facts, and drive a handler off the result.
  • Encrypt secrets with Vault and run a playbook that consumes them without ever writing them to disk in the clear.
  • Timed mock: an exam-shaped set of automation requirements against a fresh inventory.

Who it's for

  • RHCSA holders taking the next step in the Red Hat track
  • System administrators whose environments have outgrown manual work
  • DevOps and platform engineers standardising configuration across fleets
  • Anyone maintaining Ansible someone else wrote and wanting to do it deliberately

Before you start

  • A current RHCSA — Red Hat requires it to award the RHCE credential
  • Comfortable administering RHEL from the command line
  • Some YAML exposure helps, though the course covers what is needed
  • No prior Ansible experience assumed

The exam — EX294

Performance-based, on live systems. No multiple choice.

Length: Approximately 4 hours

Marked on the resulting state of the managed nodes, so a playbook that works is a playbook that scores. A current RHCSA is required for the RHCE credential to be issued. Confirm current details on Red Hat's own EX294 page before booking.

FAQ

Questions about RHCE

Do I need RHCSA before taking the RHCE exam?

Yes. Red Hat issues the RHCE credential only to candidates with a current RHCSA. You can sit EX294 in either order in practice, but the credential is not awarded until the RHCSA is in place, and the exam assumes RHCSA-level skill throughout.

How much Ansible do I need to know beforehand?

None. The course starts from inventories and the control node and builds to roles, collections, and Vault. What it does assume is that you already know how to do the underlying administration by hand, because the exam asks you to automate exactly that.

Is RHCE just an Ansible exam?

Effectively, yes — since Red Hat rebuilt it around EX294, automation with Ansible is the subject. The tasks are still system administration tasks, but you are graded on expressing them as playbooks that run correctly against an inventory.

Other tracks

The rest of the academy

All certifications — or pick up one of the other six.

Enroll in RHCE

Tell us your starting point and your timeline. We'll tell you honestly whether this is the right track, and hold you a seat if it is.

Enroll now →Compare certifications