LPIC-3 304: Virtualisation & High Availability Study Guide
LPIC is a distribution-neutral Linux based certification. If you’re studying towards LPIC-3 Virtualisation and High Availability, then you may find this page useful.
I spent a great deal of time preparing for the LPI 304-200 exam (both studying and practising), and ended up with a ton of notes about various exam-covering topics. I’ve set this page up to put most of these notes into one shared place. You shall find here practical tutorials and some tips about the LPI 304-200.
Please be advised that LPI exams are covered by a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) and I’m not allowed to discuss their content etc. Articles posted on this website are based on the exam objectives and not on real questions, even though the level of difficulty is similar.
[UPDATE 2021 April]: I have renewed my LPIC-3 credentials by passing the LPI 304-200 exam. It’s hard to believe that it’s been five years already. I still remember taking the exam in 2016!
A Brief Introduction to LPIC-3: Virtualisation & High Availability
LPIC-3 is designed for the enterprise-level Linux professional and represents the highest level of professional, distribution-neutral Linux certification within the industry. You must have an active LPIC-2 certification to receive LPIC-3 certification, but the LPIC-2 and LPIC-3 exams may be taken in any order. To pass LPIC-3 you should be able to administer Linux enterprise-wide with an emphasis on Virtualisation and High Availability.
This page is based on the newest (at the time of writing) version 2.0 of the LPIC-3 304 exam that went live in December 2014.
Objectives and Study Resources
Exam Objectives (Version 2.0) and Study Guide
LPI 304-200 (previously known as 117-304) exam objectives can be found below:
https://www.lpi.org/our-certifications/exam-304-objectives/
Self-study Material
- Pro Linux High Availability Clustering by Sander van Vugt, 168 pages, July 2014.
- Teach Yourself Linux Virtualisation and High Availability: prepare for the LPIC-3 304 certification exam by David Clinton, 176 pages, March 2017.
- Linux High Availability Clustering Complete Video Course by Sander van Vugt (8 hours of video instruction).
It is inevitable to set up a home lab and get your hands on.
LPI 304 Exam Topics Priorities and Weighting
330: Virtualisation (36)
330.1: Virtualisation Concepts and Theory (8)
Virtualisation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtualization)
330.2: Xen (9)
Xen Live Migration with DRBD on Debian Jessie: Part 1 – Dom0
Xen Live Migration with DRBD on Debian Jessie: Part 2 – DomU
Xen Live Migration with DRBD on Debian Jessie: Part 3 – DRBD
330.3: KVM (9)
Getting Started with KVM on Debian Jessie
Configure Public Bridge Guest Networking in KVM on Debian Jessie
330.4: Other Virtualization Solutions (3)
VirtualBox 4.1 on a Headless Debian Wheezy Server
Setup VirtualBox 5.0 on a Headless CentOS 6 Server
330.5: Libvirt and Related Tools (5)
Manage Guests with Virsh (external site)
330.6: Cloud Management Tools (2)
OpenStack Documentation (https://docs.openstack.org/)
334: High Availability Cluster Management (18)
334.1: High Availability Concepts and Theory (5)
High Availability Concepts and Theory
334.2: Load Balanced Clusters (6)
Setting Up a Load-Balancing LVS (NAT) Cluster with Piranha
Setting Up a Load-Balancing LVS (Direct Routing) Cluster with Piranha
Setting Up a Load-Balancing HAProxy Cluster with Keepalived
Setting Up a Load-Balancing Cluster with Heartbeat and Ldirectord
334.3: Failover Clusters (6)
Active/Passive Cluster With Pacemaker, Corosync and DRBD on CentOS 7: Part 1 – Cluster Installation
Active/Passive Cluster With Pacemaker, Corosync and DRBD on CentOS 7: Part 2 – Add and Configure Resources
Active/Passive Cluster With Pacemaker, Corosync and DRBD on CentOS 7: Part 3 – Replicate Storage with DRBD
Active/Passive Cluster With Pacemaker, Corosync and DRBD on CentOS 7: Part 4 – Configure Fencing (STONITH)
334.4 High Availability in Enterprise Linux Distributions (1)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux High Availability Add-On Overview (external site)
SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension (external site)
335: High Availability Cluster Storage (6)
335.1: DRBD / cLVM (3)
Active/Passive MySQL High Availability Pacemaker Cluster with DRBD on CentOS 7
335.2 Clustered File Systems (3)
Active/Active High Availability Pacemaker Cluster with GFS2 and iSCSI Shared Storage on CentOS 7
O2CB Cluster with Dual Primary DRBD and OCFS2 on Oracle Linux 7
Very Very good topic. My request is you to please insert diagrams wherever necessary which will make the topics to understand for newbies. Thanks a lot and great job….Don’t stop, please include other LPIC 3 topics please…
Venkatesh , INDIA
Thanks, glad you found the page helpful. I have plans to add more articles to cover all LPIC3-VHA objectives.
Hey there, you’ve done a great job, sharing your notes about lpic3-vha. Looking forward to see your next lpic3-related articles, as I’m planning to pass this exam in 2016! Gonna check your blog regularly, that’s for sure.
You’re welcome, and good luck with your exam.
Hi Tomas, did you use Debian Jessie and CentOS 7 (or older versions) when preparing for LPIC-3?
Hi Bj, I used multiple operating systems.
We have Xen and KVM on Debian Wheezy/Jessie, but most of HA environment spins on RHEL, CentOS and Oracle Linux (versions 6 and 7).
A couple of boxes with OpenSUSE and Ubuntu. It’s a wide range really.
Late but found your website. very very useful!! Please keep this website live!! Thanks a Ton
You’re welcome.
By any chance is it possible for you to share Centos 7 LDAP virtualbox image ?
What image are you talking about?
In case if you are not aware, please find details of (https://www.maketecheasier.com/import-export-ova-files-in-virtualbox/)
If you have LDAP setup up on Centos7 using VMware or VirtualBox, you can export entire setup in OVI format. If i import that OVI i will have same setup and i can practice on my lab. I did try using an image from
https://www.turnkeylinux.org/openldap, but with little success.
Sorry, it’s all on KVM.
If you’re going for LPIC-3, you should be able to set up your own OpenLDAP server as that is LPIC-2 material ;-).
Well, if you’re going for LPIC-3, you are expected to know LPIC-1 as well as LPIC-2 material, however, OpenLDAP is not listed under LPIC-3 304: Virtualisation and High Availability objectives.
Just want to say thanks for your great job.
Thank you.
good job man!! Im reading it and the book published a couple of months ago in order to take the exam. IT is an awesome resume!
You’re welcome!
I passed the exam!! Thanks for your post it was a very important part of my preparation!!!
Well done, congratulations!
Thanks a lot for yours time and job.
No worries, you’re welcome!
I really appreciate your work for extremely useful tutorials. Please can you perhaps try to include LPIC 3 – Security which is quite essential in terms since I didn’t find any useful material on web? Your assistance in this matter will be highly appreciated or if you have any recommendations for this very same exam.
Hi, thanks for your interest, appreciated. I’m afraid I’ve no immediate plans to cover LPIC-3 Security as I’ve done Red Hat’s EX415 Security exam.
Your contribution for community is really remarkable and keep up the good work, Thank you Tomas.
Thank you for your kind words Mansoor!