Red Hat Certified Specialist in Ansible Automation

This is a 100% performance-based exam — there are no multiple-choice questions. You must write and run Ansible playbooks on live RHEL systems to complete each task. Practice by doing, not just reading.

Time management is critical. You have 4 hours for 15-20 tasks. Set up your ansible.cfg and inventory correctly first, as every subsequent task depends on a working control node configuration.

Master the ansible-doc command. You cannot access the internet during the exam, but you can use ansible-doc to look up module parameters, examples, and return values. Practice using it instead of web documentation.

Know how to create roles from scratch. Understand the directory structure (tasks/, handlers/, templates/, files/, vars/, defaults/, meta/) and how to wire a role into a playbook. Ansible Galaxy's init command helps, but you must know what goes where.

Ansible Vault questions are almost guaranteed. Practice encrypting files and individual variables, running playbooks with --ask-vault-pass and --vault-password-file, and rekeying encrypted content.

RHEL System Roles are a key topic. Know how to install them (rhel-system-roles package), find available roles, and use them for tasks like configuring SELinux booleans, timesync, networking, and storage.

Pay close attention to idempotency. Your playbooks should produce the same result whether run once or ten times. Avoid using command/shell modules when a dedicated module exists (e.g., use dnf instead of shell: yum install).

Always test your work before moving on. Run your playbooks and verify the result on the managed hosts. A playbook that runs without errors but doesn't achieve the desired state scores zero points for that task.