Red Hat RHCE
Red Hat
Complete guide to passing the Red Hat RHCE exam on your first attempt.
$450
~40%
3 years
Global
Red Hat
$110k-$160k
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Complete Overview
The Red Hat Certified Engineer path in Ansible is earned through exam EX294, a performance-based test in which you write Ansible playbooks that configure real Red Hat Enterprise Linux systems. Red Hat's Certification program guide lists a standard exam price of $500 USD, varying by region and confirmed in your cart at checkout. On 11 May 2026 Red Hat renamed the exam itself to the Red Hat Certified Advanced System Administrator in Ansible exam, and the certification structure changed with it.
Under the current framework, passing EX294 on its own awards the Red Hat Certified Advanced System Administrator in Ansible credential. Combined with a current RHCSA earned through EX200, it awards Red Hat Certified Engineer in Ansible at Level 3, and Red Hat says the Engineer designation is conferred automatically rather than through a separate exam. Red Hat states that for the renamed exams only the names changed, and that content, descriptions, and difficulty remain exactly the same.
The exam is entirely hands-on. Red Hat provides multiple systems, you configure Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform on a control node, and you then use playbooks to carry out standard administration work. Grading is unusual and worth understanding: Red Hat applies the playbooks you wrote during the exam against freshly installed systems and checks whether those systems and services behave as specified. A playbook that only works because you also made a manual change scores nothing. As with every Red Hat performance-based exam, configurations must persist across a reboot without intervention.
The published objectives have moved with the product. Alongside classic playbook skills, the current list includes modifying ansible-navigator.yml, running playbooks with ansible-navigator as well as ansible-playbook, finding modules inside available Ansible Content Collections, basic Git operations such as cloning a repository and adding files, and working in Visual Studio Code well enough to create playbooks, push them to Git, configure ansible-navigator, and run playbooks using an Ansible development container.
Red Hat does not publish a passing score or an item count for EX294, and the redhat.com exam page carries no duration; the program guide sends candidates back to that same exam page for timing, so neither source gives a number. The two pages also disagree on results: the EX294 page says scores are reported as total scores within three U.S. business days, while the program guide says a pass or fail status plus a score breakdown by objective area arrives within five business days. A paid first attempt includes one free retake. The credential is current for three years.
The Engineer level is not a separate exam. The program guide describes Red Hat Certified Engineer as automatically awarded once you hold the Administrator and the Advanced Administrator credentials in the same specialization, and Architect as automatically awarded once you hold an Engineer credential plus three Specialist certifications in one concentration.
Why Get Red Hat RHCE Certified?
EX294 plus a current RHCSA awards Red Hat Certified Engineer in Ansible automatically, with no third exam required, so two exams take you from Level 2 to Level 3 in the Ansible specialization.
Passing EX294 on its own earns a standalone certification, the Red Hat Certified Advanced System Administrator in Ansible, which Red Hat states also counts toward Red Hat Certified Engineer in Ansible and Red Hat Certified Architect in Ansible.
The exam grades your playbooks by running them against freshly installed systems, so the credential proves your automation is genuinely repeatable rather than a one-off manual fix.
EX294 is the Engineer-level step toward Red Hat Certified Architect in Ansible. The program guide sets RHCA at one Administrator or Developer exam, one Engineer exam, and three Specialist electives within a single concentration.
Every paid first attempt includes one free retake, so a first pass realistically costs the single $500 USD list price rather than two registrations.
Earning RHCE renews your lower-level certifications, so an EX294 pass extends the three-year clock on your RHCSA at the same time.
Red Hat names the DoD 8570 directive among the reasons administrators sit EX294, which makes the credential usable where a certification is a contractual requirement.
Exam Format & Structure
Duration
Not published on the redhat.com EX294 exam page. The Red Hat Certification program guide states that exams are timed and directs candidates to the individual exam detail page for the duration of each exam.
Questions
Red Hat does not publish an item count. EX294 is a set of automation tasks carried out with Ansible playbooks against live systems.
Passing Score
Red Hat does not publish a passing score for EX294. Results are reported as pass or fail with a score breakdown by objective area.
Question Types
- Write Ansible playbooks that bring managed systems to a specified end state
- Configure Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform on a control node and prepare managed nodes
- Tasks stated as required outcomes rather than required commands
- No multiple-choice items of any kind
Delivery Method
Remote exam booted from the official Red Hat Remote Exam ISO on a LiveUSB drive and supervised by a remote proctor over webcam and microphone; an individual testing station at a Red Hat or partner location; or a classroom session run by a Red Hat Certified Examiner.
Exam Domains & Topics
Red Hat lists the conceptual vocabulary you are expected to hold before you write anything: inventories, modules, variables, facts, loops, conditional tasks, plays, handling task failure, playbooks, configuration files, and roles. The list also requires you to use the documentation provided in the exam environment to look up specific information about Ansible modules and commands.
Key Topics to Master:
- Inventories and how host groups are resolved
- Modules and where they live inside collections
- Variables, including precedence and where they are defined
- Facts gathered from managed nodes
- Loops and conditional tasks
- Plays, playbooks, and configuration files
- Handling task failure
- Roles as reusable units
- Looking up module arguments from the documentation shipped with the product
This objective covers the control node and the machines it talks to. You create and modify ansible.cfg, modify ansible-navigator.yml, create a static host inventory file, and use static inventories to define groups of hosts. On the managed side you create and distribute SSH keys, configure privilege escalation, and deploy files to the managed nodes.
Key Topics to Master:
- Create and modify ansible.cfg
- Modify ansible-navigator.yml
- Create a static host inventory file
- Define groups of hosts in a static inventory
- Create and distribute SSH keys to managed nodes
- Configure privilege escalation on managed nodes
- Deploy files to managed nodes
- Confirm connectivity to every managed host before writing playbooks
Red Hat expects you to run playbooks with both ansible-navigator and ansible-playbook, and to know when each is appropriate. The objective also requires using ansible-navigator to find new modules inside available Ansible Content Collections and then use them, and to create inventories and configure the Ansible environment from within the navigator interface.
Key Topics to Master:
- Run playbooks with ansible-playbook
- Run playbooks with ansible-navigator
- Use ansible-navigator to browse available Ansible Content Collections
- Find a new module in a collection and use it in a play
- Use ansible-navigator to create inventories
- Configure the Ansible environment through ansible-navigator
- Read navigator output to diagnose a failed task
A newer part of the objective list. You must perform basic source control operations using Git, specifically cloning a repository and adding files to it. You must also be familiar enough with Visual Studio Code to create playbooks and push them to a Git repository, configure ansible-navigator from inside the editor, and run playbooks using an Ansible development container.
Key Topics to Master:
- Clone a Git repository
- Add files to a Git repository
- Create playbooks inside Visual Studio Code
- Push playbooks from the editor to a Git repository
- Configure ansible-navigator from within Visual Studio Code
- Run playbooks using an Ansible development container
- Recover from a rejected or incomplete commit without losing work
The core writing skill. You work with commonly used modules, use variables to retrieve the results of running a command, use conditionals to control play execution, configure error handling, and create playbooks that configure systems to a specified state. Because grading replays your playbooks against fresh systems, idempotence and correct handler use matter more than they do in daily work.
Key Topics to Master:
- Work with commonly used Ansible modules
- Register the result of a command and act on it
- Use when conditions to control play execution
- Configure error handling with failed_when, ignore_errors, and blocks
- Write plays that bring a system to a described end state
- Use handlers so that changes trigger only when needed
- Ensure playbooks are idempotent across repeated runs
Red Hat requires you to create and work with roles, install roles and use them in playbooks, install Content Collections and use them in playbooks, and obtain a set of related roles, supplementary modules, and other content from a collection and use that content inside a playbook. Knowing the on-disk role layout without looking it up saves real time here.
Key Topics to Master:
- Create a role and populate tasks, handlers, defaults, vars, files, and templates
- Install roles and use them in a playbook
- Install Content Collections and use them in a playbook
- Use a fully qualified collection name to call a module
- Obtain related roles and modules from a collection and apply them
- Pass variables into a role from a play
- Structure a playbook directory so roles resolve without absolute paths
The objective list requires you to perform all tasks expected of a Red Hat Certified System Administrator, then automate them. Red Hat names the areas explicitly: software packages and repositories, services, firewall rules, file systems, storage devices, file content, archiving, task scheduling, security, and users and groups. The exam also expects you to analyse simple shell scripts.
Key Topics to Master:
- Automate software package and repository management
- Automate service enablement and state
- Automate firewall rules
- Automate file system creation and mounting
- Automate storage device configuration including LVM
- Automate file content changes and archiving
- Automate task scheduling and security settings
- Automate user and group management
- Analyse simple shell scripts
The final published objective group. You create and use templates to generate customised configuration files, which in practice means Jinja2 templating driven by facts and variables, and you use Ansible Vault in playbooks to protect sensitive data. Getting a vaulted variable to decrypt during a graded replay run is a common failure point, so rehearse the password handling.
Key Topics to Master:
- Create Jinja2 templates for configuration files
- Drive template output from facts and inventory variables
- Apply templates with the template module and correct ownership and mode
- Encrypt a variables file with Ansible Vault
- Reference vaulted variables from a playbook
- Supply the vault password so an unattended playbook run succeeds
- Rotate or re-key a vaulted file
Recommended Study Plan
- 1Re-read the EX200 objectives on redhat.com, since EX294 explicitly requires all tasks expected of an RHCSA
- 2Build one control node and at least three managed nodes as virtual machines running Red Hat Enterprise Linux
- 3Register for a no-cost Red Hat Developer Subscription for Individuals so the lab runs entitled RHEL
- 4Set up passwordless SSH from the control node to every managed node and confirm sudo escalation works
- 5Write and run a single ad hoc command against all managed nodes to prove the fleet responds
- 1Write an ansible.cfg in a project directory and understand which settings override which
- 2Build a static inventory with several host groups and a group of groups
- 3Set remote_user and become behaviour in configuration rather than repeating it on every play
- 4Break the inventory deliberately and read the error until the message is familiar
- 5Confirm ansible --list-hosts resolves each group as you expect
- 1Write plays that install packages, manage services, and copy files, then run each one twice
- 2Check that the second run reports zero changed tasks, which is the practical test of idempotence
- 3Register command output into a variable and branch on it with a when condition
- 4Add handlers and confirm they fire only when the triggering task reports changed
- 5Delete a managed node, rebuild it, and re-run the playbook to prove it converges from scratch
- 1Run every playbook from week three with ansible-navigator instead of ansible-playbook
- 2Write and modify ansible-navigator.yml so the execution environment and mode are set for you
- 3Browse installed collections inside navigator and locate a module you have never used
- 4Call that module using its fully qualified collection name in a play
- 5Install a collection from a local artifact and use it in a playbook
- 1Define variables at play, host, group, and role level and trace which wins
- 2Read gathered facts with the setup module and use them to make a play distribution-aware
- 3Write loops over lists and over dictionaries and know which syntax each needs
- 4Set a custom fact on a managed node and consume it in a later play
- 5Turn fact gathering off in one play and measure the difference in run time
- 1Use failed_when and changed_when to override how Ansible interprets a task result
- 2Use ignore_errors and understand why it is rarely the right answer on a graded exam
- 3Wrap risky work in a block with rescue and always sections
- 4Force a handler to run after a failure using force_handlers
- 5Write a play that fails cleanly with a useful message when a precondition is missing
- 1Create a role by hand and populate tasks, handlers, defaults, vars, files, and templates
- 2Convert two playbooks from earlier weeks into roles and call them from a single site playbook
- 3Install a role and use it in a playbook, then override its defaults from the calling play
- 4Obtain a set of related roles and modules from a collection and apply them together
- 5Practise the whole role skeleton from memory, since typing it out under time pressure is slow
- 1Write a Jinja2 template that renders a configuration file from inventory variables and gathered facts
- 2Add conditionals and loops inside the template and verify output on hosts with different facts
- 3Set correct owner, group, and mode on the templated file and validate before deploying where possible
- 4Encrypt a variables file with ansible-vault and reference it from a playbook
- 5Run a vaulted playbook unattended using a vault password file and confirm it decrypts
- 1Write playbooks that manage repositories, packages, and services across the whole fleet
- 2Automate firewall rules, users, groups, and sudo configuration
- 3Automate LVM storage: create a physical volume, volume group, logical volume, file system, and persistent mount
- 4Automate scheduled jobs and file content edits with lineinfile and blockinfile
- 5Automate archiving and confirm the archive lands with the right ownership
- 1Clone a Git repository onto the control node and add your playbooks to it
- 2Create playbooks inside Visual Studio Code and push them to the repository
- 3Configure ansible-navigator from inside the editor and run a playbook from there
- 4Run a playbook using an Ansible development container
- 5Practise the clone, edit, add, commit, push cycle until it takes under two minutes
- 1Build a task list from every bullet of the published EX294 objectives and attempt it in one sitting
- 2Rebuild all managed nodes from clean images and replay only your playbooks against them
- 3Fix every playbook that needed a manual step, because the real grading replays your work on fresh systems
- 4Reboot the managed nodes and confirm every configuration survives
- 5Book a Red Hat Exam Experience session if this is your first remote exam
- 1Repeat the full rehearsal and target finishing with time left to re-run every playbook once more
- 2Create your Remote Exam LiveUSB and run the mandatory compatibility test at the same hour your exam is booked
- 3Confirm your government-issued photo ID matches your Red Hat account name exactly, including spacing
- 4Rehearse working entirely from the documentation shipped in the exam environment, with no internet
- 5Clear the desk, remove watches and smart devices, and practise the 360-degree webcam scan
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Best Study Resources
EX294 exam objectives on redhat.com
Official objective listThe authoritative study points, including the newer requirements for ansible-navigator, Content Collections, Git operations, and Visual Studio Code with a development container.
Free
Red Hat Certification program guide
Official policy documentCarries the $500 USD list price, the free retake rule, the break policy, ID verification, accommodation deadlines, results timing, and the code of conduct that governs your session.
Free
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Automation with Ansible (AU294)
Instructor-led or self-paced courseThe course Red Hat names as preparation for EX294, previously catalogued as RH294. Attendance is not required and you may take the exam on its own.
Paid, priced by region
Red Hat Learning Subscription
Subscription with labs and exam vouchersStandard and Premium tiers include up to five first-attempt exams and five free retakes during the term, which is the cheapest route if you plan to sit EX200 and EX294 close together.
Paid, with a no-cost product trial
Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform documentation
DocumentationThe product documentation set that ships with Ansible Automation Platform. Worth learning to navigate quickly because product documentation is available inside the exam while the internet is not.
Free
Ansible community documentation
DocumentationModule reference, playbook keywords, and collection index. Use it for study, then deliberately practise the same lookups against the local documentation so you are not dependent on it.
Free
Ansible Galaxy
Content repositoryWhere community roles and collections are published. Practise installing a role and a collection from it and calling their content with fully qualified names.
Free
Red Hat Exam Experience (XE)
Practice sessionA one-hour session that reproduces the remote exam environment. It awards no certification credit and tests no technical skill, but it removes the surprise of the LiveUSB interface.
Check current pricing with Red Hat
Red Hat Learning Community
Community forumDistribution point for the Remote Exam Live Environment ISO and its technical documentation, and a place to check current hardware and connectivity reports from other candidates.
Free
Red Hat certification verification
Official verification toolConfirms whether your RHCSA is still current, which matters because Red Hat Certified Engineer in Ansible requires a current RHCSA alongside your EX294 pass.
Free
Common Mistakes to Avoid
Fixing a system by hand and then writing a playbook that assumes the manual fix. Red Hat replays your playbooks against freshly installed systems, so the manual step never happens during grading.
Rebuild your managed nodes from clean images and run only your playbooks against them. If anything fails, the playbook is incomplete, not the lab.
Writing playbooks that are not idempotent, usually by driving everything through the command or shell module. A second run reports changes and can undo earlier work during a replay.
Reach for a purpose-built module first. Where command or shell is unavoidable, add creates, removes, or changed_when so the task reports honestly on a repeat run.
Calling a module by its short name when it lives in a collection that is not in the default search path, producing a module not found error mid-run.
Use the fully qualified collection name, and rehearse browsing installed collections in ansible-navigator so you can find the correct name inside the exam without internet access.
Building the whole answer as one long playbook when the task asks for a role, or building a role with a directory layout that Ansible will not resolve.
Practise the role skeleton from memory: tasks, handlers, defaults, vars, files, templates, meta. Call the role from a small site playbook and confirm it resolves without absolute paths.
Encrypting variables with Ansible Vault and then leaving no way for a replay run to supply the password, so every vaulted task fails during grading.
Rehearse unattended runs with a vault password file or the configured password source, and verify the playbook completes with no interactive prompt at all.
Ignoring the ansible-navigator objectives and preparing only with ansible-playbook. The published objectives require running playbooks with navigator, modifying ansible-navigator.yml, and using navigator to find modules and create inventories.
Run every practice playbook through ansible-navigator for at least two weeks so the interface, the execution environment, and the log output are familiar.
Skipping the Git and Visual Studio Code objectives because they feel peripheral. Cloning a repository, adding files, and running a playbook in a development container are all on the published list.
Spend one week working exclusively from the editor: clone, write, push, configure navigator from inside VS Code, and run a playbook using an Ansible development container.
Forgetting that EX294 still assumes RHCSA competence. The objectives open by requiring all tasks expected of a Red Hat Certified System Administrator, including analysing simple shell scripts.
Automate the RHCSA objective list itself: repositories, services, firewall rules, file systems, storage devices, file content, archiving, scheduling, security, users, and groups.
Assuming a current RHCSA is not needed because you passed EX294. Red Hat Certified Engineer in Ansible requires both, and an expired RHCSA cannot be renewed and must be earned again from scratch.
Check your status at rhtapps.redhat.com/verify before booking EX294, and note that passing EX294 while current renews your RHCSA for another three years.
Exam Day Tips
- 1
Connect to your session at least 15 minutes before the scheduled start. Red Hat states there is no grace period for late arrival and the responsibility is entirely the candidate's.
- 2
Upload a valid government-issued photo ID in advance and choose AI or manual verification. The name must match your Red Hat registration exactly, including case and spacing.
- 3
Expect a 360-degree scan of your workspace with an external webcam before the proctor releases the exam, including a look beneath the desk.
- 4
Remove watches and smart devices, and take off hats, hoodies, scarves, and jackets. None are permitted for the duration of the session.
- 5
Read the Important Configuration Information page inside the exam environment before writing a single play. It states the system setup and grading criteria for your specific session.
- 6
You may take a 10-minute break after each completed hour, but the timer keeps running and phone use is prohibited for the whole session.
- 7
Re-run every playbook you write before finishing. Because grading replays your playbooks against fresh systems, a play that works only on your already-configured hosts will fail.
- 8
Report any fault in the exam environment immediately through the in-exam chat. The Exam Support team handles environment problems only and can never help with content.
- 9
Keep the phone number in your Red Hat profile current, because the support team will attempt to call it if your connection drops mid-exam.
Career Paths & Salary Ranges
Automation engineer
Builds and maintains the playbook and role libraries that configure a company's Linux estate. EX294 maps almost one to one onto the daily work of writing, testing, and versioning that content.
$115,000-$140,000
Senior Linux systems engineer
Red Hat positions Engineer-level credentials for staff whose work spans foundational and advanced responsibilities, managing and scaling multi-system environments rather than single servers.
$110,000-$135,000
DevOps engineer
Red Hat names DevOps professionals who want to demonstrate competency automating part of their workload as an EX294 audience. Roles, collections, and vault handling all carry into pipeline work.
$120,000-$145,000
Infrastructure platform lead
Owns the standards other teams build on. The exam's grading model, replaying playbooks on clean systems, is exactly the discipline this role has to enforce across an organisation.
$130,000-$160,000
Site reliability engineer
Automating recovery and configuration drift is the core of the job. Error handling, blocks with rescue sections, and idempotent plays are the SRE-relevant parts of the objective list.
$120,000-$150,000
Ansible Automation Platform administrator
EX294 is the gateway to the Ansible specialist exams, including EX467 for managing automation with Ansible Automation Platform, which is where platform administration is validated.
$115,000-$145,000
Prerequisites & Requirements
- There is no barrier to registering for EX294 itself, and passing it alone awards the Red Hat Certified Advanced System Administrator in Ansible certification.
- To earn Red Hat Certified Engineer in Ansible you must hold a current RHCSA earned through EX200 as well as passing EX294.
- Red Hat recommends, without requiring, that you have taken Red Hat System Administration I (RH124) and II (RH134), or the RHCSA Rapid Track course (RH199), or have comparable experience administering Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
- Red Hat also recommends Red Hat Enterprise Linux Automation with Ansible (AU294), previously catalogued as RH294, or comparable work experience with Ansible.
- You must be eighteen years of age to purchase and consume Red Hat training and exams, a rule Red Hat states on its Training Policies page. You must also upload a valid government-issued photo ID before the session.
- For a remote exam you must pass the mandatory compatibility test from the Red Hat LiveUSB environment before your exam date, using the hardware and network you intend to test on.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does the RHCE exam cost?
Red Hat's Certification program guide gives a standard list price of $500 USD for a Red Hat certification exam, which includes EX294. Red Hat notes the price varies by region and that the accurate figure appears in your shopping cart. Red Hat Learning Subscription tiers can also cover the exam: the Course tier includes one first attempt plus one free retake for that course's exam, and Standard and Premium include up to five first attempts and five free retakes during the term.
What happens if I fail EX294?
You are eligible for one free retake for every paid first attempt. The retake appears in your scheduling application once your first result has been reported, and you book it the same way you booked the original. Red Hat's program guide states there is no waiting period after a first failed attempt, so you can schedule immediately, with one restriction: you may not take the same exam more than once in the same calendar day.
What is the passing score for EX294?
Red Hat does not publish a passing score for EX294. Your results email gives a pass or fail status plus a score breakdown by objective area, showing which groups of objectives you were strong in. Red Hat states it will not provide task-by-task breakdowns, feedback on specific missed tasks, or details of individual configuration errors, in order to protect exam integrity.
How long is the RHCE exam?
Red Hat does not list a duration on the redhat.com EX294 exam page. The Certification program guide confirms only that all Red Hat exams are timed and directs candidates to the individual exam detail page for the duration of each exam. Check the booking confirmation and the exam page for the version you purchase, because Red Hat offers exams on more than one product release.
How long do RHCE results take?
Red Hat's training and certification FAQ says an email with official results arrives within three U.S. business days of completing the exam, while the Certification program guide states within five business days. Official scores come only from Red Hat Certification Central, and Red Hat does not authorise examiners or training partners to report results to candidates. If your result has not arrived after three business days, check spam, confirm your account email is correct, then contact the certification team.
Do I need RHCSA before taking EX294?
Not to sit the exam, but yes to be awarded Red Hat Certified Engineer in Ansible. Red Hat's certification pathway lists RHCE in Ansible as requiring EX200 and EX294 together. Under the framework introduced on 11 May 2026, passing EX294 without RHCSA now grants a standalone certification, the Red Hat Certified Advanced System Administrator in Ansible, which Red Hat introduced specifically to fix the older situation where such a pass yielded no credential at all.
Why is the exam now called something other than RHCE?
On 11 May 2026 Red Hat renamed several exams to fit a five-level, five-specialization framework. EX294 became the Red Hat Certified Advanced System Administrator in Ansible exam. Red Hat states that for these exams only the names changed, and that exam SKUs, content, descriptions, difficulty, objectives, recommended training, pricing, and proctoring all stayed exactly the same. Red Hat Certified Engineer now describes the Level 3 designation you receive automatically when you hold both the Administrator and Advanced Administrator credentials in the same specialization.
How is EX294 graded?
Red Hat applies the playbooks you created during the exam against freshly installed systems and verifies that those systems and services work as specified. That is materially different from checking the machines you worked on. A playbook that only produces the right result because you also ran a command by hand will fail, and every configuration must persist across a reboot without intervention.
Can I use documentation during the exam?
Only the documentation that ships with the product. Red Hat states that internet access is not provided and that you may not bring any hard copy or electronic documentation, including notes and books. The published objectives explicitly require you to use the provided documentation to look up specific information about Ansible modules and commands, so practising module lookups from the local docs rather than a browser is worth deliberate rehearsal.
What identification do I need?
You must upload a valid government-issued photo identification before an individual exam, choosing between AI identity verification and manual verification. At a testing centre you present the physical document. The Red Hat Training Policies page requires candidates to be eighteen (18) years of age to purchase and consume training and exams, and advises anyone in a region where government-issued photo IDs are unavailable to contact a local Red Hat office or authorised training partner about acceptable alternatives.
What are the rules for taking EX294 remotely?
The remote exam boots from a LiveUSB carrying the official Red Hat Remote Exam ISO, so your installed operating system is untouched. Requirements include a single active monitor, one keyboard, an external webcam, a working microphone, at least 4GB of RAM, a USB 3.0 port, and a USB drive of at least 8GB that will be entirely overwritten. A mandatory compatibility test must pass before exam day, and Red Hat warns that compatibility problems discovered on the day may cost you the attempt.
Are breaks allowed?
Yes. Red Hat permits a 10-minute break after each completed hour of the exam. The exam timer continues to run during breaks, so each one costs working time. Phone use is prohibited throughout the session, and you must not contact anyone outside the exam by any means.
Can I request accommodations?
Yes. Red Hat asks that disability-related and religious accommodation requests be submitted at least two weeks before your exam date through the Red Hat Accommodation Portal. Because the deadline runs from your scheduled date, submit the request before booking rather than afterwards.
How long does RHCE stay current and how do I renew it?
All Red Hat certifications are current for three years from the date earned, and renewal must be completed before expiration. Red Hat is explicit that expired certifications cannot be renewed and must be earned again from scratch. Renewal routes are to retake the exam associated with your highest-level certification, to earn another certification at the same level, or to earn a higher-level certification. Any of the three also renews your lower-level credentials, so an Ansible specialist exam passed while current renews both RHCE and RHCSA.
What comes after RHCE in Ansible?
Red Hat Certified Architect in Ansible. Red Hat's pathway lists it as EX200 and EX294 plus at least three of EX374 for developing automation with Ansible Automation Platform, EX417 for Microsoft Windows automation with Ansible, EX457 for Ansible network automation, and EX467 for managing automation with Ansible Automation Platform. Red Hat states that Architect status is conferred automatically once the Engineer credential and three specialist credentials in the same track are held.
How does EX294 compare with EX342?
They are the two routes to an Engineer-level Red Hat credential and they lead to different specializations. EX294 pairs with EX200 to earn Red Hat Certified Engineer in Ansible and tests automation with Ansible Automation Platform. EX342, the Red Hat Certified Advanced System Administrator in Enterprise Linux exam and formerly the Linux Diagnostics and Troubleshooting specialist exam, pairs with EX200 to earn Red Hat Certified Engineer in Enterprise Linux and tests diagnosis and repair rather than automation. Choose the one that matches the work you actually do.
Does the exam still use RH294 material?
The recommended course is now catalogued as Red Hat Enterprise Linux Automation with Ansible (AU294), which older material calls RH294. More importantly, the published objectives have moved on from earlier RH294-era content: modifying ansible-navigator.yml, running playbooks with ansible-navigator, finding modules inside Ansible Content Collections, basic Git operations, and running playbooks from Visual Studio Code in an Ansible development container are all on the current list. Study material written for the older objectives will leave gaps.
When do I get my digital badge?
Red Hat issues your badge through Credly within 48 hours of your result being published. You accept it from the Credly email, then download the official certificate and share the badge on LinkedIn or other professional networks. Because the Engineer designation is awarded automatically when you hold both required credentials, expect a separate badge for Red Hat Certified Engineer in Ansible once your EX294 pass is recorded alongside a current RHCSA.
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