The LPI 303-200 Exam is challenging and thorough preparation is essential for success. This exam study guide is designed to help you prepare for the LPIC-3 certification exam. It contains a detailed list of the topics covered on the Professional exam, as well as a detailed list of preparation resources. This study guide for the LPI Security - 303 will help guide you through the study process for your certification.
303-200 LPI Security - 303 Exam Summary
● Exam Name: LPI Security - 303
● Exam Code: 303-200
● Exam Price: $200 (USD)
● Duration: 90 mins
● Number of Questions: 60
● Passing Score: 500 / 800
● Schedule Exam: LPI Marketplace
● Sample Questions: LPI LPIC-3 Sample Questions
● Recommended Practice: LPI 303-200 Certification Practice Exam
Exam Syllabus: 303-200 LPIC-3 Security
Cryptography
X.509 Certificates and Public Key Infrastructures
Weight: 5
Description: Candidates should understand X.509 certificates and public key infrastructures. They should know how to configure and use OpenSSL to implement certification authorities and issue SSL certificates for various purposes.
Key Knowledge Areas:
- Understand X.509 certificates, X.509 certificate lifecycle, X.509 certificate fields and X.509v3 certificate extensions
- Understand trust chains and public key infrastructures
- Generate and manage public and private keys
- Create, operate and secure a certification authority
- Request, sign and manage server and client certificates
- Revoke certificates and certification authorities
The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:
- openssl, including relevant subcommands
- OpenSSL configuration
- PEM, DER, PKCS
- CSR
- CRL
- OCSP
X.509 Certificates for Encryption, Signing and Authentication
Weight: 4
Description: Candidates should know how to use X.509 certificates for both server and client authentication. Candidates should be able to implement user and server authentication for Apache HTTPD. The version of Apache HTTPD covered is 2.4 or higher
Key Knowledge Areas:
- Understand SSL, TLS and protocol versions
- Understand common transport layer security threats, for example Man-in-the-Middle
- Configure Apache HTTPD with mod_ssl to provide HTTPS service, including SNI and HSTS
- Configure Apache HTTPD with mod_ssl to authenticate users using certificates
- Configure Apache HTTPD with mod_ssl to provide OCSP stapling
- Use OpenSSL for SSL/TLS client and server tests
Terms and Utilities:
- Intermediate certification authorities
- Cipher configuration (no cipher-specific knowledge)
- httpd.conf
- mod_ssl
- openssl
Encrypted File Systems
Weight: 3
Description: Candidates should be able to setup and configure encrypted file systems.
Key Knowledge Areas:
- Understand block device and file system encryption
- Use dm-crypt with LUKS to encrypt block devices
- Use eCryptfs to encrypt file systems, including home directories and
- PAM integration
- Be aware of plain dm-crypt and EncFS
Terms and Utilities:
- cryptsetup
- cryptmount
- /etc/crypttab
- ecryptfsd
- ecryptfs-* commands
- mount.ecryptfs, umount.ecryptfs
- pam_ecryptfs
DNS and Cryptography
Weight: 5
Description: Candidates should have experience and knowledge of cryptography in the context of DNS and its implementation using BIND. The version of BIND covered is 9.7 or higher.
Key Knowledge Areas:
- Understanding of DNSSEC and DANE
- Configure and troubleshoot BIND as an authoritative name server serving DNSSEC secured zones
- Configure BIND as an recursive name server that performs DNSSEC validation on behalf of its clients
- Key Signing Key, Zone Signing Key, Key Tag
- Key generation, key storage, key management and key rollover
- Maintenance and re-signing of zones
- Use DANE to publish X.509 certificate information in DNS
- Use TSIG for secure communication with BIND
Terms and Utilities:
- DNS, EDNS, Zones, Resource Records
- DNS resource records: DS, DNSKEY, RRSIG, NSEC, NSEC3, NSEC3PARAM, TLSA
- DO-Bit, AD-Bit
- TSIG
- named.conf
- dnssec-keygen
- dnssec-signzone
- dnssec-settime
- dnssec-dsfromkey
- rndc
- dig
- delv
- openssl
Host Security
Host Hardening
Weight: 3
Description: Candidates should be able to secure computers running Linux against common threats. This includes kernel and software configuration.
Key Knowledge Areas:
- Configure BIOS and boot loader (GRUB 2) security
- Disable useless software and services
- Use sysctl for security related kernel configuration, particularly ASLR, Exec-Shield and IP / ICMP configuration
- Exec-Shield and IP / ICMP configuration
- Limit resource usage
- Work with chroot environments
- Drop unnecessary capabilities
- Be aware of the security advantages of virtualization
Terms and Utilities:
- grub.cfg
- chkconfig, systemctl
- ulimit
- /etc/security/limits.conf
- pam_limits.so
- chroot
- sysctl
- /etc/sysctl.conf
Host Intrusion Detection
Weight: 4
Description: Candidates should be familiar with the use and configuration of common host intrusion detection software. This includes updates and maintenance as well as automated host scans.
Key Knowledge Areas:
- Use and configure the Linux Audit system
- Use chkrootkit
- Use and configure rkhunter, including updates
- Use Linux Malware Detect
- Automate host scans using cron
- Configure and use AIDE, including rule management
- Be aware of OpenSCAP
Terms and Utilities:
- auditd
- auditctl
- ausearch, aureport
- auditd.conf
- auditd.rules
- pam_tty_audit.so
- chkrootkit
- rkhunter
- /etc/rkhunter.conf
- maldet
- conf.maldet
- aide
- /etc/aide/aide.conf
User Management and Authentication
Weight: 5
Description: Candidates should be familiar with management and authentication of user accounts. This includes configuration and use of NSS, PAM, SSSD and Kerberos for both local and remote directories and authentication mechanisms as well as enforcing a password policy.
Key Knowledge Areas:
- Understand and configure NSS
- Understand and configure PAM
- Enforce password complexity policies and periodic password changes
- Lock accounts automatically after failed login attempts
- Configure and use SSSD
- Configure NSS and PAM for use with SSSD
- Configure SSSD authentication against Active Directory, IPA, LDAP, Kerberos and local domains
- Kerberos and local domains
- Obtain and manage Kerberos tickets
Terms and Utilities:
- nsswitch.conf
- /etc/login.defs
- pam_cracklib.so
- chage
- pam_tally.so, pam_tally2.so
- faillog
- pam_sss.so
- sssd
- sssd.conf
- sss_* commands
- krb5.conf
- kinit, klist, kdestroy
FreeIPA Installation and Samba Integration
Weight: 4
Description: Candidates should be familiar with FreeIPA v4.x. This includes installation and maintenance of a server instance with a FreeIPA domain as well as integration of FreeIPA with Active Directory.
Key Knowledge Areas:
- Understand FreeIPA, including its architecture and components
- Understand system and configuration prerequisites for installing FreeIPA
- Install and manage a FreeIPA server and domain
- Understand and configure Active Directory replication and Kerberos cross-realm trusts
- Be aware of sudo, autofs, SSH and SELinux integration in FreeIPA
Terms and Utilities:
- 389 Directory Server, MIT Kerberos, Dogtag Certificate System, NTP, DNS, SSSD, certmonger
- ipa, including relevant subcommands
- ipa-server-install, ipa-client-install, ipa-replica-install
- ipa-replica-prepare, ipa-replica-manage
Access Control
Discretionary Access Control
Weight: 3
Description: Candidates are required to understand Discretionary Access Control and know how to implement it using Access Control Lists. Additionally, candidates are required to understand and know how to use Extended Attributes.
Key Knowledge Areas:
- Understand and manage file ownership and permissions, including SUID and SGID
- Understand and manage access control lists
- Understand and manage extended attributes and attribute classes
Terms and Utilities:
- getfacl
- setfacl
- getfattr
- setfattr
Mandatory Access Control
Weight: 4
Description: Candidates should be familiar with Mandatory Access Control systems for Linux. Specifically, candidates should have a thorough knowledge of SELinux. Also, candidates should be aware of other Mandatory Access Control systems for Linux. This includes major features of these systems but not configuration and use.
Key Knowledge Areas:
- Understand the concepts of TE, RBAC, MAC and DAC
- Configure, manage and use SELinux
- Be aware of AppArmor and Smack
Terms and Utilities:
- getenforce, setenforce, selinuxenabled
- getsebool, setsebool, togglesebool
- fixfiles, restorecon, setfiles
- newrole, runcon
- semanage
- sestatus, seinfo
- apol
- seaudit, seaudit-report, audit2why, audit2allow
- /etc/selinux/*
Network File Systems
Weight: 3
Description: Candidates should have experience and knowledge of security issues in use and configuration of NFSv4 clients and servers as well as CIFS client services. Earlier versions of NFS are not required knowledge.
Key Knowledge Areas:
- Understand NFSv4 security issues and improvements
- Configure NFSv4 server and clients
- Understand and configure NFSv4 authentication mechanisms (LIPKEY, SPKM, Kerberos)
- Understand and use NFSv4 pseudo file system
- Understand and use NFSv4 ACLs
- Configure CIFS clients
- Understand and use CIFS Unix Extensions
- Understand and configure CIFS security modes (NTLM, Kerberos)
- Understand and manage mapping and handling of CIFS ACLs and SIDs in a Linux system
Terms and Utilities:
- /etc/exports
- /etc/idmap.conf
- nfs4acl
- mount.cifs parameters related to ownership, permissions and security modes
- winbind
- getcifsacl, setcifsacl
Network Security
Network Hardening
Weight: 4
Description: Candidates should be able to secure networks against common threats. This includes verification of the effectiveness of security measures.
Key Knowledge Areas:
- Configure FreeRADIUS to authenticate network nodes
- Use nmap to scan networks and hosts, including different scan methods
- Use Wireshark to analyze network traffic, including filters and statistics
- Identify and deal with rogue router advertisements and DHCP messages
Terms and Utilities:
- radiusd
- radmin
- radtest, radclient
- radlast, radwho
- radiusd.conf
- /etc/raddb/*
- nmap
- wireshark
- tshark
- tcpdump
- ndpmon
Network Intrusion Detection
Weight: 4
Description: Candidates should be familiar with the use and configuration of network security scanning, network monitoring and network intrusion detection software. This includes updating and maintaining the security scanners.
Key Knowledge Areas:
- Implement bandwidth usage monitoring
- Configure and use Snort, including rule management
- Configure and use OpenVAS, including NASL
Terms and Utilities:
- ntop
- Cacti
- snort
- snort-stat
- /etc/snort/*
- openvas-adduser, openvas-rmuser
- openvas-nvt-sync
- openvassd
- openvas-mkcert
- /etc/openvas/*
Packet Filtering
Weight: 5
Description: Candidates should be familiar with the use and configuration of packet filters. This includes netfilter, iptables and ip6tables as well as basic knowledge of nftables, nft and ebtables.
Key Knowledge Areas:
- Understand common firewall architectures, including DMZ
- Understand and use netfilter, iptables and ip6tables, including standard modules, tests and targets
- Implement packet filtering for both IPv4 and IPv6
- Implement connection tracking and network address translation
- Define IP sets and use them in netfilter rules
- Have basic knowledge of nftables and nft
- Have basic knowledge of ebtables
- Be aware of conntrackd
Terms and Utilities:
- iptables
- ip6tables
- iptables-save, iptables-restore
- ip6tables-save, ip6tables-restore
- ipset
- nft
- ebtables
Virtual Private Networks
Weight: 4
Description: Candidates should be familiar with the use of OpenVPN and IPsec.
Key Knowledge Areas:
- Configure and operate OpenVPN server and clients for both bridged and routed VPN networks
- Configure and operate IPsec server and clients for routed VPN networks using IPsec-Tools / racoon
- Awareness of L2TP
Terms and Utilities:
- /etc/openvpn/*
- openvpn server and client
- setkey
- /etc/ipsec-tools.conf
- /etc/racoon/racoon.conf
LPI 303-200 Certification Sample Questions and Answers
To make you familiar with LPI Security - 303 (303-200) certification exam structure, we have prepared this sample question set. We suggest you to try our Sample Questions for LPIC-3 303 Certification to test your understanding of LPI 303-200 process with real LPI certification exam environment.
LPI 303-200 Sample Questions:-
01. What is the purpose of IP sets?
a) They group together IP addresses that are assigned to the same network interfaces.
b) They group together IP addresses and networks that can be referenced by the network routing table.
c) They group together IP addresses that can be referenced by netfilter rules.
d) They group together IP and MAC addresses used by the neighbors on the local network.
e) They group together IP addresses and user names that can be referenced from /etc/hosts.allow and /etc/hosts.deny
02. Linux Extended File Attributes are organized in namespaces. Which of the following names correspond to existing attribute namespaces?
(Choose THREE correct answers.)
a) default
b) system
c) owner
d) trusted
e) user
03. In which path is the data, which can be altered by the sysctl command, accessible?
a) /dev/sys/
b) /sys/
c) /proc/sys/
d) /sysctl/
04. Which DNS label points to the DANE information used to secure HTTPS connections to https://www.example.com/?
a) example.com
b) dane.www.example.com
c) soa.example.com
d) www.example.com
e) _443_tcp.www.example.com
05. What happens when the command getfattr afile is run while the file afile has no extended attributes set?
a) getfattr prints a warning and exits with a values of 0.
b) No output is produced and getfattr exits with a value of 0.
c) getfattr prints a warning and exits with a value of 1.
d) No outputs is produced and getfattr exits with a value of 1.
06. Given a proper network and name resolution setup, which of the following commands establishes a trust between a FreeIPA domain and an Active Directory domain?
a) ipa trust-add --type ad addom --admin Administrator --password
b) ipa-ad –add-trust --account ADDOM\Administrator--query-password
c) net ad ipajoin addom –U Administrator -p
d) trustmanager add –-domain ad: //addom --user Administrator –w
e) ipa ad join addom -U Administrator -w
07. An X509 certificate contains the following information:
X509v3 Basic Constraints: critical CA:TRUE, pathlen:0
Which of the following statements are true regarding the certificate?
(Choose THREE correct answers.)
a) This certificate belongs to a certification authority.
b) This certificate may be used to sign certificates of subordinate certification authorities.
c) This certificate may never be used to sign any other certificates.
d) This certificate may be used to sign certificates that are not also a certification authority.
e) This certificate will not be accepted by programs that do not understand the listed extension.
08. Which of the following sections are allowed within the Kerberos configuration file krb5.conf?
(Choose THREE correct answers.)
a) [plugins]
b) [crypto]
c) [domain]
d) [capaths]
e) [realms]
09. What effect does the configuration SSLStrictSNIVHostCheck on have on an Apache HTTPD virtual host?
a) Despite its configuration, the virtual host is served only on the common name and Subject Alternative Names of the server certificates.
b) The virtual host is used as a fallback default for all clients that do not support SNI.
c) All of the names of the virtual host must be within the same DNS zone.
d) The virtual host is served only to clients that support SNI.
e) The clients connecting to the virtual host must provide a client certificate that was issued by the same CA that issued the server’s certificate.
10. How does TSIG authenticate name servers in order to perform secured zone transfers?
a) Both servers mutually verify their X509 certificates.
b) Both servers use a secret key that is shared between the servers.
c) Both servers verify appropriate DANE records for the labels of the NS records used to delegate the transferred zone.
d) Both servers use DNSSEC to mutually verify that they are authoritative for the transferred zone.
Answers:-
Answer 1 :- c
Answer 2 :- b, d, e
Answer 3 :- c
Answer 4 :- e
Answer 5 :- b
Answer 6 :- a
Answer 7 :- a, b, d
Answer 8 :- a, d, e
Answer 9 :- d
Answer 10:- b