CompTIA Linux+ (XK0-006) Study Plan¶

8-Week Schedule¶

Budget about 8-10 hours a week. Book the exam date early; a date on the calendar keeps the plan honest. Each week lists the topics to understand and the note to read. Nothing here is a timed drill: the aim is to understand how each tool behaves and why.

Week 1: Boot, filesystem and devices¶

• Boot chain, kernel parameters, initrd, PXE
• Filesystem Hierarchy Standard
• Kernel modules and hardware inspection tools
• Notes: 01-system-management.md (sections 1.1 and 1.2)

Week 2: Storage¶

• Partitions, LVM objects and resizing
• Filesystem types, fstab, mount options, inodes
• Software RAID and /proc/mdstat
• Notes: 01-system-management.md (section 1.3)

Week 3: Network, shell, backup, virtualization¶

• NetworkManager, Netplan, name resolution files
• Network tools and what each answers
• Redirection, text utilities, backups with tar, rsync and dd
• KVM, QEMU, libvirt and virtual network types
• Notes: 01-system-management.md (sections 1.4 to 1.7)

Week 4: Users, processes, packages¶

• Account files and account management, aging and expiry
• Processes, signals, priority, cron, at and anacron
• RPM and dpkg package managers, repositories, signatures
• Notes: 02-services-and-user-management.md (sections 2.1 to 2.4)

Week 5: systemd, containers, firewalls¶

• Unit types, enable versus start versus mask, timers
• Container runtimes, images, Dockerfile instructions, volumes, networks
• firewalld runtime versus permanent, ufw, NAT and forwarding
• Notes: 02-services-and-user-management.md (2.5 and 2.6), 03-security.md (3.1 and 3.2)

Week 6: Hardening and cryptography¶

• sudo, permissions, special bits, ACLs, attributes
• SELinux modes, contexts and booleans
• SSH hardening, account hardening, LUKS2, TLS, hashing
• Compliance: OpenSCAP, CIS, AIDE, data destruction, banners
• Notes: 03-security.md (3.3 to 3.6)

Week 7: Automation¶

• Ansible, Puppet, OpenTofu, Kickstart, cloud-init, CI/CD, GitOps
• Compose and Kubernetes vocabulary
• Bash tests, loops, expansion and exit codes
• Python basics, Git commands, responsible AI use
• Notes: 04-automation-orchestration-scripting.md

Week 8: Troubleshooting and review¶

• SLI, SLO, SLA, SNMP, thresholds
• OS, storage and boot failure symptoms
• The network layering method and security-related faults
• Performance: load average, I/O wait, memory pressure
• Notes: 05-troubleshooting.md
• Practice questions across all domains; return to the notes for each miss
• Re-read the fact sheet and strategy

Checkpoint¶

Before booking the final date, score the practice questions. If a domain is weak, re-read its note rather than rereading everything.