The EX380 exam validates your ability to automate and integrate workloads on Red Hat OpenShift platforms. This certification, formally known as Red Hat Certified Specialist in OpenShift Automation and Integration, is designed for platform engineers and DevOps professionals who manage production OpenShift environments. This landing page outlines the exam syllabus, question formats, and practical preparation strategies to help you build confidence and competency across all tested domains.
Use this topic map to guide your study for RedHat EX380 (Red Hat Certified Specialist in OpenShift Automation and Integration) within the Red Hat Openshift Certifications path.
The EX380 exam combines multiple question types to assess both theoretical knowledge and practical decision-making in real-world scenarios. Questions progress in difficulty and require you to apply concepts across authentication, backup, scheduling, GitOps, monitoring, and logging domains.
An effective study plan breaks the seven core topics into manageable weekly goals, combines hands-on practice with conceptual review, and includes timed assessments to build exam readiness. Allocate time proportionally to your weaker areas while reinforcing connections between authentication, data protection, scheduling, and observability features.
Explore other RedHat certifications: view all RedHat exams.
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Visit the exam page to download the PDF, Online Practice Test, or get a Bundle Discount offer for both formats: Red Hat Certified Specialist in OpenShift Automation and Integration.
OpenShift Authentication and Identities, GitOps implementation, and cluster monitoring typically represent a significant portion of the exam. However, all seven domains are tested, so a balanced study approach is essential. Focus extra effort on topics where you have less hands-on experience.
In production environments, RBAC controls who can trigger backups and restore operations, scheduling policies determine which nodes run backup agents, and monitoring alerts notify teams when backup jobs fail. Understanding these interdependencies helps you design secure, resilient systems rather than treating each topic in isolation.
You should have at least 6-12 months of practical OpenShift experience, including cluster administration and application deployment. Prioritize labs that involve configuring identity providers, deploying OADP, setting up GitOps pipelines, and interpreting monitoring dashboards. Hands-on practice with kubectl, YAML editing, and troubleshooting is far more valuable than memorization.
Candidates often confuse RBAC role types, miss the importance of resource requests in pod scheduling, or overlook OADP prerequisites like storage backend configuration. Another frequent error is not reading scenario questions carefully enough to identify all constraints before selecting an answer. Take time to understand the "why" behind each configuration, not just the "how."
Focus on weak topic areas identified in your practice tests, review command syntax and API object fields for common tasks, and do a final timed practice test. Avoid cramming new material; instead, reinforce concepts you already understand and clarify any lingering confusion. Get adequate sleep and manage stress so you enter the exam rested and confident.
SIMULATION
Task SIMULATION 24
Recover a NotReady worker node (basic remediation workflow)
Task Information: Diagnose a NotReady worker node and restore it to Ready state using standard OpenShift admin workflow.
Identify failing node and status
oc get nodes
Confirms which node is NotReady.
Inspect node conditions and events
oc describe node <worker>
Shows kubelet condition issues (network, disk pressure, runtime, etc.).
Check MachineConfigPool state
oc get mcp
oc describe mcp worker
If MCP is degraded, node may be stuck applying a config.
Check node logs (kubelet)
oc adm node-logs <worker> --path=kubelet.log
Often reveals why node isn't reporting Ready.
Remediate based on symptom
Examples:
If out of disk: free space, then verify kubelet recovers.
If stuck MCO: investigate current/desired config and fix broken MachineConfig.
If node cordoned/drained incorrectly: uncordon after remediation.
oc adm uncordon <worker>
Confirm node returns Ready
oc get node <worker>
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SIMULATION
Task SIMULATION 27
Configure log forwarding to an external endpoint
Task Information: Configure Cluster Logging to forward application logs to an external output using ClusterLogForwarder.
Verify logging namespace and resources
oc get ns openshift-logging
oc -n openshift-logging get clusterlogforwarder
ClusterLogForwarder configures pipelines and outputs.
Create/Edit ClusterLogForwarder (example structure)
Define an output (external system) and pipeline selecting application logs.
Apply via YAML:
oc -n openshift-logging apply -f clusterlogforwarder.yaml
Validate collector pods are healthy
oc -n openshift-logging get pods
Forwarding relies on collectors (vector/fluentd depending config).
Generate a test log line
oc -n openshift-logging run logger --image=busybox --restart=Never -- /bin/sh -c 'echo hello-forwarding; sleep 5'
This creates a known message to search in the external endpoint.
Confirm logs arrive at destination
Use your external system's query/search to confirm hello-forwarding.
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SIMULATION
Task SIMULATION 1
Node Management -- Remove Taint on Worker Node
Step 1: Log in to the OpenShift web console with an account that has sufficient cluster administrative privileges.
This Task is performed from the GUI, not the CLI. The lab hint explicitly places this under the worker node details page in the console.
Step 2: Navigate to Compute.
This area contains node-level resources, including control plane and worker nodes.
Step 3: Open Nodes.
Here you can view all nodes currently registered in the cluster.
Step 4: Select the required worker node.
Choose the exact worker node referenced by the lab Task SIMULATION.
Step 5: Open the Details tab.
The taint configuration is managed from the selected node's details view.
Step 6: Locate the Taints section and click Edit.
A taint is used to control pod scheduling. If a worker has a taint, pods without matching tolerations may not schedule there.
Step 7: Remove the unwanted taint entry.
Removing the taint makes the worker eligible again for normal scheduling behavior, depending on the rest of the cluster policy.
Step 8: Click Save.
This commits the change so the node is updated and the scheduler can evaluate it without that taint.
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SIMULATION
Task SIMULATION 19
Add tolerations to a deployment
Task Information: Update payments/api deployment to tolerate dedicated=payments:NoSchedule.
Patch deployment with toleration
oc -n payments patch deploy api --type=merge -p '{
'spec':{'template':{'spec':{'tolerations':[
{'key':'dedicated','operator':'Equal','value':'payments','effect':'NoSchedule'}
]}}}
}'
Toleration allows pods to schedule onto tainted nodes.
Verify scheduling
oc -n payments get pods -o wide
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SIMULATION
Task SIMULATION 18
Prevent workloads from running on dedicated nodes (taints)
Task Information: Apply a taint to dedicated nodes so only pods with tolerations can run there.
Taint nodes
oc adm taint nodes worker-1 dedicated=payments:NoSchedule
oc adm taint nodes worker-2 dedicated=payments:NoSchedule
NoSchedule blocks new pods that do not tolerate the taint.
Confirm taints
oc describe node worker-1 | grep -i taints -A2
Ensures taints are present.
Validate effect
A normal deployment without tolerations will remain Pending if it can only land on those tainted nodes.
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