Common RHCE Automation Tasks and How to Solve Them

Objective

The Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE) exam for RHEL 9 focuses almost entirely on real-world automation using Ansible. Candidates must now automate configurations reliably and repeatedly, not just configure systems manually. This blog helps RHCE aspirants master the most common automation tasks through clear, practical Ansible solutions. From managing users and packages to securing credentials with Ansible Vault and structuring roles, we provide hands-on examples tailored to the current RHCE syllabus. But where do you start? What tasks show up in the exam? And how do you solve them efficiently and accurately? We'll walk through the most common automation tasks that appear on the RHCE exam with practical Ansible solutions. Whether you're midway through preparation or just starting out, this guide aligns your skills with exam-day expectations.

Task 1: Managing Packages and Repositories

What you're doing:
You're automating the complete lifecycle of software package management - from configuring custom repository sources to installing specific packages with version control. This involves setting up repository configurations, managing GPG verification settings, handling repository priorities, and ensuring packages are installed from trusted sources consistently across multiple systems.

Why it's important:
Enterprise Linux environments rarely rely on default repositories alone. Organizations maintain internal repositories containing approved, tested, and security-patched software. This automation skill is crucial because:

• Compliance Requirements: Many organizations mandate that all software must come from pre-approved internal repositories
• Security Control: Custom repositories allow IT teams to control exactly which software versions are available and ensure they meet security standards
• Version Consistency: Prevents version conflicts by ensuring all systems pull packages from the same controlled source
• Scale Management: Manually configuring repositories across hundreds of servers is error-prone and time-consuming
• Audit Trail: Custom repositories provide clear tracking of what software is deployed where and when

The Challenge:
The real-world complexity involves managing multiple repositories with different priorities, handling situations where the same package exists in multiple sources with different versions, ensuring repository configurations persist across system updates, and maintaining security while allowing necessary software installations. You must also handle network connectivity issues, repository authentication, and ensure that automation works consistently whether repositories are internal, external, or hybrid.

The Automation Solution:
Use the dnf and yum_repository modules.

Example Playbook:

- name: Install specific packages and configure repo
  hosts: all
  tasks:
    - name: Add custom repo
      yum_repository:
        name: internal                        # Name of the repository
        description: Internal Repo            # Description for clarity
        baseurl: http://repo.example.com/rhel9 # Base URL of the repo
        enabled: yes                          # Enable this repository
        gpgcheck: no                          # Disable GPG key check (only if repo is trusted)

    - name: Install latest version of httpd
      dnf:
        name: httpd                           # Package to install
        state: latest                         # Ensure it's the latest version

RHCE Tip:
Always validate your playbooks with ansible-playbook --syntax-check before running them during the exam.

Task 2: Managing Users and Groups

What you're doing:
You're automating comprehensive user account management including creating groups with specific permissions, establishing users with secure authentication, setting up home directories with proper ownership, configuring shell environments, and managing group memberships. This extends beyond basic account creation to include password policies, account expiration settings, and ensuring consistent user environments across multiple systems.

Why it's important:
User management automation is fundamental to maintaining security, compliance, and operational efficiency in enterprise environments. Manual user management becomes impractical and error-prone at scale because:

• Security Consistency: Ensures all user accounts follow the same security standards across all systems
• Compliance Requirements: Many regulations require specific user account configurations and audit trails
• Operational Efficiency: Eliminates the time-consuming process of manually creating accounts on multiple systems
• Access Control: Properly configured groups enable role-based access control and least-privilege principles
• Standardization: Ensures all users have consistent shell environments, home directory structures, and permissions

The Challenge:
Real-world user management involves handling complex scenarios like creating users with specific UIDs/GIDs for application compatibility, managing users across different authentication systems (local, LDAP, Active Directory), setting up SSH key authentication, handling password expiration policies, managing sudo access, and ensuring user accounts are properly cleaned up when employees leave. You must also handle edge cases like username conflicts, group membership changes, and maintaining consistency across development, staging, and production environments.

The Automation Solution:
Use user and group modules to streamline the task.

Example Playbook:

- name: Manage user accounts
  hosts: all
  tasks:
    - name: Create group
      group:
        name: developers                      # Name of the group
        state: present                        # Ensure the group exists

    - name: Create user with password and group
      user:
        name: devuser                         # Username to create
        group: developers                     # Assign to the developers group
        password: "{{ 'Redhat123' | password_hash('sha512') }}" # Securely hashed password
        shell: /bin/bash                      # Set default shell
        state: present                        # Ensure the user exists

RHCE Tip:
Use password_hash to securely handle passwords. Don't hardcode them unless required. Consider Ansible Vault for secure storage.

Task 3: Starting, Stopping, and Enabling Services

What you're doing:
You're automating complete service lifecycle management including starting/stopping services, configuring automatic startup behavior, managing service dependencies, handling service failures, and ensuring services maintain their desired state across system reboots and updates. This involves understanding systemd service management, service dependencies, and creating resilient service configurations that can recover from failures.

Why it's important:
Service management automation is critical for maintaining system reliability and availability in production environments. Manual service management creates significant operational risks because:

• System Reliability: Critical services must start automatically after system reboots or crashes to maintain uptime
• Consistency Across Environments: Ensures development, staging, and production environments have identical service configurations
• Dependency Management: Properly configured services handle startup order and dependencies automatically
• Monitoring Integration: Automated service management enables better monitoring and alerting when services fail
• Disaster Recovery: Automated service configuration ensures systems can be restored quickly and consistently

The Challenge:
Production service management involves complex scenarios like handling service dependencies (ensuring database starts before application), managing service failures and automatic restarts, configuring services that require specific network conditions, managing services that depend on mounted filesystems, handling service updates without downtime, and ensuring services work correctly across different system states (single-user mode, multi-user mode, etc.). You must also consider resource constraints, security contexts, and integration with monitoring systems.

The Automation Solution:
Use the service or systemd module.

Example Playbook:

- name: Manage essential services
  hosts: all
  tasks:
    - name: Ensure firewalld is running and enabled
      systemd:
        name: firewalld                       # Name of the service
        state: started                        # Ensure the service is running
        enabled: yes                          # Enable the service to start on boot

RHCE Tip:
Always include enabled: yes to persist the service state after reboot.

Task 4: File and Directory Management

What you're doing:
You're automating comprehensive file and directory operations including creating directory structures with proper permissions, deploying configuration files with dynamic content, managing file ownership and access controls, creating symbolic links, and using templates to generate environment-specific configurations. This involves understanding file permissions, SELinux contexts, and how to manage files that vary between different environments or servers.

Why it's important:
Automated file management is essential for deploying and maintaining consistent system configurations across multiple environments. Manual file management creates significant operational challenges because:

• Configuration Drift: Manual changes lead to inconsistencies between systems that are difficult to track and debug
• Environment-Specific Configurations: Applications often need different configurations for development, staging, and production environments
• Permission Management: Incorrect file permissions are a common source of security vulnerabilities and application failures
• Backup and Recovery: Automated file management ensures configuration files can be restored consistently
• Compliance: Many regulations require specific file permissions and audit trails for configuration changes

The Challenge:
Real-world file management involves handling complex scenarios like managing files that contain sensitive information (passwords, API keys), deploying configurations that vary by server role or environment, managing large numbers of configuration files across multiple applications, handling file conflicts during updates, ensuring proper SELinux contexts, managing file backups before changes, and coordinating file changes with service restarts. You must also handle scenarios where templates need complex logic, files need to be generated from multiple sources, and configurations need to be validated before deployment.

The Automation Solution:
Use the file, copy, lineinfile, and template modules.

Example Playbook (with template):

- name: Deploy config file with template
  hosts: all
  tasks:
    - name: Copy config file with variables
      template:
        src: httpd.conf.j2                    # Source Jinja2 template file
        dest: /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf      # Destination path on the target
        owner: root                           # File owner
        group: root                           # File group
        mode: '0644'                          # File permissions

Sample httpd.conf.j2:

Listen {{ http_port }}                        # Dynamically insert the port variable
ServerName {{ ansible_fqdn }}                 # Dynamically insert the server's FQDN

RHCE Tip:
Templates demonstrate your ability to use variables and dynamic configuration, a highly valued skill in the exam.

Task 5: Working with Tarballs and Archives

What you're doing:
You're automating the complete process of handling compressed archives including downloading archives from various sources, extracting them to specific locations with proper permissions, managing archive integrity verification, handling different compression formats (tar.gz, zip, tar.bz2), and ensuring extracted files have correct ownership and permissions. This also involves managing archive cleanup, handling extraction failures, and coordinating archive deployment with application restarts.

Why it's important:
Archive management automation is crucial for application deployment, system configuration, and data management in enterprise environments. Manual archive handling creates operational risks because:

• Deployment Consistency: Ensures applications and configurations are deployed identically across all environments
• Version Control: Automated archive handling enables better tracking of what versions are deployed where
• Error Prevention: Eliminates common mistakes like extracting to wrong locations or with incorrect permissions
• Security: Ensures archives are verified for integrity and extracted with appropriate security contexts
• Scalability: Manual archive extraction across multiple servers is time-consuming and error-prone

The Challenge:
Production archive management involves complex scenarios like handling archives that require specific extraction paths, managing archives with complex directory structures, dealing with archives that contain files with special permissions or ownership requirements, handling corrupted or incomplete downloads, managing disk space during extraction, ensuring extracted files don't overwrite critical system files, and coordinating archive deployment with application configuration. You must also handle network timeouts during downloads, archive format variations, and cleanup of temporary files.

The Automation Solution:
Use the unarchive module.

Example Playbook:

- name: Extract a tarball
  hosts: all
  tasks:
    - name: Unarchive web content
      unarchive:
        src: /tmp/webfiles.tar.gz             # Path to archive on the remote machine
        dest: /var/www/html/                  # Extract files into this directory
        remote_src: yes                       # Indicates that archive exists on remote host

RHCE Tip:
Watch the remote_src parameter — it must be yes if the archive already exists on the managed node.

Task 6: Configure Networking (IP and Hostnames)

What you're doing:
You're automating comprehensive network configuration including setting static IP addresses, configuring network interfaces, managing routing tables, setting up DNS resolution, configuring hostnames and FQDN settings, managing network bonds and VLANs, and ensuring network configurations persist across reboots. This involves understanding NetworkManager, systemd-networkd, and how network changes affect running services and applications.

Why it's important:
Network automation is fundamental to infrastructure management because network configuration errors can make systems completely inaccessible and cause service outages. Manual network configuration creates significant risks because:

• Service Availability: Incorrect network settings can make critical services unreachable
• Security: Proper network configuration is essential for firewalls, VPNs, and secure communications
• DNS Resolution: Hostname and DNS configuration affects application connectivity and monitoring
• Load Balancing: Network configuration enables proper load distribution and failover
• Compliance: Many security standards require specific network configurations and documentation

The Challenge:
Real-world network automation involves complex scenarios like configuring network interfaces without losing connectivity to the automation system, managing network changes that require coordinated restarts of multiple services, handling different network interface types (physical, virtual, bonded), configuring advanced networking features like VLANs and bridges, managing network security settings, ensuring network configurations work correctly with firewalls and SELinux, and handling network configuration rollback when changes fail. You must also consider network dependencies for services like web servers, databases, and monitoring systems.

The Automation Solution:
Use the nmcli module or run command-based tasks.

Example Playbook:

- name: Set hostname
  hosts: all
  tasks:
    - name: Set static hostname
      hostname:
        name: webserver01.example.com         # Desired static hostname

Networking via command (more robust approach):

- name: Configure static IP using nmcli
  command: >
    nmcli con mod ens33 ipv4.addresses 192.168.1.100/24
    ipv4.gateway 192.168.1.1 ipv4.method manual
  notify: restart_network

- handlers:
  - name: restart_network
    command: nmcli con up ens33

RHCE Tip:
Always verify after reboot. Use ansible facts to confirm IP and hostname. Note that network configuration changes typically require connection restart to take full effect, which is why we include the handler above.

Task 7: Using Ansible Vault for Secure Credentials

What you're doing:
You're implementing comprehensive security for automation by encrypting sensitive data including passwords, API keys, certificates, database connection strings, and other confidential information. This involves creating encrypted variable files, managing vault passwords, integrating encrypted data into playbooks, rotating encrypted credentials, and ensuring secure handling of sensitive information throughout the automation lifecycle.

Why it's important:
Security automation is critical because automation scripts often handle the most sensitive system credentials and configuration data. Poor credential management in automation creates severe security risks because:

• Credential Exposure: Plaintext passwords in automation scripts can be easily discovered by unauthorized users
• Compliance Requirements: Many regulations require encryption of sensitive data at rest and in transit
• Audit Trails: Encrypted credentials provide better tracking and accountability for sensitive operations
• Access Control: Vault passwords enable role-based access to different levels of sensitive information
• Incident Response: Encrypted credentials can be quickly rotated when security incidents occur

The Challenge:
Real-world credential management involves complex scenarios like managing different vault passwords for different environments (dev, staging, production), rotating encrypted credentials without breaking running automation, sharing vault passwords securely among team members, integrating with external credential management systems, handling credential dependencies between different systems, managing credential backup and recovery, and ensuring encrypted credentials work correctly in CI/CD pipelines. You must also handle scenarios where credentials need to be updated across multiple vault files, manage credential access logging, and ensure vault operations don't expose sensitive data in logs.

The Automation Solution:
Use ansible-vault to create and reference encrypted files.

Vault creation:

ansible-vault create secrets.yml              # Create a new encrypted file to store secrets

Playbook Usage:

vars_files:
  - secrets.yml                               # Include encrypted vars in your playbook

RHCE Tip:
Know how to edit, decrypt, and rekey vaults. You might be asked to update an encrypted variable on the fly.

Task 8: Using Ansible Roles for Modular Automation

What you're doing:
You're implementing advanced automation architecture by organizing tasks, variables, templates, and handlers into reusable, modular components called roles. This involves creating role directory structures, managing role dependencies, handling role variables and defaults, creating role templates and files, implementing role-specific handlers, and building role libraries that can be shared across multiple projects and teams.

Why it's important:
Role-based automation architecture is essential for managing complex infrastructure because it enables code reuse, maintainability, and team collaboration. Without proper role organization, automation becomes difficult to manage because:

• Code Reusability: Roles enable the same automation logic to be used across multiple projects and environments
• Team Collaboration: Well-structured roles allow multiple team members to work on different aspects of automation simultaneously
• Testing and Validation: Roles can be tested independently, making it easier to ensure automation quality
• Documentation: Role structure provides clear organization that makes automation easier to understand and maintain
• Version Control: Roles can be versioned and distributed independently, enabling better change management

The Challenge:
Real-world role development involves complex scenarios like managing role dependencies and version conflicts, creating roles that work across different operating systems and versions, handling role variable precedence and inheritance, managing role-specific templates and files, creating roles that can be parameterized for different use cases, handling role testing and validation, integrating roles with CI/CD pipelines, and maintaining role documentation and examples. You must also handle scenarios where roles need to interact with each other, manage role distribution and sharing, and ensure roles work correctly in different execution environments.

The Automation Solution:
Use ansible-galaxy init to create a role, and structure files into tasks, handlers, templates, etc.

Directory structure (follows Ansible best practices):

roles/
  apache/
    tasks/
      main.yml                                # Main tasks of the role
    templates/                                # Jinja2 template files for the role
    handlers/
      main.yml                                # Handlers for notifying services
    vars/
      main.yml                                # Role-specific variables
    defaults/
      main.yml                                # Default variables (lowest precedence)
    meta/
      main.yml                                # Role metadata and dependencies

Playbook Example:

- name: Apply Apache role
  hosts: web
  roles:
    - apache                                  # Apply the apache role to the web group

RHCE Tip:
Roles help you demonstrate maturity in automation. Understand how to override default variables and include roles conditionally. This complete directory structure follows Ansible best practices and ensures your roles are well-organized and maintainable.

Task 9: Testing and Validating Automation

What you're doing:
You're implementing comprehensive automation quality assurance by performing syntax validation, dry-run testing, change impact analysis, idempotency verification, and production-readiness validation. This involves using various Ansible testing modes, implementing automated testing pipelines, creating test environments that mirror production, and establishing validation procedures that catch errors before they impact live systems.

Why it's important:
Automation testing is critical because automated scripts often run with elevated privileges and can make system-wide changes that are difficult to reverse. Without proper testing, automation becomes a liability because:

• Risk Mitigation: Testing prevents automation failures that could cause system outages or data loss
• Quality Assurance: Validates that automation works correctly across different environments and scenarios
• Change Impact: Shows exactly what changes will be made before they're applied to production systems
• Compliance: Many organizations require testing documentation for automated changes to critical systems
• Troubleshooting: Testing output provides valuable debugging information when automation fails

The Challenge:
Real-world automation testing involves complex scenarios like testing automation across different operating system versions, validating automation behavior under various system load conditions, testing error handling and recovery procedures, ensuring automation works correctly with different user permissions, validating automation performance and resource usage, testing automation integration with monitoring and logging systems, and ensuring automation works correctly in disaster recovery scenarios. You must also handle testing of automation that interacts with external systems, manage test data and environments, and ensure testing doesn't impact production systems.

The Automation Solution:

• Use --check mode to test
• Use --diff to show changes
• Use --syntax-check to verify YAML

Example:

ansible-playbook site.yml --syntax-check      # Check playbook syntax for errors
ansible-playbook site.yml --check --diff      # Dry run with differences shown, without making changes

RHCE Tip:
Run --check mode especially when modifying critical files. This shows your understanding of risk-aware automation. These testing commands are essential for validating your automation before deployment and are crucial for exam success.

Top 5 RHCE Ansible Tips

1. Use ansible-playbook --syntax-check before executing any playbook to catch YAML or logic errors early.
2. Secure passwords with password_hash or Ansible Vault, and avoid hardcoding credentials.
3. Use --check and --diff modes to validate changes without applying them — perfect for verifying idempotency.
4. Stick to roles for structured playbooks — they improve reusability, clarity, and exam scoring.
5. Always use enabled: yes with services to ensure they persist after reboot.

Conclusion

Automation is not just about writing YAML — it is about solving problems predictably, safely and efficiently. The RHCE exam tests not just your Ansible knowledge, but your ability to use it like a true sysadmin. The tasks we covered today are the most commonly encountered automation challenges and solving them repeatedly in your own lab is the fastest way to build confidence and precision. But self-study can sometimes feel overwhelming. If you are looking for structured, real-world practice, visit https://rhcsa.guru/rhce/ where RHCSA.GURU offers expert-led labs, Ansible projects and simulated exam scenarios tailored for RHCE success. It is more than a study guide — it is your automation bootcamp. So, automate your preparation, reduce the guesswork, and pass the RHCE exam with confidence.