learn/linux-plus/plan
81 topics across 8 weeks, with each week's reading coming back the following week. The spacing is the point: reviewing something a week after you read it holds far better than reading it twice in a night, and it feels less productive at the time, which is why people skip it.
Adapt the timeline. The week count is a structure, not a researched figure, and it grows as topics are written. Nobody publishes reliable data on how long XK0-006 takes, and the numbers in circulation are marketing. Stretch or compress it; keep the shape, which is read once, revisit a week later, then practice mixed.
This plan covers the reading half. Performance-based questions are scored on system state, and that half needs a machine to break and fix.
Week 1
Read
- Start here
- The terminal, and how a command works
- Getting help on any command
- Moving around the filesystem
- Linux fundamentals and the FHS
- Reading and editing files
- Users, root and sudo
- Reading and setting permissions
- Installing software
- How Linux boots
- The kernel and modules
- Hardware and device discovery
- Disks, partitions and filesystems
- Mounting and fstab
Revisit
Nothing yet. Review starts in week 2.
Week 2
Read
Revisit
- Start hereanswer the Check yourself questions from memory first
- The terminal, and how a command worksanswer the Check yourself questions from memory first
- Getting help on any commandanswer the Check yourself questions from memory first
- Moving around the filesystemanswer the Check yourself questions from memory first
- Linux fundamentals and the FHSanswer the Check yourself questions from memory first
- Reading and editing filesanswer the Check yourself questions from memory first
- Users, root and sudoanswer the Check yourself questions from memory first
- Reading and setting permissionsanswer the Check yourself questions from memory first
- Installing softwareanswer the Check yourself questions from memory first
- How Linux bootsanswer the Check yourself questions from memory first
- The kernel and modulesanswer the Check yourself questions from memory first
- Hardware and device discoveryanswer the Check yourself questions from memory first
- Disks, partitions and filesystemsanswer the Check yourself questions from memory first
- Mounting and fstabanswer the Check yourself questions from memory first
Week 3
Read
- Account files and attributes
- Processes and signals
- Job control and scheduling
- Packages, repositories and signing
- Common network services
- systemd units and services
- systemd targets, timers and the journal
- Containers: the basics
- Container images, volumes and networks
- Authentication and PAM
- Central identity
- Logging and auditing
- Firewall concepts and netfilter
- firewalld, ufw and nftables
Revisit
- LVManswer the Check yourself questions from memory first
- RAIDanswer the Check yourself questions from memory first
- Network basics: addresses and routesanswer the Check yourself questions from memory first
- Configuring networkinganswer the Check yourself questions from memory first
- Name resolution and DNSanswer the Check yourself questions from memory first
- Shell redirection and pipesanswer the Check yourself questions from memory first
- Text processinganswer the Check yourself questions from memory first
- The shell environmentanswer the Check yourself questions from memory first
- Archiving and compressionanswer the Check yourself questions from memory first
- Backup and restoreanswer the Check yourself questions from memory first
- Virtualizationanswer the Check yourself questions from memory first
- Links, hard and symbolicanswer the Check yourself questions from memory first
- Finding filesanswer the Check yourself questions from memory first
- Managing users and groupsanswer the Check yourself questions from memory first
Week 4
Read
Revisit
- Account files and attributesanswer the Check yourself questions from memory first
- Processes and signalsanswer the Check yourself questions from memory first
- Job control and schedulinganswer the Check yourself questions from memory first
- Packages, repositories and signinganswer the Check yourself questions from memory first
- Common network servicesanswer the Check yourself questions from memory first
- systemd units and servicesanswer the Check yourself questions from memory first
- systemd targets, timers and the journalanswer the Check yourself questions from memory first
- Containers: the basicsanswer the Check yourself questions from memory first
- Container images, volumes and networksanswer the Check yourself questions from memory first
- Authentication and PAManswer the Check yourself questions from memory first
- Central identityanswer the Check yourself questions from memory first
- Logging and auditinganswer the Check yourself questions from memory first
- Firewall concepts and netfilteranswer the Check yourself questions from memory first
- firewalld, ufw and nftablesanswer the Check yourself questions from memory first
Week 5
Read
- Git branching and collaboration
- Infrastructure as code concepts
- Ansible
- Puppet and OpenTofu
- CI/CD and GitOps
- Orchestration
- AI-assisted administration
- How to troubleshoot
- Monitoring concepts
- Reading logs to find a cause
- Boot failures and recovery
- Filesystem and mount failures
- Disk space and inode problems
- Process and service failures
Revisit
- sudo in depthanswer the Check yourself questions from memory first
- SSH and secure remote accessanswer the Check yourself questions from memory first
- SELinuxanswer the Check yourself questions from memory first
- Hardening a systemanswer the Check yourself questions from memory first
- Password policy and MFAanswer the Check yourself questions from memory first
- Cryptography basicsanswer the Check yourself questions from memory first
- TLS certificates and ACMEanswer the Check yourself questions from memory first
- Encrypting data at restanswer the Check yourself questions from memory first
- Compliance, auditing and integrityanswer the Check yourself questions from memory first
- Your first shell scriptanswer the Check yourself questions from memory first
- Script control flowanswer the Check yourself questions from memory first
- Scripts that do real workanswer the Check yourself questions from memory first
- Python for sysadminsanswer the Check yourself questions from memory first
- Git: the basicsanswer the Check yourself questions from memory first
Week 6
Read
- Hardware and kernel issues
- Network connectivity troubleshooting
- DNS and routing problems
- Permission and access troubleshooting
- Security and service access problems
- CPU and memory performance
- I/O and network performance
- Where the time actually goes
- What a write actually guarantees
- How upstream becomes your distribution
- The system you cannot change
Revisit
- Git branching and collaborationanswer the Check yourself questions from memory first
- Infrastructure as code conceptsanswer the Check yourself questions from memory first
- Ansibleanswer the Check yourself questions from memory first
- Puppet and OpenTofuanswer the Check yourself questions from memory first
- CI/CD and GitOpsanswer the Check yourself questions from memory first
- Orchestrationanswer the Check yourself questions from memory first
- AI-assisted administrationanswer the Check yourself questions from memory first
- How to troubleshootanswer the Check yourself questions from memory first
- Monitoring conceptsanswer the Check yourself questions from memory first
- Reading logs to find a causeanswer the Check yourself questions from memory first
- Boot failures and recoveryanswer the Check yourself questions from memory first
- Filesystem and mount failuresanswer the Check yourself questions from memory first
- Disk space and inode problemsanswer the Check yourself questions from memory first
- Process and service failuresanswer the Check yourself questions from memory first
Week 7: mixed practice
Stop reading new material. Work mixed practice sets rather than domain-by-domain ones: a set where every question comes from the same domain never makes you choose an approach, so it flatters you. Use the per-objective breakdown to find the weak spots, then reread only those topics.
- Domain 1: System Management
- Domain 2: Services and User Management
- Domain 3: Security
- Domain 4: Automation, Orchestration, and Scripting
- Domain 5: Troubleshooting
Check the coverage reportfor objectives with no questions written yet. Those are gaps in this site, not gaps in the exam.
Week 8: full exams
Timed, weighted, whole. 90 questions in 90 minutes to match the real thing, with a pass mark of 720 on 100 to 900. Sit at least two, on different days. A score you get twice is information; a score you get once is noise.
Do not read anything new this week. If a full exam finds a weak objective, reread that one topic and move on.
What a week actually looks like
Roughly 21 hours of reading, plus revisiting. The order matters more than the hours:
- Open last week's topics and answer their Check yourself questions from memory, before rereading anything. Getting one wrong is the point; that is where the learning happens.
- Reread only the sections those questions exposed.
- Read this week's new topics. Answer each Before you read prompt before continuing, and each Predict block before opening it.
- Work the Work it through scenario without scrolling to the reasoning.
- End the week on a practice set that mixes domains, not one that matches what you just read.
Step 1 is the one people skip, and it is the one carrying most of the effect. Rereading feels like progress because the words come easily the second time. That feeling is fluency, not knowledge, and it is the single most reliable way to walk into an exam confident and underprepared.