PCA Alerting And Dashboarding Practice Test 3 — 15 Questions

Question 1

What does the 'firing' state mean for an alert?

Accepted Answer

The alert condition is currently true. An alert enters the 'firing' state when its condition expression evaluates to true for the specified 'for' duration.

Answer

The alert is being silenced

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The alert is pending

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The alert has been resolved

Question 2

You have a recording rule that references a metric that doesn't exist. What is the impact?

Accepted Answer

The rule evaluation results in no data. The recording rule will be evaluated, but because the expression returns no data, no new time series will be created for that rule.

Answer

Prometheus logs a critical error

Answer

The entire server crashes

Answer

The rule is automatically disabled

Question 3

How do you apply a global notification delay in Alertmanager?

Accepted Answer

By using the group_wait field. The 'group_wait' parameter at the root route level defines the time to wait before sending an initial notification for a new alert group.

Answer

By setting the repeat_interval

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By creating a silence for the first 5 minutes

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By modifying the Prometheus rule interval

Question 4

Where do you define the threshold for a Prometheus alerting rule?

Accepted Answer

In the 'expr' field. In Prometheus alerting rules, the 'expr' field contains the PromQL expression that is evaluated on each evaluation interval; when the expression returns a non-empty result set, the alert transitions to pending and then firing. The threshold itself (e.g., '> 0.9' or '== 0') is embedded directly inside that PromQL expression, so the threshold is defined in 'expr'. The 'labels' field only attaches metadata (severity, team) to the alert, and Alertmanager only handles routing, grouping, silencing, and notification after Prometheus fires the alert.

Answer

In the 'labels' field

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In the Alertmanager config

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In the Grafana panel

Question 5

When integrating Grafana with Prometheus, what is the standard authentication method if Prometheus is behind a reverse proxy?

Accepted Answer

Basic Auth. When Prometheus sits behind a reverse proxy, Grafana's Prometheus data source authenticates to the proxy using HTTP Basic Auth — the data source configuration provides a username and password that Grafana sends in the Authorization header. This is the standard, documented method because the reverse proxy (nginx, Apache, Traefik) typically enforces Basic Auth in front of the Prometheus endpoint.

Answer

Hardcoded IP address

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Public access only

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SSH tunneling

Question 6

Which of these is NOT a valid Alertmanager receiver type?

Accepted Answer

SQL. While Alertmanager supports many integrations (Webhook, Email, PagerDuty), 'SQL' is not a native built-in receiver type.

Answer

Webhook

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Email

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PagerDuty

Question 7

Which Alertmanager feature would you use to prevent a 'ServiceDown' alert from firing if a 'GlobalNetworkOutage' alert is already active?

Accepted Answer

Inhibition. Inhibition rules allow one alert to suppress another based on matching labels.

Answer

Grouping

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Silencing

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Routing

Question 8

Why would you choose to create a recording rule for a complex PromQL query?

Accepted Answer

To reduce dashboard query latency. Recording rules pre-calculate complex queries, making dashboards load faster by querying the pre-computed series instead of re-calculating the entire expression.

Answer

To increase metric resolution

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To bypass authentication

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To enable cross-server alerting

Question 9

Which Grafana feature allows you to see data from multiple Prometheus servers on a single panel?

Accepted Answer

Data source variables. Grafana allows you to define multiple data sources and even mix them within a dashboard, or use a data source proxy.

Answer

Panel injection

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Metric merging

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Prometheus federation

Question 10

What is the purpose of the 'keep_firing_for' field in an alerting rule?

Accepted Answer

To prevent alert flapping. It keeps an alert in the firing state for a specified duration after the underlying expression is no longer true, which helps prevent flapping.

Answer

To delay the initial alert

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To repeat the alert every X minutes

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To log the alert to disk

Question 11

Which TWO of the following are valid fields in a Prometheus alerting rule definition?

Accepted Answer

expr. Option A, expr, is correct because every Prometheus alerting rule requires an expr field containing the PromQL expression that is evaluated; when it returns results, the alert fires. Option E, alert, is correct because the alert field names the alert (e.g., alert: HighErrorRate) and is the required identifier for the rule within the rule group. The unmarked options do not belong: timeout and retries are not fields of a Prometheus alerting rule (retries/timeout concepts belong to Alertmanager notification configuration or scrape configs), and target is not a valid alerting rule field, as Prometheus discovers targets via scrape_configs rather than within alert rules.

Answer

timeout

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retries

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target

Question 12

When setting up Alertmanager, what happens if you have no route defined for an alert?

Accepted Answer

The alert is sent to the root route. If an alert matches no specific route, it will fall back to the root route of the configuration tree.

Answer

The alert triggers an error

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The alert is sent to all receivers

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The alert is dropped

Question 13

Which TWO of the following are valid components of an Alertmanager configuration file?

Accepted Answer

receivers. Option A, receivers, is correct because the Alertmanager configuration file uses a top-level receivers: block to define notification integrations (for example email, Slack, PagerDuty, or webhook) that alerts are sent to. Option E, route, is correct because the top-level route: block defines the routing tree that matches incoming alerts and dispatches them to the appropriate receiver, including child routes and grouping/matching settings. Option B, storage_path, is not a valid Alertmanager configuration key; the data directory is set via the --storage.path command-line flag, not a config field. Option C, global_variables, is not a valid key; Alertmanager uses a global: block for settings such as SMTP and Slack defaults. Option D, scrape_configs, belongs to the Prometheus server configuration (defining scrape targets), not to Alertmanager.

Answer

storage_path

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global_variables

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scrape_configs

Question 14

Which THREE of the following are valid Alertmanager routing tree parameters?

Accepted Answer

receiver. Routes can filter by 'match', 'match_re', and define a 'receiver'.

Answer

server

Answer

auth_token

Question 15

Which TWO of the following are benefits of using recording rules?

Accepted Answer

Simplifying complex queries. Recording rules are correct in options A and B because they precompute expensive or frequently used PromQL expressions and store the result as a new time series, so complex queries can be referenced by a simpler metric name (A: simplifying complex queries) and dashboards or alerts that use that precomputed series avoid re-evaluating the full expression at query time, which lowers query latency (B: reducing query latency). They do not add authentication to metrics (C), since authentication is handled by the metrics endpoint, reverse proxy, or service configuration, not by recording rules. They also do not automatically increase retention (D), because retention is controlled by storage configuration such as retention time or size limits, and they do not provide a UI for alerts (E), since alerting UIs come from tools like Alertmanager or Grafana rather than from recording rules themselves.

Answer

Adding authentication to metrics

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Automatically increasing retention

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Providing UI for alerts