Objective 1.0

Essential Commands

LFCS Practice Questions

Use this page to practise Essential Commands questions for this certification. Focus on how the exam tests essential commands in scenario format — understanding the why behind each answer builds more durable knowledge than memorising options.

Full Practice Test →All Objectives

What this objective tests

LFCS Essential Commands — Key Topics

Essential Commands questions on this certification test your ability to deploy and manage essential commands concepts in scenario-based situations.

Core Essential Commands concepts and how they apply in real-world cloud scenarios.
How to deploy essential commands correctly and verify the outcome.
Troubleshooting essential commands issues by interpreting error output and system state.
Cloud best practices and Essential Commands design trade-offs tested by this certification.

Common exam traps

Where candidates lose marks on Essential Commands

⚠Selecting the most expensive service when a simpler managed option meets the requirement.
⚠Forgetting that cloud resources must be explicitly secured — defaults are rarely secure.
⚠Choosing a global service fix when the issue is region-specific.
⚠Overlooking cost implications of cross-region data transfer in architecture questions.

LFCS Essential Commands — Practice Questions

30 questions from this objective

Question 2mediummultiple choice

Full question →

A user reports that a script fails with 'Permission denied' when executed. The script has permissions -rw-r--r-- and is owned by the user. Which command should the user run to make the script executable for the owner only?

Question 3easymultiple choice

Full question →

A system administrator needs to find all files in /var/log that have been modified in the last 7 days. Which command accomplishes this?

Question 4hardmultiple choice

Full question →

An administrator wants to ensure that a background process continues running after logout. Which command should be used to start the process?

Question 5mediummultiple choice

Full question →

A technician needs to display the contents of a compressed file named archive.tar.gz without extracting it. Which command should be used?

Question 6easymultiple choice

Full question →

A user wants to find the location of the 'grep' binary. Which command should they use?

Question 7hardmulti select

Full question →

Which TWO commands can be used to create a new empty file?

Question 8mediummulti select

Full question →

Which THREE commands can be used to view the contents of a file?

Question 9mediummultiple choice

Full question →

What is the purpose of the chmod 755 command in this exhibit?

Network Topology

Question 10hardmultiple choice

Full question →

Based on the exhibit, which process will be affected if the root user runs 'kill 5678'?

Exhibit

Refer to the exhibit.

$ ps aux | grep apache
root      1234  0.0  0.2  12345  6789 ?        Ss   Jan01   0:00 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
www-data  5678  0.0  0.1  12345  1234 ?        S    Jan01   0:00 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
www-data  5679  0.0  0.1  12345  1234 ?        S    Jan01   0:00 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start

Question 11mediummultiple choice

Full question →

A developer accidentally deleted a critical file /var/log/app.log. The system administrator knows that the file was recently backed up using a cron job that runs 'tar -czf /backup/logs.tar.gz /var/log/'. Which command should the administrator use to restore the file from the backup without extracting the entire archive?

Question 12hardmultiple choice

Full question →

A system administrator needs to find all files in /home that are owned by user 'alice' and have been modified in the last 7 days. The administrator then wants to compress those files into a single archive named alice_recent.tar.gz. Which of the following commands accomplishes this?

Question 13easymultiple choice

Full question →

A junior administrator needs to display the first 10 lines of a file named 'data.csv'. Which command should they use?

Question 14mediummultiple choice

Read the full NAT/PAT explanation →

A system administrator is troubleshooting a user's report that a command 'myapp' is not found. The administrator checks the PATH variable and sees it includes /usr/local/bin. The administrator verifies that the binary 'myapp' exists in /usr/local/bin with permissions 755. However, running 'myapp' still fails with 'command not found'. What is the most likely cause?

Question 15hardmulti select

Full question →

Which TWO commands can be used to display the current working directory? (Choose exactly two.)

Question 16mediummulti select

Full question →

Which THREE of the following commands can be used to view the contents of a compressed file named 'file.gz' without permanently decompressing it? (Choose exactly three.)

Question 17mediummultiple choice

Full question →

A user with uid 1000 tries to read /etc/shadow and gets 'Permission denied'. The user is not in the shadow group. Which of the following actions would allow the user to read the file without changing the file's group or permissions?

Exhibit

Refer to the exhibit.

$ ls -l /etc/shadow
-rw-r----- 1 root shadow 1234 Jan 15 10:00 /etc/shadow
$ id
uid=1000(user1) gid=1000(user1) groups=1000(user1)
$ cat /etc/shadow
cat: /etc/shadow: Permission denied

Question 18hardmultiple choice

Full question →

You are a system administrator for a company that runs a web server on a Linux system. The web server logs are stored in /var/log/nginx/access.log. The log file grows rapidly and rotates weekly via logrotate. The system has been running for several months. Recently, the development team reported that the web server is responding slowly. You suspect that the disk I/O might be high due to log file activity. You check the disk usage and find that /var/log/nginx/access.log is 4 GB, and the rotated logs (access.log.1.gz, access.log.2.gz, etc.) total another 10 GB. The /var partition has 20 GB total, so it's 70% full. You decide to reduce the disk usage by compressing the current log file and truncating it without stopping the nginx service. Which command sequence should you use to safely achieve this?

Question 19hardmultiple choice

Full question →

You are managing a Linux server that hosts a critical web application. The server is running low on disk space in the root filesystem, and you need to free up space urgently. You run 'df -h' and see that /dev/sda1 is mounted on / and is 95% full. You also notice that /var/log/messages is over 2 GB in size. The application writes logs to /var/log/app.log, which is also large. The server has a separate /var partition that has plenty of free space. The application must continue running with minimal downtime. You need to compress and rotate logs without losing any data, and ensure that the root filesystem has at least 10% free space. Which of the following actions should you take first to achieve this goal?

Question 20mediummultiple choice

Full question →

A system administrator needs to list all files in the current directory, including hidden files, in a long listing format sorted by modification time (oldest first). Which command achieves this?

Question 21easymultiple choice

Full question →

A user wants to find all files in /var/log that have been modified within the last 2 days. Which command should they use?

Question 22hardmultiple choice

Full question →

A system administrator runs 'grep -r 'error' /var/log' and gets many false positives. They want to search only for the exact word 'error' as a whole word, case-insensitively, and display line numbers. Which command should they use?

Question 23easymultiple choice

Read the full network assurance explanation →

A user needs to view the contents of a compressed log file /var/log/syslog.gz without first decompressing it. Which command should they use?

Question 24mediummultiple choice

Full question →

A developer wants to change the ownership of a directory and all its contents recursively to user 'appuser' and group 'appgroup'. Which command accomplishes this?

Question 25hardmultiple choice

Full question →

A systems administrator needs to add a new user 'jdoe' with a home directory in /export/home, a UID of 1500, and an expiry date of 2025-12-31. Which command should they use?

Question 26easymultiple choice

Full question →

A user wants to set the permissions of a file to 'rwxr-xr--'. Which octal permission value should they use with chmod?

Question 27mediumdrag order

Full question →

Order the steps to mount an ext4 filesystem from an external USB drive automatically at boot.

Drag steps to the numbered slots on the right, or tap a step then tap a slot.

Steps

Order

1Step 1

2Step 2

3Step 3

4Step 4

5Step 5

Question 28mediummatching

Full question →

Match each Linux permission type to its symbolic representation.

Drag a concept onto its matching description — or click a concept then click the description.

Concepts

Matches

s (owner execute)

t (other execute)

Question 29easymultiple choice

Full question →

A user reports that a shell script 'backup.sh' in /home/user/scripts fails to execute. What is the most likely cause?

Question 30mediummultiple choice

Full question →

A system administrator needs to find all files under /var/log that have been modified within the last 7 days. Which command accomplishes this task?

Question 31hardmultiple choice

Full question →

A process is consuming 99% CPU and is unresponsive to normal shutdown requests. After running 'top', you see the PID is 1234. What is the most appropriate command to stop the process gracefully first?

More Essential Commands questions available in the full practice test.

Continue Practising →

All LFCS Objectives

Objective 1.0

Essential Commands

LFCS Practice Questions

Full Practice Test →All Objectives

What this objective tests

LFCS Essential Commands — Key Topics

Essential Commands questions on this certification test your ability to deploy and manage essential commands concepts in scenario-based situations.

Core Essential Commands concepts and how they apply in real-world cloud scenarios.
How to deploy essential commands correctly and verify the outcome.
Troubleshooting essential commands issues by interpreting error output and system state.
Cloud best practices and Essential Commands design trade-offs tested by this certification.

Common exam traps

Where candidates lose marks on Essential Commands

⚠Selecting the most expensive service when a simpler managed option meets the requirement.
⚠Forgetting that cloud resources must be explicitly secured — defaults are rarely secure.
⚠Choosing a global service fix when the issue is region-specific.
⚠Overlooking cost implications of cross-region data transfer in architecture questions.

LFCS Essential Commands — Practice Questions

30 questions from this objective

Question 2mediummultiple choice

Full question →

A user reports that a script fails with 'Permission denied' when executed. The script has permissions -rw-r--r-- and is owned by the user. Which command should the user run to make the script executable for the owner only?

Question 3easymultiple choice

Full question →

A system administrator needs to find all files in /var/log that have been modified in the last 7 days. Which command accomplishes this?

Question 4hardmultiple choice

Full question →

An administrator wants to ensure that a background process continues running after logout. Which command should be used to start the process?

Question 5mediummultiple choice

Full question →

A technician needs to display the contents of a compressed file named archive.tar.gz without extracting it. Which command should be used?

Question 6easymultiple choice

Full question →

A user wants to find the location of the 'grep' binary. Which command should they use?

Question 7hardmulti select

Full question →

Which TWO commands can be used to create a new empty file?

Question 8mediummulti select

Full question →

Which THREE commands can be used to view the contents of a file?

Question 9mediummultiple choice

Full question →

What is the purpose of the chmod 755 command in this exhibit?

Network Topology

Question 10hardmultiple choice

Full question →

Based on the exhibit, which process will be affected if the root user runs 'kill 5678'?

Exhibit

Refer to the exhibit.

$ ps aux | grep apache
root      1234  0.0  0.2  12345  6789 ?        Ss   Jan01   0:00 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
www-data  5678  0.0  0.1  12345  1234 ?        S    Jan01   0:00 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
www-data  5679  0.0  0.1  12345  1234 ?        S    Jan01   0:00 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start

Question 11mediummultiple choice

Full question →

A developer accidentally deleted a critical file /var/log/app.log. The system administrator knows that the file was recently backed up using a cron job that runs 'tar -czf /backup/logs.tar.gz /var/log/'. Which command should the administrator use to restore the file from the backup without extracting the entire archive?

Question 12hardmultiple choice

Full question →

A system administrator needs to find all files in /home that are owned by user 'alice' and have been modified in the last 7 days. The administrator then wants to compress those files into a single archive named alice_recent.tar.gz. Which of the following commands accomplishes this?

Question 13easymultiple choice

Full question →

A junior administrator needs to display the first 10 lines of a file named 'data.csv'. Which command should they use?

Question 14mediummultiple choice

Read the full NAT/PAT explanation →

A system administrator is troubleshooting a user's report that a command 'myapp' is not found. The administrator checks the PATH variable and sees it includes /usr/local/bin. The administrator verifies that the binary 'myapp' exists in /usr/local/bin with permissions 755. However, running 'myapp' still fails with 'command not found'. What is the most likely cause?

Question 15hardmulti select

Full question →

Which TWO commands can be used to display the current working directory? (Choose exactly two.)

Question 16mediummulti select

Full question →

Which THREE of the following commands can be used to view the contents of a compressed file named 'file.gz' without permanently decompressing it? (Choose exactly three.)

Question 17mediummultiple choice

Full question →

A user with uid 1000 tries to read /etc/shadow and gets 'Permission denied'. The user is not in the shadow group. Which of the following actions would allow the user to read the file without changing the file's group or permissions?

Exhibit

Refer to the exhibit.

$ ls -l /etc/shadow
-rw-r----- 1 root shadow 1234 Jan 15 10:00 /etc/shadow
$ id
uid=1000(user1) gid=1000(user1) groups=1000(user1)
$ cat /etc/shadow
cat: /etc/shadow: Permission denied

Question 18hardmultiple choice

Full question →

You are a system administrator for a company that runs a web server on a Linux system. The web server logs are stored in /var/log/nginx/access.log. The log file grows rapidly and rotates weekly via logrotate. The system has been running for several months. Recently, the development team reported that the web server is responding slowly. You suspect that the disk I/O might be high due to log file activity. You check the disk usage and find that /var/log/nginx/access.log is 4 GB, and the rotated logs (access.log.1.gz, access.log.2.gz, etc.) total another 10 GB. The /var partition has 20 GB total, so it's 70% full. You decide to reduce the disk usage by compressing the current log file and truncating it without stopping the nginx service. Which command sequence should you use to safely achieve this?

Question 19hardmultiple choice

Full question →

You are managing a Linux server that hosts a critical web application. The server is running low on disk space in the root filesystem, and you need to free up space urgently. You run 'df -h' and see that /dev/sda1 is mounted on / and is 95% full. You also notice that /var/log/messages is over 2 GB in size. The application writes logs to /var/log/app.log, which is also large. The server has a separate /var partition that has plenty of free space. The application must continue running with minimal downtime. You need to compress and rotate logs without losing any data, and ensure that the root filesystem has at least 10% free space. Which of the following actions should you take first to achieve this goal?

Question 20mediummultiple choice

Full question →

A system administrator needs to list all files in the current directory, including hidden files, in a long listing format sorted by modification time (oldest first). Which command achieves this?

Question 21easymultiple choice

Full question →

A user wants to find all files in /var/log that have been modified within the last 2 days. Which command should they use?

Question 22hardmultiple choice

Full question →

A system administrator runs 'grep -r 'error' /var/log' and gets many false positives. They want to search only for the exact word 'error' as a whole word, case-insensitively, and display line numbers. Which command should they use?

Question 23easymultiple choice

Read the full network assurance explanation →

A user needs to view the contents of a compressed log file /var/log/syslog.gz without first decompressing it. Which command should they use?

Question 24mediummultiple choice

Full question →

A developer wants to change the ownership of a directory and all its contents recursively to user 'appuser' and group 'appgroup'. Which command accomplishes this?

Question 25hardmultiple choice

Full question →

A systems administrator needs to add a new user 'jdoe' with a home directory in /export/home, a UID of 1500, and an expiry date of 2025-12-31. Which command should they use?

Question 26easymultiple choice

Full question →

A user wants to set the permissions of a file to 'rwxr-xr--'. Which octal permission value should they use with chmod?

Question 27mediumdrag order

Full question →

Order the steps to mount an ext4 filesystem from an external USB drive automatically at boot.

Drag steps to the numbered slots on the right, or tap a step then tap a slot.

Steps

Order

1Step 1

2Step 2

3Step 3

4Step 4

5Step 5

Question 28mediummatching

Full question →

Match each Linux permission type to its symbolic representation.

Drag a concept onto its matching description — or click a concept then click the description.

Concepts

Matches

s (owner execute)

t (other execute)

Question 29easymultiple choice

Full question →

A user reports that a shell script 'backup.sh' in /home/user/scripts fails to execute. What is the most likely cause?

Question 30mediummultiple choice

Full question →

A system administrator needs to find all files under /var/log that have been modified within the last 7 days. Which command accomplishes this task?

Question 31hardmultiple choice

Full question →

A process is consuming 99% CPU and is unresponsive to normal shutdown requests. After running 'top', you see the PID is 1234. What is the most appropriate command to stop the process gracefully first?

More Essential Commands questions available in the full practice test.

Continue Practising →