XK0-006 Automation, Orchestration, and Scripting Practice Test 10 — 15 Questions

Question 1

A Linux administrator is writing a Bash automation script that must continue processing the remaining entries in a loop even when an individual command returns a non-zero exit status. The script currently starts with `#!/bin/bash` and uses `set -e` for safety elsewhere. Which construct should the administrator use to run a command whose failure must be tolerated inside the loop?

Choose an answer to begin — your selection is scored in the full session.

Accepted Answer

Append `|| true` to the command so its non-zero exit status is masked.. With `set -e` active, any simple command returning non-zero aborts the script unless its status is part of a condition or OR list. Appending `|| true` makes the overall list succeed, so the loop advances while errexit remains enabled for everything else. This preserves the safety net for unforeseen failures while deliberately tolerating the one command expected to fail.

Answer

Run the loop body inside a subshell wrapped with `set +e` before and after the command.

Answer

Prefix the command with `env -i` to isolate its environment and prevent exit propagation.

Answer

Redirect the command's stderr to `/dev/null` to prevent the shell from seeing the failure.

Question 2

A Linux administrator is configuring a systemd timer to run a maintenance script daily. The administrator creates maint.service and maint.timer unit files, then runs systemctl start maint.timer. The script does not run at the expected time. Which command should the administrator run to enable the timer so it starts automatically at boot and triggers on schedule?

Accepted Answer

systemctl enable maint.timer. A systemd timer must be enabled, not merely started, to be activated at boot. Enabling creates the appropriate symlink in the timer's target directory so systemd starts it automatically, and the timer then triggers the associated service according to its OnCalendar or OnUnitActiveSec schedule. Enabling the service or reloading the unit does not achieve persistent scheduled execution.

Answer

systemctl reload maint.timer

Answer

systemctl enable maint.service

Answer

systemctl daemon-reexec

Question 3

A Linux administrator is writing a Bash automation script that must continue processing the remaining entries in a loop even when an individual command returns a non-zero exit status. The script currently starts with `#!/bin/bash` and uses `set -e` for safety elsewhere. Which construct should the administrator use to run a command whose failure must be tolerated inside the loop?

Choose an answer to begin — your selection is scored in the full session.

Accepted Answer

Quote the variable expansion, for example "$filename", whenever it is used in commands.. To safely handle filenames with spaces or special characters, the script should quote variable expansions so the shell treats each value as a single argument, and read lines with IFS= read -r to preserve whitespace and backslashes. These two practices together prevent word splitting and globbing from corrupting the data during iteration.

Answer

Disable globbing by running set -f at the start of the script and never re-enable it.

Answer

Set the IFS variable to a newline character globally at the top of the script before any commands run.

Answer

Use the eval command to expand the variable so that spaces are handled automatically.

Question 4

A Linux administrator is reviewing an Ansible playbook that manages a fleet of servers. The playbook must run a task only on hosts in the group webservers and must notify a handler when a configuration file changes. Which TWO of the following are valid Ansible constructs that the administrator should use? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

notify: restart nginx. The hosts directive scopes the play to the webservers inventory group, and the notify keyword on a task causes a named handler to run when that task changes state. Together they ensure the play runs only on the intended hosts and that a service restart handler fires only when the configuration file is modified.

Answer

serial: 1

Answer

when: ansible_os_family == "Debian"

Answer

become: yes

Question 5

A Linux administrator schedules a maintenance script with cron using the entry `30 2 * * 1 /usr/local/bin/backup.sh`. The script runs but produces no output and fails silently when executed by cron, though it works when run interactively. Which action best addresses the silent failure?

Accepted Answer

Redirect the script's stdout and stderr to a log file within the crontab entry or script.. Cron runs jobs with a minimal environment and no terminal, so interactive successes can become silent failures. Because cron only emails output when a mail transfer agent is configured, failures frequently vanish. Capturing stdout and stderr to a log file exposes the environment-related errors, such as an incomplete PATH or missing variables, that cause the discrepancy between interactive and scheduled execution.

Answer

Move the script to `/etc/cron.d/` so it inherits the system environment.

Answer

Add the `nohup` command before the script path in the crontab line.

Answer

Change the schedule to run every minute so the failure is observed sooner.

Question 6

A Linux administrator needs to automate the deployment of a Kubernetes application from a manifest file and verify that the rollout completes successfully within a script. Which pair of actions should the script perform to apply the manifest and block until the Deployment's rollout finishes?

Accepted Answer

kubectl apply -f deploy.yaml followed by kubectl rollout status deployment/myapp. Idempotent automation uses kubectl apply to create or update resources from a manifest, then kubectl rollout status to block until the Deployment rollout completes, which exits non-zero on failure. Alternatives like get with watch or describe do not provide a deterministic completion signal, and create or replace are not idempotent for repeated script runs.

Answer

kubectl apply -f deploy.yaml followed by kubectl describe deployment/myapp

Answer

kubectl replace -f deploy.yaml followed by kubectl logs deployment/myapp

Answer

kubectl create -f deploy.yaml followed by kubectl get pods -w

Question 7

A Linux administrator is debugging a Bash script that uses a function to set a global counter. The function increments the variable, but after the function returns, the counter retains its original value. The script does not use subshells or pipelines around the function call. Which of the following is the MOST likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The variable was declared with the local keyword inside the function, creating a function-scoped copy that shadows the global variable.. The local keyword inside a function creates a function-scoped variable that shadows any global variable of the same name. Assignments inside the function affect only the local copy, which disappears when the function returns, so the global counter appears unchanged. Removing the local declaration allows the function to modify the global variable directly.

Answer

The counter variable was exported with export, which makes it read-only inside functions.

Answer

The function was defined with the function keyword instead of the POSIX name() syntax, which isolates its variables.

Answer

The script lacks a shebang line, so Bash runs it in POSIX mode where functions cannot modify global variables.

Question 8

A Linux administrator is writing a Bash script that accepts a filename as its first argument. The script should print an error and exit if the argument is missing. Which construct should the administrator use to reference the first positional parameter and test whether it is empty?

Accepted Answer

$1 with the -z test, as in [ -z "$1" ]. The first positional parameter is referenced as $1, and quoting it preserves its value even when empty. The -z test evaluates to true for a zero-length string, so checking [ -z "$1" ] reliably detects a missing filename argument and lets the script print an error and exit before proceeding.

Answer

$0 with the -z test, as in [ -z "$0" ]

Answer

$# with the -z test, as in [ -z "$#" ]

Answer

$@ with the -z test, as in [ -z "$@" ]

Question 9

An automation engineer uses Ansible to configure a fleet of Linux servers. A playbook task installs a package and then starts a service, but the service fails to start because the package installs a configuration file only on the first run. The engineer wants the handler to notify only when the package actually changes state. Which Ansible construct ensures the service restart handler fires only when the package task reports a change?

Accepted Answer

Use the `notify` directive on the package task referencing a handler that restarts the service.. Ansible handlers run only when notified by a task that reports `changed`, which is exactly the behavior needed to restart a service only when its package is actually installed or upgraded. The `notify` directive wires the package task to the handler, so idempotent runs that leave the package untouched do not trigger a restart, preventing unnecessary service interruptions across the managed fleet.

Answer

Set `run_once: true` on the service handler so it executes a single time per play.

Answer

Add `changed_when: true` to the package task to guarantee the handler always runs.

Answer

Use the `when: ansible_facts.pkg_mgr == 'apt'` conditional on the handler.

Question 10

A Linux administrator needs a scheduled job on a production server to run the backup script /usr/local/bin/backup.sh every day at 02:30, and the job must run as the root user regardless of who is logged in. Which single entry in /etc/crontab accomplishes this?

Accepted Answer

30 2 * * * root /usr/local/bin/backup.sh. System-wide cron entries in /etc/crontab carry an extra user field between the five time/date fields and the command, which is what allows a job to run as root without a login. The schedule fields must be ordered minute, hour, day-of-month, month, day-of-week, so 30 2 * * * is 02:30 and root names the executing account.

Answer

@daily root /usr/local/bin/backup.sh

Answer

2 30 * * * root /usr/local/bin/backup.sh

Answer

30 2 * * * /usr/local/bin/backup.sh root

Question 11

A Linux administrator needs to automate the deployment of a configuration file to fifty servers. The administrator wants to run a single command from a control node that copies the file to all servers in parallel and reports any failures. Which of the following tools is designed specifically for this task?

Accepted Answer

Ansible with an ad-hoc command using the copy module and a hosts inventory.. Ansible is purpose-built for agentless automation across many hosts. With an inventory and the copy module, a single ad-hoc command pushes the configuration file to all servers in parallel and returns per-host success or failure, which precisely matches the administrator's need for one command with consolidated reporting.

Answer

A for loop in a Bash script that calls scp for each hostname in a list.

Answer

A cron job on each target server that pulls the configuration file from a central web server every hour.

Answer

rsync run from the control node with a comma-separated list of remote hosts in a single invocation.

Question 12

A Linux administrator is writing a Bash script that must continue running even if an unset variable is referenced, but must still abort on a failed command. Currently the script has only `#!/bin/bash` at the top. Which line should be added to meet these requirements?

Accepted Answer

set -e. The requirement is to abort on a failed command while still tolerating references to unset variables. `set -e` provides the abort-on-error behavior, and because `-u` is not enabled, unset variables do not trigger termination. Enabling trace output or altering pipeline exit status does not produce the requested failure semantics, and enabling unset-variable errors would do the opposite of what is required.

Answer

set -x

Answer

set -u

Answer

set -o pipefail

Question 13

A Linux administrator is packaging an internal automation tool as a container image and must ensure the resulting image is minimal, reproducible, and does not include a shell or package manager. Which TWO practices best support that goal? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

Build the application as a static binary and copy it into a scratch or distroless base image. Minimal container images combine a static or self-contained artifact with a base image that ships no shell or package manager, and multi-stage builds keep all compilation tooling out of the final layer. Together these practices produce small, reproducible images whose contents are limited to what the application needs at runtime, with no interactive tooling available to an attacker.

Answer

Add a RUN apk add --no-cache bash step so operators can exec into the container for debugging

Answer

Tag the image as latest and rebuild it nightly from the moving base image to keep it current

Answer

Run the container as root so the entrypoint can install missing packages at startup

Question 14

A Linux administrator needs to extract the value of the 'version' field from a JSON file named config.json. The file contains a top-level key 'version' with a string value. Which command should be used to retrieve just the value?

Accepted Answer

jq -r '.version' config.json. `jq` is designed specifically for parsing JSON. Using `jq -r '.version'` extracts the value of the 'version' key and outputs it as a raw string. This approach is robust and handles JSON syntax correctly. Other tools like `grep`, `sed`, or `awk` are text-based and may work in simple cases but are error-prone with JSON's structure and variations.

Answer

grep '"version"' config.json

Answer

sed -n 's/.*"version": *"$.*$".*/\1/p' config.json

Answer

awk -F'"' '/version/ {print $4}' config.json

Question 15

A configuration-management script must take a YAML inventory file and convert it into JSON so a downstream API can consume it, preserving all nested structure. Which command accomplishes this most directly?

Accepted Answer

yq -o=json '.' inventory.yaml. Structured conversion requires a tool that understands YAML syntax, and yq does exactly that by parsing the document and emitting JSON when given the -o=json flag. Text utilities such as sed, grep, and awk operate line by line and cannot reconstruct nested maps and sequences, so they inevitably corrupt the data the API expects.

Answer

awk -F': ' '{print $2}' inventory.yaml

Answer

grep -E '^[a-zA-Z]+:' inventory.yaml

Answer

sed 's/:/=/g' inventory.yaml