010-160 Practice Test 17 — 15 Questions

Question 1

An administrator is reviewing how pathnames are resolved on a Linux system and wants to identify statements that correctly describe absolute and relative paths. (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

The path `../docs/report.txt` is relative and refers to a file in a sibling directory of the current one.. Absolute paths anchor at the root because of the leading slash, while relative paths are interpreted against the process working directory. The `..` component lets a relative path climb to a parent and then descend elsewhere, which is how a sibling directory can be addressed without a full path. Two statements correctly describe these behaviors, and the remaining ones misstate resolution rules.

Answer

Any path containing a dot component is treated as an absolute path by the shell.

Answer

A relative path is resolved against the root directory when the shell's current directory is unset.

Answer

Two different relative paths can never resolve to the same file.

Question 2

A user is in /home/bob and wants to copy the file notes.txt from /data/reports into the current directory, keeping the same filename. Which command performs this operation?

Accepted Answer

cp /data/reports/notes.txt .. Copying a file into the current directory is expressed with cp source . where the dot stands for the working directory. The copy leaves the original intact in /data/reports and creates notes.txt in /home/bob. Moving the file, reversing the operands, or using a recursive option for a single regular file all fail to match the stated requirement.

Answer

cp . /data/reports/notes.txt

Answer

mv /data/reports/notes.txt .

Answer

cp -r /data/reports/notes.txt /home/bob

Question 3

A user runs `pwd` and sees `/home/alex/projects`. They then run `cd ../reports` and `pwd` again. What is the second `pwd` output?

Accepted Answer

/home/alex/reports. The relative path `../reports` first ascends one level from `/home/alex/projects` to `/home/alex`, then descends into the `reports` child there. Since each component is resolved in sequence against the evolving location, the final directory is `/home/alex/reports`, which is what the second `pwd` reports.

Answer

/home/alex/projects/../reports

Answer

/home/reports

Answer

/home/alex/projects/reports

Question 4

What is the primary purpose of the /etc/shadow file?

Accepted Answer

It stores encrypted password hashes.. The /etc/shadow file stores encrypted password hashes along with password aging information for local user accounts. It is readable only by root, unlike /etc/passwd, which is world-readable and historically held the hashes.

Answer

It stores all user login shells.

Answer

It stores system-wide cron jobs.

Answer

It stores user group membership lists.

Question 5

Which TWO of the following are examples of common Linux filesystems?

Accepted Answer

ext4. ext4 (B) is correct because it is the default, journaling, native Linux filesystem used by most Linux distributions, supporting extents, large volumes, and backward compatibility with ext2/ext3. XFS (E) is also correct because it is a high-performance 64-bit journaling filesystem developed for Linux (originally by SGI), commonly used on RHEL/CentOS for large files and parallel I/O. FAT32 (A) is not a Linux-native filesystem; it is a Microsoft/Windows-originated filesystem that Linux merely supports via drivers like vfat. HFS (C) is Apple's legacy Mac OS filesystem, not a common Linux filesystem. NTFS (D) is Microsoft's Windows filesystem, supported by Linux through ntfs-3g but not a common Linux filesystem itself.

Answer

FAT32

Answer

HFS

Answer

NTFS

Question 6

Which command is used to display lines of a file that match a pattern, while ignoring case?

Accepted Answer

grep -i. The 'grep -i' option performs a case-insensitive pattern match, so lines containing 'Error', 'error', or 'ERROR' all match a search for 'error'. This is the standard way to search files while ignoring letter case. The -i flag is documented in the grep man page as 'ignore case distinctions in patterns and input data'.

Answer

grep -v

Answer

grep -w

Answer

grep -r

Question 7

Which TWO of the following are common benefits of using open source software in an enterprise environment?

Accepted Answer

Reduced total cost of ownership (TCO) compared to proprietary alternatives. Option B is correct because open source software is typically available at no licensing cost and can be deployed on commodity hardware, which lowers acquisition, maintenance, and upgrade expenses and thus reduces total cost of ownership (TCO) versus proprietary alternatives. Option C is correct because open source code and open standards let an enterprise inspect, modify, and migrate the software, so it is not contractually or technically tied to a single vendor's roadmap, pricing, or proprietary formats, thereby avoiding vendor lock-in. Option A is wrong because open source licenses explicitly permit modification of the source code, which is the opposite of the stated inability. Option D is wrong because proprietary drivers are not a mandatory part of open source software; many projects use open drivers or optional binary blobs. Option E is wrong because no software, open or proprietary, can guarantee 100% bug-free performance.

Answer

The inability to modify software

Answer

Mandatory inclusion of proprietary drivers

Answer

Guaranteed 100% bug-free performance

Question 8

Which TWO of the following are examples of Linux distributions?

Accepted Answer

Debian. Debian (C) is a Linux distribution: it packages the Linux kernel with GNU userland tools, the dpkg/APT package management system, and its own release repositories. Ubuntu (D) is also a Linux distribution, derived from Debian and maintained by Canonical, using the same .deb package format with its own release cycle and repositories. The remaining options are not Linux distributions: Chrome (A) is a proprietary web browser from Google, Windows (B) is a proprietary operating system family from Microsoft built on the NT kernel rather than the Linux kernel, and Office (E) is a productivity application suite, not an operating system distribution.

Answer

Chrome

Answer

Windows

Answer

Office

Question 9

Which TWO of the following regex patterns are valid for grep to match the beginning or end of a line?

Accepted Answer

$. Option E, the caret (^), is correct because in grep's basic regular expressions it is the anchor that matches the start of a line, so a pattern like ^root matches lines beginning with 'root'. Option A, the dollar sign ($), is correct because it is the anchor that matches the end of a line, so a pattern like bash$ matches lines ending in 'bash'. Option C, the dot (.), is not an anchor; it matches any single character. Option D, the asterisk (*), is a quantifier meaning zero or more repetitions of the preceding element, not a line anchor. Option B, the backslash (\), is an escape character used to remove the special meaning of the following character, not a beginning- or end-of-line anchor.

Answer

\

Answer

.

Answer

*

Question 10

Which TWO of the following signals can be used to interact with processes?

Accepted Answer

SIGTERM. SIGTERM (A) is a standard, catchable termination signal (signal number 15) that can be sent to a process with the kill command to request it to shut down gracefully, allowing it to run cleanup handlers before exiting. SIGKILL (B) is signal number 9, an uncatchable and unblockable signal that forcibly terminates a process immediately, making it the other valid way to interact with and control a running process. The remaining options are not real signals: SIGSTOPPED (C) is not a defined signal (the actual stop signal is SIGSTOP, number 19), SIGEXIT (D) does not exist in the standard signal set, and SIGRUN (E) is likewise not a valid signal name.

Answer

SIGSTOPPED

Answer

SIGEXIT

Answer

SIGRUN

Question 11

Which THREE commands can be used to display information about system memory?

Accepted Answer

vmstat. Option B (vmstat) is correct because it reports virtual memory statistics, including swap usage, free and buffered memory, and paging activity. Option C (top) is correct because it displays a live, continuously updated view of memory usage (total, free, used, and buffers/cache) alongside process information. Option E (free) is correct because it directly shows total, used, free, shared, buffered/cached, and available physical and swap memory. Option A (ifconfig) is incorrect because it configures and displays network interface parameters, not memory. Option D (lsblk) is incorrect because it lists block devices and their mountpoints, which is storage rather than memory information.

Answer

ifconfig

Answer

lsblk

Question 12

Which THREE of the following files/commands are involved in system startup or services?

Accepted Answer

/etc/init.d. /etc/init.d is correct because it is the traditional SysV-style directory holding init scripts that start, stop, and restart system services, and it is directly involved in service management during startup. systemd is correct because it is the modern init system and service manager on most Linux distributions, responsible for booting the system and managing services via units. init is correct because it is the classic first process (PID 1) that initializes the system and launches services, and it remains the conceptual name for the startup process even under systemd. /etc/hosts is not correct because it is a static hostname-to-IP mapping file used for name resolution, not a startup or service component. /proc/cpuinfo is not correct because it is a virtual file exposing CPU information, unrelated to system startup or service management.

Answer

/etc/hosts

Answer

/proc/cpuinfo

Question 13

You have a file 'notes.txt' and you want to ensure the group owner can read and write it, but nobody else can access it. Which chmod command works?

Accepted Answer

chmod 660 notes.txt. chmod 660 notes.txt sets the permissions to rw-rw----, meaning the owner and group both have read and write access, while others have no permissions at all. This matches the requirement that the group owner can read and write and nobody else can access the file. The leading 6 (rw-) applies to owner, the second 6 (rw-) to group, and the 0 (---) to others.

Answer

chmod 060 notes.txt

Answer

chmod 666 notes.txt

Answer

chmod 770 notes.txt

Question 14

Which TWO of the following are valid ways to get help on a Linux system?

Accepted Answer

man. Option B, `man`, is correct because the manual page system is the standard Linux documentation interface, invoked as `man <command>` to display the reference manual for a command, system call, or configuration file. Option D, `help`, is correct because it is a valid built-in command in shells like Bash that prints usage information for shell built-ins (e.g., `help cd`), and it also appears as a common `--help` option on many utilities. The other options are not valid Linux help mechanisms: `search` is not a help command (it resembles Windows' `search` or unrelated tools), `findhelp` is not a standard Linux command, and `explain` is not a Linux help utility.

Answer

search

Answer

findhelp

Answer

explain

Question 15

Which TWO of the following are considered hardware components?

Accepted Answer

CPU. Option B (CPU) is correct because the Central Processing Unit is a physical integrated circuit that executes instructions, making it a core hardware component of any computer. Option C (RAM) is correct because Random Access Memory is a physical memory module (e.g., DIMM) that stores data and instructions for active processes, clearly a hardware device. In contrast, option A (Kernel) is the core software layer of an operating system that manages hardware resources, not hardware itself. Option D (Bash) is a software shell/command interpreter, and option E (systemd) is a software init and service manager; both are programs, not physical components.

Answer

Kernel

Answer

Bash

Answer

systemd