010-160 Practice Test 19 — 15 Questions

Question 1

A student wants to start contributing to Linux projects. Which activity is the most effective way to start?

Accepted Answer

Participating in documentation, bug reporting, or small code fixes in projects.. Contributing to open source is a gradual process, and the most effective entry point for a new contributor is participating in documentation, bug reporting, or small code fixes. These activities let newcomers learn project conventions, communicate with maintainers, and build trust before tackling larger changes. They also provide immediate value to the project without requiring deep kernel expertise.

Answer

Only reading the source code without providing feedback.

Answer

Starting a new proprietary distribution for profit.

Answer

Rewriting the entire Linux kernel from scratch.

Question 2

A community college instructor is preparing course materials and wants students to be able to copy, modify, and redistribute the lab exercises freely, while ensuring that any derivative works remain under the same terms. Which type of license best fits this requirement?

Accepted Answer

A copyleft license such as the GNU General Public License (GPL). The instructor wants both broad freedoms and a guarantee that derivative works stay open, which is precisely what a copyleft license provides. The GNU General Public License permits use, study, sharing, and modification while requiring that modified versions be distributed under the same terms. Permissive, proprietary, and public-domain approaches all fail to enforce that downstream reciprocity.

Answer

A proprietary end-user license agreement (EULA)

Answer

A permissive license such as the MIT License

Answer

A public domain dedication with no license attached

Question 3

A helpdesk technician is preparing a Linux workstation for a new employee. The employee needs to know which account they are currently logged in as, without opening any graphical tools. Which single command should the technician recommend to display the current user's login name?

Accepted Answer

whoami. The whoami utility is designed specifically to print the effective username associated with the current shell session. It is available by default on essentially all Linux systems and needs no options, making it ideal for a quick identity check. The other commands return a UID, a hostname, or a runlevel, none of which answer the question of which account is in use.

Answer

id -u

Answer

uname -n

Answer

who -r

Question 4

A new administrator needs to grant a colleague the ability to run a specific backup script as root without sharing the root password, while keeping the action auditable and restricted to that one command. The server already has the sudo package installed and the colleague has a normal user account. Which approach best meets these requirements?

Accepted Answer

Create a dedicated sudoers rule using visudo that permits the colleague to execute only the backup script as root.. Sudo is designed for delegating specific privileged commands with logging, and visudo safely edits the policy that defines those delegations. A targeted rule names the permitted user, the permitted command, and the target runas identity, which satisfies least privilege and auditability. Broad group membership and file-permission tricks either over-grant rights or fail to elevate privileges at all.

Answer

Place the colleague in the root group and give that group read and execute access to the script.

Answer

Change the script's file permissions to setuid root so the colleague can execute it with elevated privileges.

Answer

Add the colleague's account to the wheel group and rely on the default sudoers entry for that group.

Question 5

Which TWO of the following commands can be used to view the contents of a file named 'data.txt'? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

cat data.txt. The cat and less commands both display the contents of a file. cat outputs the entire file at once, while less provides a paginated view. The other commands either search for patterns, count statistics, or print a literal string, none of which show the file's contents.

Answer

wc data.txt

Answer

grep data.txt

Answer

echo data.txt

Question 6

An administrator creates the directory /srv/dropbox and runs 'chmod 1777 /srv/dropbox'. Users report they can create files there, but cannot delete files created by other users. Which TWO statements correctly describe this configuration? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

The leading '1' sets the sticky bit, which restricts deletion or renaming of entries to the file's owner, the directory's owner, or root.. Mode 1777 on a directory combines world read/write/execute with the sticky bit. Write plus execute lets every user create entries, while the sticky bit limits deletion and renaming to the entry's owner, the directory's owner, or root. This is the classic shared drop-box pattern used by /tmp, balancing open creation with protection of existing files.

Answer

The sticky bit on a directory prevents any user other than root from writing new files into that directory.

Answer

Because the directory mode includes the execute bit for others, any user may delete any file within the directory.

Answer

The mode 1777 is invalid syntax, and the shell silently drops the leading digit, leaving the directory at 777.

Question 7

You are searching for a command that deals with 'groups' and want to see all manual pages that mention this term. Which command is most appropriate?

Accepted Answer

apropos groups. The 'apropos' command searches the manual page names and short descriptions for a keyword, making it the correct tool to find all man pages that mention 'groups'. It is equivalent to 'man -k groups'. This allows the user to discover commands related to groups, such as 'groupadd', 'groupdel', etc.

Answer

whatis groups

Answer

info groups

Answer

man -a groups

Question 8

To navigate from your current directory to your home directory regardless of your current location, which command is most efficient?

Accepted Answer

cd ~. The 'cd ~' command navigates directly to the current user's home directory from any location. The tilde (~) is a shell expansion that represents the home directory path, making it the most efficient and location-independent way to return home. 'cd' alone also works, but 'cd ~' is explicit and universally correct.

Answer

cd ..

Answer

cd /

Answer

cd /home

Question 9

You want to find lines in 'file.txt' that do NOT contain the word 'success'. Which command works?

Accepted Answer

grep -v 'success' file.txt. The `-v` option inverts the match, so `grep -v 'success' file.txt` prints every line that does NOT contain the pattern 'success'. This is the standard way to filter out matching lines in Linux/Unix. The other options either show matching lines, count them, or ignore case, but none exclude them.

Answer

grep -n 'success' file.txt

Answer

grep -c 'success' file.txt

Answer

grep -i 'success' file.txt

Question 10

You need to determine the absolute path of the `python3` executable that would run if you typed `python3` at the prompt. Which command displays this path?

Accepted Answer

which python3. The which command resolves a command name using the PATH variable and prints the first executable found. whereis, locate, and find do not determine execution order based on PATH.

Answer

whereis python3

Answer

find / -name python3

Answer

locate python3

Question 11

A consultant is auditing a Linux workstation and finds that a regular user's home directory contains a file named .bashrc and a file named .profile. The user reports that environment variables set in .profile are not present in new interactive terminal windows opened from the desktop, yet aliases from .bashrc work. Which explanation best accounts for this behavior?

Accepted Answer

Graphical terminal emulators typically start non-login interactive shells, which read .bashrc rather than .profile.. Bash distinguishes login shells from non-login interactive shells when choosing startup files. Login shells read profile files such as .profile or .bash_profile, while non-login interactive shells read .bashrc. Terminal windows spawned inside a graphical session are typically non-login shells, so variables defined only in .profile are absent while aliases in .bashrc appear, exactly matching the report.

Answer

The .bashrc file overrides .profile completely, deleting any variables that .profile previously exported.

Answer

Environment variables can only be defined in files under /etc, so user-level files cannot affect a graphical session.

Answer

The .profile file is only read by the display manager and never by shells, so its variables must be duplicated in .bashrc.

Question 12

A junior administrator runs `chmod 4755 /usr/local/bin/maintenance.sh` on a shared production server. Later, a standard user executes the script and it performs actions that the user would not normally be permitted to do. Which statement explains this behavior?

Accepted Answer

The script runs with the effective user ID of the file owner, which is root in this case.. A leading 4 in a numeric mode sets the SUID bit on an executable. When run, the process takes on the effective user ID of the file's owner rather than the caller's. With root as owner, the script runs with root privileges, which explains why a standard user could perform restricted actions.

Answer

The script is automatically executed with the privileges of the user who last modified it.

Answer

The script inherits the group ownership of the directory in which it resides, granting elevated access.

Answer

The fourth digit enables the sticky bit, which allows any user to override file ownership checks.

Question 13

What is the primary role of a 'Linux Distribution'?

Accepted Answer

To package the kernel with user-space tools and manage software updates.. A Linux distribution bundles the upstream Linux kernel with user-space utilities (GNU coreutils, init system, package manager, libraries) and provides a mechanism for installing and updating software. It is the packaging and integration layer that makes the raw kernel usable, not a kernel development project.

Answer

To provide technical support for proprietary hardware manufacturers.

Answer

To develop the Linux kernel from scratch.

Answer

To force all users to use a single command line interface.

Question 14

Which THREE of the following commands are used for file manipulation?

Accepted Answer

cp. The three commands used for file manipulation are cp, rm, and mv. Option A, cp, is correct because it copies files and directories from a source to a destination, creating new file content at the target path. Option D, rm, is correct because it removes (deletes) files and, with options like -r, directories from the filesystem. Option E, mv, is correct because it moves or renames files and directories, changing their location or name within the filesystem. The unmarked options do not belong: man (B) displays manual pages for commands, and pwd (C) prints the current working directory path, so neither performs file manipulation.

Answer

man

Answer

pwd

Question 15

A community college instructor is preparing a course on Linux and wants students to understand how the GNU Project's licensing framework protects users' freedoms. A student asks which license was created by the GNU Project to guarantee that derived works remain free. Which license should the instructor identify?

Accepted Answer

GNU General Public License (GPL). The GNU Project created the GNU General Public License to implement copyleft, ensuring that software and its derivatives remain free for all users. Permissive licenses such as Apache, MIT, and BSD allow derivatives to be relicensed under more restrictive terms, so they do not provide the guarantee the instructor is teaching.

Answer

Apache License 2.0

Answer

BSD 3-Clause License

Answer

MIT License