010-160 The Linux Operating System Practice Test 2 — 15 Questions

Question 1

Which command is used to display the current directory path in the terminal?

Accepted Answer

pwd. The 'pwd' command (print working directory) outputs the absolute path of the directory the shell is currently in. It reads the shell's current directory state and prints it to standard output, which is exactly what the question asks for.

Answer

ls

Answer

dir

Answer

cd

Question 2

A developer needs to know the kernel version currently running on the server. Which command provides this information?

Accepted Answer

uname -r. `uname -r` prints the kernel release version (e.g., 5.15.0-91-generic) by invoking the uname() system call, which reads kernel information directly. The -r flag specifically returns the kernel release, while -a returns all fields. This is the canonical way to check the running kernel version on Linux.

Answer

ver

Answer

hostnamectl

Answer

cat /etc/issue

Question 3

You are setting up a local network and need to verify the path traffic takes to reach a remote host. Which command should you use?

Accepted Answer

traceroute. `traceroute` is designed to map the path packets take to a remote host by sending probes with incrementally increasing TTL values and collecting ICMP Time Exceeded responses from each hop. This directly answers the question of which routers traffic traverses to reach the destination.

Answer

nmap

Answer

ping

Answer

dig

Question 4

You need to ensure that a server's time is synchronized with an external time source to prevent authentication errors. Which daemon is responsible for this?

Accepted Answer

chronyd. chronyd is the NTP daemon on modern RHEL/CentOS/Fedora and many other distributions, responsible for synchronizing the system clock with external time sources. Accurate time is critical for Kerberos authentication, TLS certificate validation, and log correlation. The other daemons handle scheduling, remote access, and logging, not time synchronization.

Answer

cron

Answer

sshd

Answer

rsyslogd

Question 5

A system administrator is checking for hardware errors in the logs. Where are general system messages usually stored?

Accepted Answer

/var/log/syslog. General system messages on most Linux distributions are written to /var/log/syslog (Debian/Ubuntu) or /var/log/messages (RHEL/CentOS). The /var/log directory is the standard location for system and application logs, and syslog is the traditional catch-all for kernel, daemon, and service messages.

Answer

/etc/log/

Answer

/proc/logs

Answer

/tmp/logs

Question 6

You suspect that a process is consuming too much CPU. Which command allows you to sort active processes by CPU usage?

Accepted Answer

top. `top` is an interactive process viewer that by default sorts processes by CPU usage in descending order, refreshing every few seconds. It shows PID, user, priority, %CPU, %MEM, and other metrics, making it the go-to tool for spotting CPU-hungry processes in real time.

Answer

kill

Answer

nice

Answer

ps -ef

Question 7

A system administrator wants to check the partition table of a specific disk. Which tool is used for this?

Accepted Answer

fdisk. fdisk is the classic interactive tool for viewing and editing a disk's partition table, invoked as 'fdisk -l /dev/sda' to list partitions. It reads the MBR or GPT structures on the device and displays partition start/end sectors, sizes, types, and IDs. This makes it the correct tool for inspecting partition layout.

Answer

fsck

Answer

df

Answer

mkfs

Question 8

You need to determine the UUID of a partition to add it to /etc/fstab. Which command should you use?

Accepted Answer

blkid. The blkid command queries block device attributes including UUID, LABEL, and TYPE, which is exactly what is needed to reference a partition in /etc/fstab by UUID. Running blkid /dev/sda1 returns the UUID= value that can be pasted into fstab. This is the standard Linux tool for retrieving filesystem UUIDs.

Answer

ls -l

Answer

find

Answer

mount

Question 9

Which command lists all files in a directory including hidden ones?

Accepted Answer

ls -a. `ls -a` lists all directory entries including those beginning with a dot (hidden files such as `.bashrc`, `.git`, `.ssh`). The `-a` flag is shorthand for 'all' and overrides the default behavior of suppressing dotfiles. It is the standard way to reveal hidden content in a directory.

Answer

ls -h

Answer

ls -l

Answer

dir -hidden

Question 10

You are trying to troubleshoot why a user cannot connect to your server via SSH. You want to see if the SSH daemon is listening on the appropriate port. Which command should you run?

Accepted Answer

ss -tulpn. The `ss -tulpn` command is the correct choice because it displays all listening TCP and UDP ports along with the associated process names and PIDs. The flags `-t` (TCP), `-u` (UDP), `-l` (listening), `-p` (processes), and `-n` (numeric ports) together provide a comprehensive view of which services are bound to which ports. This directly answers whether the SSH daemon (typically `sshd`) is listening on port 22 (or a custom port).

Answer

host

Answer

ping

Answer

ip link

Question 11

A junior admin is confused about the difference between software RAID and hardware RAID. Which of the following is a primary characteristic of software RAID?

Accepted Answer

It is managed by the OS and kernel.. Software RAID is implemented in the operating system kernel, which manages the RAID arrays and disk operations. This is its primary characteristic, as opposed to hardware RAID which uses a dedicated controller.

Answer

It is always faster than hardware RAID.

Answer

It is configured in the BIOS.

Answer

It requires a dedicated controller card.

Question 12

A server is running out of disk space. Which command allows you to view the space usage of directories in a human-readable format?

Accepted Answer

du -sh. The `du` (disk usage) command reports the space consumed by files and directories. The `-s` flag produces a summary total for each argument rather than listing every file, and `-h` renders sizes in human-readable units (K, M, G). Combining them as `du -sh` gives a concise, readable total for a directory, which is exactly what's needed to find what's eating disk space.

Answer

ls -s

Answer

fdisk

Answer

df -h

Question 13

What is the purpose of the /proc directory in Linux?

Accepted Answer

To provide information about kernel and processes.. The /proc directory is a virtual filesystem (procfs) that provides a real-time interface to kernel data structures and running process information. It does not exist on disk — the kernel generates its contents dynamically, exposing details like CPU info (/proc/cpuinfo), memory usage (/proc/meminfo), and per-process data under /proc/[PID]/. This makes it the correct answer for providing kernel and process information.

Answer

To store configuration files for boot.

Answer

To store user passwords.

Answer

To store temporary system files.

Question 14

You need to change the ownership of a file to user 'admin'. Which command is the correct way to do this?

Accepted Answer

chown admin file. The `chown` (change owner) command is specifically designed to change the ownership of files and directories. Running `chown admin file` sets the user 'admin' as the owner of 'file'. This is the correct and standard tool for ownership changes on Linux.

Answer

usermod admin file

Answer

chmod admin file

Answer

chgrp admin file

Question 15

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