010-160 The Linux Operating System Practice Test 4 — 15 Questions

Question 1

A help desk technician receives a call from a user who complains that their Linux workstation feels sluggish. The technician wants to see a dynamic, real-time list of processes sorted by CPU usage. Which command should the technician run?

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

Accepted Answer

top. The technician needs an interactive, continuously refreshing view of processes ranked by CPU consumption. The top utility provides exactly that, updating at a configurable interval and allowing sorting and process management. Snapshot commands like ps aux and summary commands like free and uptime do not deliver a live, sorted process list.

Answer

ps aux

Answer

free -h

Answer

uptime

Question 2

A technician has just unpacked a new server and needs to confirm which physical architecture the CPU reports so they can request the matching RPM package. Which command will display the machine's hardware architecture, such as x86_64?

Accepted Answer

uname -m. The uname utility reports kernel and system information, and its -m option specifically returns the machine hardware architecture, such as x86_64 or aarch64. That string is what package tools use to select an architecture-appropriate build, so it is the direct and reliable answer when a technician must match a package to the server's CPU.

Answer

hostnamectl status

Answer

lsb_release -a

Answer

uname -r

Question 3

A Linux system administrator notices that the /var/log directory is filling up quickly. They want to find the largest files within that directory tree to identify what is consuming space. Which command will accomplish this?

Accepted Answer

du -ah /var/log | sort -rh | head -n 10. The combination of du -ah, sort -rh, and head -n 10 provides a sorted list of the largest files and directories under /var/log. This allows the administrator to quickly identify space hogs. Other commands either filter by size, limit to one directory level, or show filesystem-wide usage, which are not as effective for this specific task.

Answer

df -h /var/log

Answer

ls -lS /var/log

Answer

find /var/log -type f -size +100M

Question 4

A consultant is preparing a presentation about the Linux ecosystem. She needs to explain the relationship between the kernel and a complete Linux distribution. Which statement best describes this relationship?

Accepted Answer

The kernel is the core that manages hardware and system resources, while a distribution bundles the kernel with utilities, libraries, and package management.. The kernel is the privileged core managing hardware and resources through system calls, while a distribution packages that kernel with user-space utilities, libraries, an init system, and package management. This division explains why different distributions can share kernel versions yet differ greatly in tooling and support. The other statements misidentify components or conflate the two concepts.

Answer

The kernel and a distribution are the same thing; the terms are interchangeable in modern Linux usage.

Answer

A distribution is a graphical desktop environment, and the kernel is the command-line shell used to launch it.

Answer

A distribution is maintained solely by the kernel developers, and the kernel is compiled separately by each end user.

Question 5

A system administrator needs to identify which process is listening on TCP port 80 on a Linux server. Which command is most appropriate?

Accepted Answer

netstat -tulpn | grep :80. To find the process listening on a specific port, the command must display both the socket and the owning process. netstat with -tulpn provides that mapping, and filtering for port 80 pinpoints the service. Alternatives like ps or ifconfig lack port-to-process association, and ss without -p omits the process name.

Answer

ps aux | grep httpd

Answer

ss -tuln

Answer

ifconfig -a

Question 6

A help-desk analyst needs to see which processes are consuming the most CPU and memory in real time, and must be able to sort and kill a runaway process interactively. Which utility best fits this requirement?

Accepted Answer

top. top is the classic interactive process viewer on Linux: it refreshes on an interval and lets the operator sort by CPU or memory and send signals to processes without leaving the utility. That single-tool workflow of live observation plus immediate corrective action is what the analyst needs.

Answer

free -h

Answer

ps aux

Answer

uptime

Question 7

A systems administrator is documenting a server and wants to record which kernel release is currently running, including any distribution-specific patch level, for compatibility checks with a third-party driver. Which command should be used to display this information?

Accepted Answer

uname -r. The kernel release string, including distribution patch suffixes, is obtained with uname -r. Distribution identification tools and files describe the OS release rather than the kernel. When a third-party driver requires the exact running kernel release, uname -r is the direct and correct source.

Answer

lsb_release -a

Answer

hostnamectl status

Answer

cat /etc/os-release

Question 8

A Linux administrator is reviewing user account files and needs to understand where user information is stored. Which TWO of the following files contain user account details? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

/etc/shadow. User account details are primarily stored in /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow. The former holds general account information, while the latter holds encrypted passwords and aging data. Other files like /etc/group and /etc/gshadow pertain to groups, and /etc/login.defs provides configuration defaults, not actual account records.

Answer

/etc/login.defs

Answer

/etc/group

Answer

/etc/gshadow

Question 9

A Linux user wants to create a new directory named 'projects' and then move an existing file named 'report.txt' into it. Which two commands will accomplish these tasks? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

mv report.txt projects/. Creating a directory requires mkdir, and moving a file into it requires mv. The combination of mkdir projects and mv report.txt projects/ achieves both goals. Copying leaves the original in place, touch creates a file instead of a directory, and rm deletes rather than moves.

Answer

rm report.txt projects/

Answer

touch projects

Answer

cp report.txt projects/

Question 10

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 11

A Linux administrator is preparing a machine that must run headless as a file server. She needs to identify which of the following are characteristics of a Linux server installation rather than a typical desktop installation. (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

It commonly runs without a graphical desktop environment, exposing services over the network instead.. Server installations are characterized by headless operation, where services are exposed over the network and administration happens remotely, and by a conservative update philosophy that favors stability and timely security fixes over the newest upstream versions. Those two traits reflect how production file servers are actually built and maintained.

Answer

It cannot run the same Linux kernel as a desktop distribution.

Answer

It always includes a full office productivity suite installed by default.

Answer

It requires a dedicated physical display and keyboard to be administered.

Question 12

A user needs to change their own password on a Linux system. Which command should they use?

Accepted Answer

passwd. The passwd command is the correct tool for users to change their own passwords. It handles the secure update of the password hash in /etc/shadow. Other commands like usermod and chage are administrative tools for managing accounts and policies, not for self-service password changes.

Answer

usermod -p

Answer

shadow

Answer

chage

Question 13

A Linux administrator is troubleshooting a server that fails to boot completely. The system starts but drops into an emergency shell. Which command should the administrator use to view the most recent kernel messages that might indicate the cause?

Accepted Answer

dmesg | tail -50. The kernel ring buffer, accessed via dmesg, holds the most recent kernel messages, including those generated during boot. When a system drops to an emergency shell, dmesg is often still available and can reveal hardware or driver errors. Other logs may be incomplete or unavailable in that state, making dmesg the most direct tool.

Answer

journalctl -b -p err

Answer

cat /var/log/syslog

Answer

last -x

Question 14

A Linux administrator is reviewing the boot process on a server that uses systemd. She wants to determine which target the system will boot into by default and confirm the current default setting. Which command should she use?

Accepted Answer

systemctl get-default. In systemd, the default boot target is stored as a symbolic link and queried with systemctl get-default. Listing active targets or using legacy SysV tools does not reveal the configured default for future boots. This command is the authoritative, supported method to confirm which target the system will start by default.

Answer

systemctl list-units --type=target

Answer

cat /etc/inittab

Answer

runlevel

Question 15

A Linux administrator needs to check how much free space remains on each mounted filesystem before deploying a large application. The administrator wants a quick, human-readable summary showing used and available space per mount point. Which command should be used?

Accepted Answer

df -h. df -h is the standard tool for reporting filesystem capacity and remaining space across all mount points, with sizes scaled to KiB, MiB, and GiB for readability. It reads superblock information, so it is nearly instantaneous even on large volumes. du, lsblk, and fdisk provide usage totals, device layout, or partition geometry instead of per-filesystem free space.

Answer

fdisk -l

Answer

lsblk -f

Answer

du -sh /