LPIC-1 Practice Test 28 — 15 Questions

Question 1

A technician must determine whether a Linux server's CPU supports hardware-assisted virtualization so the host can run KVM guests. The technician needs to inspect the processor flags exposed by the running kernel. Which command should be used?

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

Accepted Answer

cat /proc/cpuinfo. CPU capability flags are exposed by the kernel through the virtual /proc filesystem. Reading /proc/cpuinfo shows the flags line for each logical processor, and the presence of the vendor-specific virtualization flag confirms the hardware supports KVM acceleration. Tools that report loaded modules or kernel build strings describe software state rather than the underlying processor features being investigated.

Answer

lsmod

Answer

uname -a

Answer

lscpu

Question 2

A server's root filesystem is filling up. The administrator suspects that a service is writing large log files to /var/log/journal. Which command displays the total disk space currently used by the systemd journal?

Accepted Answer

journalctl --disk-usage. The journalctl --disk-usage command is designed specifically to report how much disk space the systemd journal is consuming. It accounts for the journal's internal storage format, including compression, and returns a concise summary. Other commands either query unit status, filter log entries, or measure directory size in a way that may not match the journal's own accounting.

Answer

journalctl -u systemd-journald --size

Answer

du -sh /var/log/journal

Answer

systemctl status systemd-journald --disk

Question 3

A user's home directory /home/alice has grown unexpectedly large. The administrator wants to identify which subdirectory consumes the most space, displaying sizes in human-readable format and limiting output to one level deep. Which command is most appropriate?

Accepted Answer

du -sh /home/alice/*. To find which immediate subdirectory of a home directory uses the most space, du with the summarize and human-readable flags, applied to a glob of top-level entries, gives exactly one line per child directory. This avoids the noise of recursive output and directly highlights the largest consumer. df would only show partition totals, and recursive listings are far too verbose.

Answer

df -h /home/alice

Answer

ls -lR /home/alice | sort -k5 -n

Answer

find /home/alice -type d -exec du -sh {} \;

Question 4

A server uses systemd-resolved for DNS. Users report that name resolution works for external domains but fails for internal company hostnames. The administrator checks /etc/resolv.conf and sees 'nameserver 127.0.0.53'. Which action will resolve the issue?

Accepted Answer

Edit /etc/systemd/resolved.conf and add the internal DNS server to the DNS= line, then restart systemd-resolved.. systemd-resolved uses a stub listener at 127.0.0.53, and upstream DNS servers are configured in /etc/systemd/resolved.conf. To resolve internal domains, the internal DNS server must be added to the DNS= setting, followed by a restart of systemd-resolved. Editing /etc/resolv.conf directly, adjusting search domains, or modifying nsswitch.conf does not provide the correct upstream server and will not fix internal name resolution.

Answer

Set the internal DNS server in /etc/nsswitch.conf by adding 'dns' after 'files' in the hosts line.

Answer

Add 'search company.internal' to /etc/resolv.conf and run systemd-resolve --flush-caches.

Answer

Replace 127.0.0.53 with the internal DNS server IP in /etc/resolv.conf and restart the network service.

Question 5

A Linux server uses systemd-resolved for DNS resolution. Users report that hostname resolution fails intermittently. The administrator inspects /etc/resolv.conf and finds it is a symlink to /run/systemd/resolve/stub-resolv.conf with nameserver 127.0.0.53. Which command should the administrator use to verify the current DNS servers and resolution status?

Accepted Answer

resolvectl status. The resolvectl status command provides detailed information about the current DNS servers and resolution configuration for all interfaces. This is essential for diagnosing intermittent resolution failures, as it reveals if multiple interfaces are providing conflicting DNS servers or if fallback DNS is misconfigured.

Answer

cat /etc/resolv.conf

Answer

systemctl status systemd-resolved

Answer

dig @127.0.0.53 example.com

Question 6

An administrator needs to install a Debian package file named custom-app.deb that was downloaded from a vendor website. The package has dependencies that are available in the configured repositories. Which command will install the package along with its dependencies?

Accepted Answer

apt install ./custom-app.deb. The apt command, when given a local .deb file path (e.g., ./custom-app.deb), will install the package and automatically download and install any missing dependencies from configured repositories. This is the preferred method for installing local Debian packages that have dependencies available in repositories. dpkg alone does not handle dependencies.

Answer

dpkg --install --resolve custom-app.deb

Answer

dpkg -i custom-app.deb

Answer

apt-get install custom-app

Question 7

A Debian-based server has a custom application installed from a local .deb file that was built in-house. The administrator wants to verify the package's metadata (version, dependencies, and maintainer scripts) before installing it on a production system, but does not want to actually install it. Which command should the administrator use?

Accepted Answer

dpkg --info application.deb. The dpkg --info command reads the control information embedded in a .deb archive, showing the package name, version, architecture, dependencies, and maintainer scripts. It is the standard way to inspect a local package's metadata before installation, which is precisely what the administrator needs to verify the in-house application without modifying the production system.

Answer

dpkg --contents application.deb

Answer

apt-cache show application

Answer

dpkg-deb --extract application.deb /tmp/app

Question 8

A Linux administrator needs to create a new ext4 filesystem on a logical volume /dev/vg0/lv_data and mount it persistently at /data. Which TWO of the following steps are required to accomplish this? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

Add an entry for /dev/vg0/lv_data in /etc/fstab. To create and persistently mount a new ext4 filesystem on an existing logical volume, the administrator must first create the filesystem with mkfs.ext4, then add an entry to /etc/fstab to ensure it mounts at boot. Other commands like pvcreate, vgcreate, and mount -a are either incorrect or not strictly required for this task.

Answer

Run pvcreate /dev/vg0/lv_data

Answer

Run mount -a to mount all filesystems

Answer

Run vgcreate vg0 /dev/vg0/lv_data

Question 9

A Linux administrator needs to create an ext4 filesystem on the second partition of the third SCSI disk, /dev/sdc2. After running mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdc2, the command completes successfully. Which additional step is required before the filesystem can be mounted and used?

Accepted Answer

Create a mount point and mount the filesystem.. Creating a filesystem with mkfs.ext4 only writes the filesystem metadata and structures onto the partition. To access the filesystem, it must be mounted to a directory in the existing directory tree. The administrator must create a mount point and use the mount command. Without mounting, the filesystem remains inaccessible to users and applications.

Answer

Run e2fsck /dev/sdc2 to initialize the journal.

Answer

Add an entry to /etc/fstab to make the filesystem usable immediately.

Answer

Run partprobe /dev/sdc to update the kernel partition table.

Question 10

A Linux workstation fails to boot and drops to a GRUB prompt. The administrator needs to inspect the available disks and partitions from within the GRUB environment before attempting recovery. Which command lists block devices and partitions recognized by GRUB?

Accepted Answer

ls. The GRUB shell provides its own command set, and ls enumerates devices and partitions that GRUB can see, such as (hd0,gpt1). Userspace tools like lsblk, fdisk, and parted are not available in that environment. Using ls lets the administrator identify the correct root device before loading the kernel or reinstalling the bootloader.

Answer

fdisk -l

Answer

parted -l

Answer

lsblk

Question 11

A shell script must exit immediately with a non-zero status if any command fails, and it must also treat an unset variable as an error. Which line should be placed at the top of the script?

Accepted Answer

set -e -u. The fail-fast requirement maps to errexit (-e) and the unset-variable requirement maps to nounset (-u), so 'set -e -u' is the precise answer. Adding xtrace brings noisy tracing that was not asked for, and omitting either -e or -u leaves one requirement unmet. Short option letters and their long -o equivalents name the same behaviours, so the combined short form is the cleanest expression.

Answer

set -u -x

Answer

set -o errexit -o nounset -o xtrace

Answer

set -e -x

Question 12

A Linux administrator is troubleshooting a server that cannot resolve external hostnames. The server has a static IP address and can ping 8.8.8.8 successfully. The administrator checks /etc/resolv.conf and finds only 'nameserver 127.0.0.53'. Which command will best help determine the actual DNS servers being used and the resolution path?

Accepted Answer

resolvectl status. The resolvectl status command provides detailed information about the current DNS servers and resolution configuration for all interfaces, which is crucial for diagnosing why external hostnames cannot be resolved despite network connectivity.

Answer

cat /etc/nsswitch.conf

Answer

nslookup google.com

Answer

dig google.com

Question 13

A technician is preparing a USB stick that must be readable by both Linux and Windows systems without installing extra drivers. Which filesystem should be created on the stick?

Accepted Answer

exFAT. A USB stick shared between Linux and Windows needs a filesystem both operating systems understand out of the box. exFAT satisfies this: Windows supports it natively, current Linux kernels include an exFAT driver, and unlike FAT32 it does not impose a 4 GB file size ceiling. The Linux-native filesystems ext4, XFS, and Btrfs all require extra software on Windows, so they fail the cross-platform condition.

Answer

ext4

Answer

XFS

Answer

Btrfs

Question 14

A system administrator needs to determine which package owns the file /usr/bin/htop on a Debian-based server. Which command should the administrator use?

Accepted Answer

dpkg -S /usr/bin/htop. The correct command is dpkg -S, which searches the dpkg database for the package that owns a given file. This is the standard method on Debian-based systems to map a file to its package. The other options either list files from a known package, search repository indexes, or are for a different package management system.

Answer

apt-file search /usr/bin/htop

Answer

dpkg -L htop

Answer

rpm -qf /usr/bin/htop

Question 15

An administrator runs `mount /dev/sdc1 /mnt/data` and receives the error "mount: /mnt/data: unknown filesystem type 'ntfs'." The partition contains an NTFS volume that must be mounted read-write on a Linux server. Which action resolves the issue?

Accepted Answer

Install the ntfs-3g package and mount with -t ntfs-3g. The unknown filesystem type message means no driver is registered for NTFS. Modern Linux systems rely on the userspace ntfs-3g driver from the package of the same name for dependable read-write access; installing it and mounting with -t ntfs-3g supplies that support. Reformatting destroys data, loading a limited legacy module does not grant write access, and loop mounting is irrelevant to a real partition.

Answer

Mount with the -o loop option to force filesystem detection

Answer

Run mkfs.ntfs on /dev/sdc1 to initialize NTFS support

Answer

Add the ntfs module to /etc/modules and reboot