LPIC-1 Administrative Tasks Practice Test 6 — 15 Questions

Question 1

An administrator wants to allow user 'john' to run all commands as root without a password. Which sudoers entry accomplishes this?

Accepted Answer

john ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL. The sudoers entry 'john ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL' grants user 'john' permission to run any command as any user (including root) from any host, and the NOPASSWD tag overrides the default password requirement, allowing passwordless execution. This matches the requirement precisely.

Answer

john ALL=NOPASSWD: /bin/su

Answer

john ALL=(ALL) ALL

Answer

john ALL=(ALL) PASSWD: ALL

Question 2

An administrator needs to extend a logical volume by 10GB. The volume group has available physical extents. Which command should be used?

Accepted Answer

lvextend -L +10G /dev/vg/lv. The `lvextend` command with the `-L +10G` flag increases the size of the existing logical volume `/dev/vg/lv` by exactly 10 GB, using available physical extents from the volume group. This is the standard LVM command for extending a logical volume without recreating it.

Answer

lvcreate -L 10G /dev/vg/lv

Answer

vgextend /dev/vg/lv -L +10G

Answer

lvresize -L 10G /dev/vg/lv

Question 3

An administrator ran 'dnf update' and a critical application broke. The administrator wants to undo the last transaction and return to previous state. Which command should be used?

Accepted Answer

dnf history undo last. The correct command is 'dnf history undo last' because DNF maintains a transaction history that can be reverted. The 'undo' subcommand reverses the specified transaction (in this case, the last one) by applying the inverse operations, restoring packages to their previous state. This is the standard way to roll back a DNF transaction without affecting unrelated changes.

Answer

dnf undo last

Answer

dnf rollback

Answer

yum rollback

Question 4

Refer to the exhibit. The job runs every hour but the administrator notices that it does not execute on Sundays. Which cron syntax element is responsible?

Accepted Answer

The day-of-week field. The day-of-week field (the 5th field in a cron expression) controls which days of the week the job runs. If this field is set to 1-6 (Monday–Saturday) or explicitly excludes 0/7 (Sunday), the job will not execute on Sundays. Since the job runs every hour but not on Sundays, the day-of-week field is responsible.

Answer

The minute field

Answer

The hour field

Answer

The month field

Question 5

A small business runs a Linux server hosting a web application and a PostgreSQL database. The server uses LVM for storage, with a single volume group vg_data containing two logical volumes: lv_web (50GB) and lv_db (100GB). The root filesystem is on a separate disk. The administrator receives alerts that the database volume is at 95% capacity. The server has additional unused space from a recently added disk that was added to the volume group as an additional physical volume, but the space has not been allocated. The administrator runs 'vgs' which shows VG vg_data with total size 500GB, allocated 150GB, and free 350GB. The administrator wants to increase the size of lv_db by 50GB. Which course of action should the administrator take?

Accepted Answer

Run 'lvextend -L +50G /dev/vg_data/lv_db' and then 'resize2fs /dev/vg_data/lv_db' (if filesystem is ext4).. The administrator needs to extend the existing logical volume lv_db by 50GB using 'lvextend -L +50G /dev/vg_data/lv_db' (the '+' is critical for relative growth), and then if the filesystem is ext4, 'resize2fs /dev/vg_data/lv_db' resizes the filesystem to use the newly allocated space. The volume group already has 350GB free, so no new physical volume needs to be added.

Answer

Run 'lvresize -L 50G /dev/vg_data/lv_db' and then 'xfs_growfs /mount/point'.

Answer

Run 'lvcreate -L 50G -n lv_backup vg_data' and mount it.

Answer

Run 'vgextend vg_data /dev/sdb1' and then 'lvextend -L 50G /dev/vg_data/lv_db'.

Question 6

A system administrator wants to configure log rotation to compress log files daily and keep 30 days of logs. Which of the following configurations achieves this goal?

Accepted Answer

Add a configuration file in /etc/logrotate.d/ with the contents: '/var/log/mylog { daily rotate 30 compress }'. Logrotate is the standard Linux utility for log rotation, compression, and retention. The configuration directive 'daily rotate 30 compress' in a file under /etc/logrotate.d/ instructs logrotate to rotate logs daily, keep 30 rotated copies, and compress old logs with gzip. This directly meets the requirement of daily compression and 30-day retention.

Answer

Set the 'maxlogsize' parameter in /etc/rsyslog.conf

Answer

Create a cron job that runs 'gzip /var/log/mylog.*' daily

Answer

Edit /etc/logrotate.conf to set 'rotate 30 weekly'

Question 7

A system administrator needs to perform incremental backups of a large directory /data. The backup strategy requires a full backup every Sunday and incremental backups on weekdays. Which tar command satisfies this requirement using the --listed-incremental option?

Accepted Answer

Full: tar -cvf /backup/full.tar -g /var/backup/snapshot /data; Incremental: tar -cvf /backup/incr.tar -g /var/backup/snapshot /data. The `--listed-incremental` (or `-g`) option in tar creates and uses a snapshot file to track changes between backups. By specifying the same snapshot file for both the full and incremental backups, tar automatically records which files have changed since the last full backup, enabling proper incremental backups without relying on timestamps or file modification times.

Answer

Full: tar -czvf /backup/full.tar.gz /data; Incremental: tar -czvf /backup/incr.tar.gz --after-date '1 day ago' /data

Answer

Full: tar -cvf /backup/full.tar /data; Incremental: tar -cvf /backup/incr.tar -N 'last Sunday' /data

Answer

Full: tar -cvf /backup/full.tar --newer /data; Incremental: tar -cvf /backup/incr.tar --newer /backup/full.tar /data

Question 8

A small business uses a Linux server running CUPS to share a network printer. For several months, all employees could print successfully. Today, an employee in a different subnet reports that printing does not work. The administrator checks the server: cupsd is running, the printer is configured with an IPP URI pointing to the printer's IP address, and the printer is idle. The administrator can ping the printer from the server. The administrator checks the CUPS error log and sees the following line multiple times: 'E [04/Oct/2024:10:15:22 -0400] [Client 5] client-error-not-authorized'. Which of the following actions should the administrator take to resolve the issue?

Accepted Answer

Add 'Allow from 192.168.2.0/24' to the appropriate policy in /etc/cups/cupsd.conf. The error 'client-error-not-authorized' in CUPS indicates that the client's request was denied due to access control restrictions in cupsd.conf. Since the employee is in a different subnet (e.g., 192.168.2.0/24), the default CUPS policy likely only allows local subnet access. Adding 'Allow from 192.168.2.0/24' to the appropriate policy (e.g., under <Policy default>) grants printing access from that subnet, resolving the authorization failure.

Answer

Change the printer's URI from ipp:// to socket://

Answer

Add the employee's username to the lpadmin group

Answer

Restart the cupsd service with 'systemctl restart cupsd'

Question 9

A junior administrator needs to schedule a backup script to run as the user 'backup' every day at 02:30. The script is /usr/local/bin/backup.sh, and output should be discarded. Which crontab entry should the administrator add to the 'backup' user's crontab to accomplish this?

Accepted Answer

30 2 * * * /usr/local/bin/backup.sh >/dev/null 2>&1. The correct entry uses the five time-and-date fields followed by the command. Placing it in the 'backup' user's crontab ensures it runs as that user. The redirection >/dev/null 2>&1 discards both stdout and stderr, meeting the requirement to suppress output. The other entries either misplace the time fields, omit stderr redirection, or incorrectly add a user field that is invalid in a user crontab.

Answer

2 30 * * * /usr/local/bin/backup.sh >/dev/null 2>&1

Answer

30 2 * * * /usr/local/bin/backup.sh >/dev/null

Answer

30 2 * * * backup /usr/local/bin/backup.sh >/dev/null 2>&1

Question 10

A Linux administrator needs to create a user account 'jsmith' with a home directory '/home/jsmith' and the default shell '/bin/bash'. The account must be created without creating a group with the same name. Which command accomplishes this?

Accepted Answer

useradd -m -s /bin/bash -N jsmith. The useradd command with -m creates the home directory, -s sets the login shell, and -N prevents the creation of a group with the same name as the user. This satisfies all requirements: new account, specified home directory, specified shell, and no matching group. The other commands either use invalid options, wrong syntax, or are meant for modification rather than creation.

Answer

adduser -m -s /bin/bash -N jsmith

Answer

usermod -m -s /bin/bash -N jsmith

Answer

useradd -d /home/jsmith -s /bin/bash --no-group jsmith

Question 11

A junior administrator needs to add a new user account named 'tester' to a Linux server. The account must have a home directory created at /home/tester, and the default shell should be set to /bin/bash. The administrator runs 'useradd tester' but later finds that no home directory was created and the shell is /bin/sh. Which command should have been used to meet both requirements?

Accepted Answer

useradd -m -s /bin/bash tester. The correct command is useradd -m -s /bin/bash tester. The -m flag ensures the home directory is created, and -s specifies the login shell. Other options either fail to create the home directory, use non-standard syntax, or attempt to modify a non-existent user. This single command meets both stated requirements.

Answer

usermod -m -s /bin/bash tester

Answer

useradd -d /home/tester -s /bin/bash tester

Answer

adduser tester --home /home/tester --shell /bin/bash

Question 12

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 13

An administrator needs to determine which package owns the file /usr/bin/htop on a Debian-based system so that the package can be reinstalled after corruption. Which command provides this information?

Accepted Answer

dpkg -S /usr/bin/htop. On Debian-based systems, the local package database tracks which package installed each file. The dpkg search option queries that database by file path, returning the owning package, which is precisely the reverse lookup needed before reinstallation.

Answer

dpkg -L htop

Answer

apt-file search /usr/bin/htop

Answer

apt-cache show htop

Question 14

A system administrator suspects that a particular service is failing to start at boot. The service is managed by systemd. Which command will show the current status of the service, including whether it is active, and recent log entries?

Accepted Answer

systemctl status servicename.service. The correct command is systemctl status servicename.service. It provides a concise status summary, including whether the service is active, its main PID, and recent log entries. The other commands either show only properties, only logs, or a list of all services, lacking the combined status and log view needed for quick diagnosis.

Answer

journalctl -u servicename.service

Answer

systemctl list-units --type=service

Answer

systemctl show servicename.service

Question 15

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