LPIC-1 GNU and Unix Commands Practice Test 2 — 15 Questions

Question 1

Refer to the exhibit. The system fails to boot with an error 'UUID=e5f6g7h8 not found'. Which is the most likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The initramfs does not contain the necessary filesystem modules.. The error 'UUID=e5f6g7h8 not found' indicates that the kernel, during early boot, cannot locate a device with that UUID. This typically occurs when the initramfs (initial RAM filesystem) lacks the necessary kernel modules (e.g., for the storage controller or filesystem driver) to access the root device. The initramfs is responsible for loading these modules before mounting the real root filesystem; if it is missing or incomplete, the kernel cannot resolve the UUID and fails to boot.

Answer

The fstab entry for /boot is incorrect.

Answer

The root filesystem is corrupted.

Answer

The disk order changed, so /dev/sda2 is no longer the correct device.

Question 2

Refer to the exhibit. Which of the following is true about SSH access to this server?

Accepted Answer

User 'charlie' is denied access regardless of authentication method.. The exhibit shows an SSH configuration with a `DenyUsers charlie` directive, which explicitly blocks user 'charlie' from any SSH access regardless of the authentication method (password, public key, etc.). This directive takes precedence over any other authentication settings, making option A correct.

Answer

User 'alice' can authenticate using a password.

Answer

Password authentication is disabled for all users.

Answer

Root can log in with a password.

Question 3

Refer to the exhibit. What is the expected outcome of the kill command?

Accepted Answer

The parent process reloads its configuration, and child processes continue serving.. The kill command with SIGHUP (signal 1) sent to the parent httpd process (PID 12345) instructs the parent to reload its configuration files and gracefully restart its child worker processes. This is the standard behavior for Apache httpd and many other daemons: the parent process rereads configuration, spawns new children, and terminates old ones without dropping existing connections.

Answer

Only the parent process (PID 12345) is terminated.

Answer

Only child processes are restarted.

Answer

All httpd processes are terminated immediately.

Question 4

Refer to the exhibit. What type of traffic is being captured?

Accepted Answer

A successful TCP three-way handshake followed by a data transfer.. The exhibit shows a TCP three-way handshake (SYN, SYN-ACK, ACK) followed by a data transfer segment (PSH, ACK). This sequence indicates a successful connection establishment and subsequent data exchange, which matches the description of a successful TCP three-way handshake followed by data transfer.

Answer

An incomplete TCP handshake.

Answer

An FTP session.

Answer

A DNS query and response.

Question 5

A junior administrator is asked to create a compressed archive of the /home/projects directory. The archive must preserve file permissions and ownership, and must be named projects.tar.bz2. Which command should the administrator use?

Accepted Answer

tar -cjf projects.tar.bz2 /home/projects. Creating a compressed tar archive requires the -c (create) option, the appropriate compression filter (-j for bzip2), and -f to specify the output filename. The command tar -cjf projects.tar.bz2 /home/projects correctly builds a bzip2-compressed archive of the specified directory while preserving metadata such as permissions and ownership.

Answer

tar -cjvf projects.tar.bz2 /home/projects

Answer

tar -xzf projects.tar.bz2 /home/projects

Answer

gzip -c /home/projects > projects.tar.bz2

Question 6

A Linux administrator is troubleshooting a shell script that processes a list of filenames. The script uses command substitution to capture the output of a command into a variable. Which two syntaxes are valid for command substitution in bash? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

variable=$(command). Bash supports two command substitution syntaxes: the modern $(command) and the legacy `command`. Both execute the command in a subshell and replace the substitution with its output. The $(...) form is preferred because it is more readable and easier to nest. The other options either perform parameter expansion or pattern matching, not command substitution.

Answer

variable=!(command)

Answer

variable=${command}

Answer

variable=$(command; command2)

Question 7

A Linux administrator runs `grep -r 'timeout' /etc` and receives a large volume of output, including matches inside binary files that clutter the terminal. The administrator wants to suppress the binary file matches so only matching text lines from regular text files are shown, while still recursing through subdirectories. Which command accomplishes this?

Accepted Answer

grep -r --binary-files=without-match 'timeout' /etc. When recursively searching directories that may contain binaries, grep can print binary matches that clutter output. The `--binary-files=without-match` option instructs grep to ignore binary files entirely, preserving only text matches. This is the precise, explicit way to achieve the administrator's goal without excluding text files or forcing binary output.

Answer

grep -r -a 'timeout' /etc

Answer

grep -r -I 'timeout' /etc

Answer

grep -r --exclude='*' 'timeout' /etc

Question 8

A Linux administrator needs to display the last 20 lines of /var/log/syslog and also monitor new lines as they are appended in real time. Which TWO commands will accomplish this? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

tail -n 20 -f /var/log/syslog. The goal is to show the last 20 lines and then follow new entries. The tail command with -n 20 -f does both in one invocation. Alternatively, running tail -n 20 followed by tail -f achieves the same effect sequentially. The other options either show the wrong lines, terminate prematurely, or use an inappropriate monitoring method.

Answer

head -n 20 /var/log/syslog; tail -f /var/log/syslog

Answer

cat /var/log/syslog | tail -n 20 && watch -n 1 tail /var/log/syslog

Answer

tail -f /var/log/syslog | head -n 20

Question 9

A technician needs to change the permissions of a file named report.txt so that the owner has read and write, the group has read only, and others have no access. The file currently has permissions 644. Which command should the technician use?

Accepted Answer

chmod 640 report.txt. Setting permissions to 640 via octal notation directly assigns owner read/write, group read, and others none. This is the standard and unambiguous method for absolute permission changes. Symbolic mode could also work, but octal is the expected answer for a precise numeric requirement.

Answer

chmod 604 report.txt

Answer

chmod u=rw,g=r,o= report.txt

Answer

chmod 660 report.txt

Question 10

An administrator is examining a shell script that contains the line `find /data -type f -name '*.log' -exec rm {} \;`. The administrator wants to modify the command so that it deletes all matching files in a single `rm` invocation instead of spawning a separate `rm` process for each file. Which change should be made?

Accepted Answer

Replace `\;` with `+`. The `-exec` action with `\;` runs the command once per file. Using `+` instead batches multiple filenames into a single command invocation, greatly improving efficiency. This is the intended modification to avoid spawning many processes.

Answer

Replace `-exec rm {} \;` with `-delete`

Answer

Replace `-name '*.log'` with `-iname '*.log'`

Answer

Replace `-exec` with `-ok`

Question 11

A support engineer needs to print only the fifth field of each line in a colon-delimited configuration file and must handle lines that contain varying numbers of fields without error. Which command is most appropriate?

Accepted Answer

cut -d ':' -f 5 /etc/config. cut is the standard utility for extracting a specific field from delimited text. With -d ':' the colon becomes the separator and -f 5 selects the fifth column of every line. Short lines yield empty output instead of errors, satisfying the tolerance requirement. It is the most direct and appropriate tool for this straightforward column extraction.

Answer

awk -F: '{print $5}' /etc/config

Answer

sed -n '5p' /etc/config

Answer

head -n 5 /etc/config

Question 12

A user wants to change the permissions of the file 'report.txt' so that the owner has read and write, the group has read, and others have no access. Which command will set these permissions using symbolic notation?

Accepted Answer

chmod u=rw,g=r,o= report.txt. Symbolic notation uses u, g, o, and a with operators +, -, and =. The equals operator sets exact permissions for the specified class, removing others. To set owner to rw, group to r, and others to none, use u=rw,g=r,o= or u=rw,g=r,o-rwx if you also remove all permissions from others. The numeric equivalent 640 is correct but not symbolic.

Answer

chmod u+rw,g+r,o-rwx report.txt

Answer

chmod 640 report.txt

Answer

chmod a=rw,o= report.txt

Question 13

A system administrator needs to extract specific information from a large text file. Which TWO commands will display only the lines that contain the word 'ERROR' and also show the line numbers? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

grep -n 'ERROR' file.txt. To display matching lines with line numbers, grep -n is the direct tool, and awk with NR provides an equivalent result. Both commands filter for 'ERROR' and prepend line numbers, satisfying the requirements. Other options either invert the match, omit line numbers, or use an inefficient pipeline.

Answer

cat -n file.txt | grep 'ERROR'

Answer

grep -v 'ERROR' file.txt

Answer

sed -n '/ERROR/p' file.txt

Question 14

A developer runs the command 'find /project -type f -name '*.log' -exec grep -l 'ERROR' {} \;' but receives no output, even though there are .log files containing 'ERROR'. Which is the most likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The grep command is case-sensitive by default, so it searches for 'ERROR' in uppercase, but the files may contain 'error' in lowercase.. The find command syntax is correct: -type f limits to regular files, -name '*.log' matches log files, and -exec grep -l 'ERROR' {} \; runs grep on each. The most likely reason for no output is that the files contain 'error' in lowercase, and grep is case-sensitive. Using grep -i or adjusting the pattern would find matches.

Answer

The -name '*.log' pattern is expanded by the shell before find runs, so find receives a list of files instead of a pattern.

Answer

The -exec action runs grep once per file, but the {} placeholder must be quoted to handle filenames with spaces.

Answer

The -exec action requires a semicolon to be escaped or quoted, but the backslash before the semicolon is correct; the issue is that grep -l prints only filenames, and the files may not be readable.

Question 15

A systems administrator needs to change the permissions of the file /home/user/script.sh so that the owner can read, write, and execute; the group can read and execute; and others have no access. Which command accomplishes this?

Accepted Answer

chmod 750 /home/user/script.sh. Chmod 750 sets the permissions to rwxr-x---, which gives the owner read, write, and execute (7), the group read and execute (5), and others no access (0). This matches the requirement exactly.

Answer

chmod 755 /home/user/script.sh

Answer

chmod 770 /home/user/script.sh

Answer

chmod 741 /home/user/script.sh