EX294 Practice Exam 4 — 20 Questions

Question 1

A sysadmin receives an error when running a job template: 'ERROR! the role 'common' was not found in the specified roles path'. The role exists in a source control repository referenced in the project. What is the most likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The project's source control sync failed, so the roles directory is empty. Option A is correct because the project sync may have failed, causing the roles directory to be missing. Option B is wrong because the credential type does not affect role availability. Option C is wrong because the inventory host list does not contain role definitions. Option D is wrong because the job template schedule does not impact role discovery.

Answer

The inventory does not include the target hosts

Answer

The job template is configured with an incorrect schedule

Answer

The credential used does not have access to the source control repository

Question 2

An organization has multiple Ansible Tower projects that use different cloud providers. The security team mandates that cloud API credentials stored in Tower must have restricted access and be reusable across job templates without exposing the secret key. Which credential type and organization strategy best meets these requirements?

Accepted Answer

Create separate custom credential types for each cloud provider, marking the secret key fields as 'password' type, and add them to each job template as needed.. Option B is correct because Ansible Tower's custom credential types allow you to define fields with the 'password' type, which encrypts the secret key and hides it from view after entry. By creating separate custom credential types for each cloud provider, you can assign them to specific job templates, ensuring restricted access and reusability without exposing the secret key. This approach meets the security mandate by isolating credentials per provider and leveraging Tower's built-in encryption for sensitive fields.

Answer

Use a network credential to store the API token and assign it to the project.

Answer

Create a single custom credential type that includes both cloud provider API keys and reuse it across all projects.

Answer

Use a machine credential for each cloud provider and set the SSH key as the API secret.

Question 3

A team uses Ansible to update a web application across 10 servers with minimal downtime. Which playbook directive achieves one-at-a-time updates?

Accepted Answer

serial: 1. C is correct because the `serial: 1` directive in an Ansible playbook controls the number of hosts that are updated simultaneously. Setting `serial: 1` forces Ansible to execute the playbook on one host at a time, ensuring that the web application is updated sequentially across the 10 servers, which minimizes downtime by keeping the other 9 servers available during each individual update.

Answer

run_once: true

Answer

delegate_to: localhost

Answer

throttle: 1

Answer

forks: 10

Question 4

An OpenShift deployment is stuck in a degraded state after a rolling update. Which command helps diagnose the root cause by showing status conditions?

Accepted Answer

oc describe deployment/myapp. Option E is correct because `oc describe deployment/myapp` displays the full status conditions of the Deployment, including `Progressing`, `Available`, and `ReplicaFailure` conditions. When a rolling update leaves the Deployment in a degraded state, the `Conditions` field under `Status` explicitly shows the reason (e.g., `ProgressDeadlineExceeded` or `MinimumReplicasUnavailable`), which directly points to the root cause of the degradation.

Answer

oc rollout history

Answer

oc get pods

Answer

oc logs deployment/myapp

Answer

oc get events

Question 5

An Ansible rolling update playbook includes 'max_fail_percentage: 20'. If more than 20% of hosts fail during any batch, what happens?

Accepted Answer

The play aborts immediately

Answer

The play pauses and waits for user input

Answer

The failed hosts are removed from inventory

Answer

The play retries failed hosts

Answer

The play continues with remaining hosts

Question 6

A company wants to implement a rolling update for a stateful application where hosts cannot be updated in parallel due to data consistency. They also need to ensure that if any host fails, the entire update is rolled back. Which strategy meets these requirements?

Accepted Answer

Use serial: 1 and any_errors_fatal: yes. serial: 1 ensures one host at a time; any_errors_fatal: true causes the playbook to stop on first failure on any host, allowing rollback. The other options either allow parallel updates or don't stop on failure.

Answer

Use serial: 2 and any_errors_fatal: yes

Answer

Use serial: 1 and ignore_errors: yes

Answer

Use serial: 0 and max_fail_percentage: 0

Question 7

In OpenShift, a deployment must gradually shift traffic to new pods during a rolling update. Which default strategy achieves this?

Accepted Answer

RollingUpdate

Answer

Blue-green deployment

Answer

Canary deployment

Answer

Custom strategy

Answer

Recreate

Question 8

Which TWO options are valid techniques for rolling out updates to a subset of hosts before updating the rest? (Choose exactly two.)

Accepted Answer

Use serial: 3 to update hosts in batches of 3.. Canary deployments and serial batches are common techniques. Rolling update by serial is inherent in Ansible. Random selection is not a controlled technique.

Answer

Use inventory host variables to mark hosts for early update and use conditional tasks.

Answer

Use the --forks=1 option to update one host at a time.

Answer

Use the 'strategy: random' directive in the playbook.

Question 9

An Ansible rolling update playbook has 'serial: 1' and 'max_fail_percentage: 0'. During the update of a 5-host group, the first host fails. What is the outcome?

Accepted Answer

The play aborts immediately

Answer

The play pauses for manual intervention

Answer

The play retries the failed host

Answer

The play continues with the remaining 4 hosts

Answer

The play marks the host as unreachable and continues

Question 10

An operations team is planning a rolling update of a production OpenShift cluster running Red Hat Enterprise Linux CoreOS nodes. Which three practices should be followed to ensure minimal downtime and proper rollback capability?

Accepted Answer

Use canary nodes to validate the update before full rollout.. Option A is correct because `oc adm update` is the standard command for orchestrating updates. Option C is correct because a maximum surge of 25% prevents resource exhaustion and ensures controlled rollout. Option E is correct because canary nodes allow validation before full rollout. Option B is wrong because placing nodes in the same AZ is not necessary and may reduce resilience. Option D is wrong while monitoring is important, it is not a rolling update practice for minimizing downtime or rollback capability.

Answer

Monitor cluster health via `oc get clusterversion` after each node update.

Answer

Place nodes in the same Availability Zone to simplify rollback.

Question 11

An Ansible playbook includes multiple roles. The administrator wants to ensure that a specific role's tasks are executed before any other roles, even if the roles are listed in a different order in the playbook. Which approach should be used?

Accepted Answer

Use the 'pre_tasks' section in the playbook to call the role.. Option B is correct because pre_tasks run before any roles, ensuring ordering. Option A (any_errors_fatal) is for error handling, not ordering. Option C (role dependencies) can enforce order but not as straightforward as pre_tasks. Option D is not a valid parameter.

Answer

Use the 'any_errors_fatal' setting.

Answer

Use role dependencies with 'allow_duplicates: no'.

Answer

Set the 'order' parameter in the role definition.

Question 12

An administrator is debugging a playbook that uses multiple roles and wants to limit execution to a specific set of tasks. Which three methods can be used to filter task execution? (Choose three.)

Accepted Answer

Use the '--tags' command-line option.. Options A, B, and C are correct. Option D (--step) prompts after each task but doesn't filter. Option E (--check) performs a dry run without filtering.

Answer

Use the '--check' command-line option.

Answer

Use the '--step' command-line option.

Question 13

A developer wants to reuse a set of tasks that conditionally include other task files based on variables defined per host. Which method should be used to ensure the included tasks are evaluated per host at runtime?

Accepted Answer

include_tasks. Option C (include_tasks) is correct because it is dynamic and evaluated per host at runtime. Option A (import_tasks) is static and evaluated at parse time. Options B and D are also static imports for roles.

Answer

include_role

Answer

import_role

Answer

import_tasks

Question 14

An Ansible playbook uses the 'block' and 'rescue' directives. Which two statements are true about this construct? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

A rescue section executes only if the block tasks fail.. Options A and C are correct. Option B is false because only one rescue section per block is allowed. Option D is false because rescue runs only on hosts where the block failed. Option E is false because blocks can be nested.

Answer

Rescue tasks are executed on all hosts in the play.

Answer

Blocks cannot be nested.

Answer

A block can have multiple rescue sections.

Question 15

A playbook uses ansible.builtin.import_playbook to include other playbooks. The administrator needs to pass variables to the imported playbook. Which approach is valid?

Accepted Answer

Add a 'vars' block to the import_playbook statement. When using import_playbook, variables can be passed using the 'vars' keyword within the import statement. This makes the variables available throughout the imported playbook.

Answer

Use ansible.builtin.include_vars inside the imported playbook

Answer

Set variables using set_fact before the import

Answer

Use group_vars or host_vars

Question 16

In an Ansible playbook, the 'strategy' parameter is set to 'free'. What behavior does this strategy produce?

Accepted Answer

Each host runs through the playbook independently of other hosts.. Option A is correct. The 'free' strategy allows each host to run through the playbook independently without waiting for other hosts. Option B (linear) is the default where hosts wait at each task. Option C (serial) batches hosts. Option D is not a valid strategy.

Answer

Playbook runs tasks on hosts in batches of 1.

Answer

Strategy is deprecated and replaced by 'linear'.

Answer

All hosts run the same task at the same time, then move to the next task.

Question 17

Refer to the exhibit. The playbook fails with an error. What is the most likely cause?

Accepted Answer

import_tasks cannot be used with a loop.. Option A is correct. import_tasks is static and cannot be used with a loop; include_tasks should be used for dynamic inclusion.

Answer

import_tasks must be placed in a role.

Answer

The loop variable should be referenced as '{{ item }}' without quotes.

Answer

The file names must be literal without templates.

Question 18

A playbook uses roles with default variables. The administrator needs to override a default variable for a specific role only when that role is used. Which method should be used?

Accepted Answer

Pass the variable as a parameter to the role in the playbook.. Option D (role parameters) is correct because they are passed directly to the role in the playbook and override defaults. Option A (role vars) have higher priority but are static. Option B (playbook vars) apply to all roles. Option C (inventory vars) apply to all hosts/roles.

Answer

Set the variable in the inventory host_vars.

Answer

Set the variable in the role's vars/main.yml.

Answer

Set the variable in the playbook's vars section.

Question 19

Refer to the exhibit. The administrator observes the output and is concerned because the 'Check on async job' task shows 'finished: 0'. What does this indicate?

Accepted Answer

The async job is still running.. Option B is correct. finished: 0 means the job is still running. finished: 1 would indicate completion.

Answer

The async job was not started.

Answer

The async job failed.

Answer

The async job has completed successfully.

Question 20

An Ansible playbook fails intermittently due to a service not starting in time. The administrator wants to configure a task to retry until the service confirms it is running. Which Ansible feature should be used?

Accepted Answer

Until loop with retries and delay.. Option D (until loop with retries and delay) is correct. Option A (failed_when) only sets failure conditions, not retries. Option B (block/rescue) handles errors but doesn't retry. Option C (async) starts a task and polls later but doesn't inherently retry on failure.

Answer

Failed_when with conditional retry.

Answer

Block and rescue to catch failure.

Answer

Async with poll interval.