EX294 Practice Test 7 — 10 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.