EX294 Timed Practice Test 5 — 10 Questions

Question 1

A DevOps engineer needs to extract the first 10 lines of a log file and store them in a variable for further processing. Which Ansible filter should be used?

Accepted Answer

head. Option D is correct because the `head` filter in Ansible extracts the first N items from a list or string. In this scenario, using `head(10)` on the log file content (read via `lookup('file', ...)`) returns the first 10 lines, which can be stored in a variable for further processing. This filter is specifically designed for such truncation tasks.

Answer

regex

Answer

first

Answer

slice

Question 2

Given `{{ ['1', '2', '3'] | map('int') | list }}`, what is the result?

Accepted Answer

`[1, 2, 3]`. The `map('int')` filter in Ansible/Jinja2 converts each string element in the list to an integer. The `list` filter then materializes the generator into a list, resulting in `[1, 2, 3]`. Option B is correct because this is the standard behavior of the `map` filter with the `int` function.

Answer

An error because 'int' is not a valid filter name.

Answer

`['1', '2', '3']` as integers, but stored as strings.

Answer

`['1', '2', '3']`

Question 3

Which TWO filters are commonly used for list manipulation in Ansible? (Select exactly two.)

Accepted Answer

`map`. Options A and B are correct because `map` applies a function to each element, and `select` filters elements based on a condition. Option C (`regex_replace`) is for string replacement. Option D (`default`) sets default values. Option E (`ternary`) is a conditional operator.

Answer

`default`

Answer

`ternary`

Answer

`regex_replace`

Question 4

An Ansible role uses a variable "server_list" which is a list of dictionaries. Each dictionary has a key "ports" which should be a list of integers. However, due to inconsistent input, "ports" could be a comma-separated string (e.g., "80,443") or already a list of integers (e.g., [80,443]). The engineer wants to normalize "ports" to always be a list of integers for further processing. Which of the following tasks correctly normalizes the "ports" field?

Accepted Answer

- set_fact:
    server_list: "{{ server_list | map('combine', {'ports': (item.ports is string) | ternary(item.ports | split(','), item.ports)}) }}"
  loop: "{{ server_list }}". Option D is correct because it uses the `ternary` filter to check if `item.ports` is a string; if true, it splits the string by commas into a list, otherwise it keeps the existing list. This ensures the `ports` field is always normalized to a list of integers, handling both inconsistent input formats.

Answer

- set_fact:
    server_list: "{{ server_list | map('combine', {'ports': item.ports | split(',')}) }}"
  loop: "{{ server_list }}"

Answer

- set_fact:
    server_list: "{{ server_list | map('combine', {'ports': [item.ports] | flatten}) }}"
  loop: "{{ server_list }}"

Answer

- set_fact:
    server_list: "{{ server_list | map('combine', {'ports': item.ports}) }}"
  loop: "{{ server_list }}"

Question 5

What is the effect of the `filter_plugins` setting in `ansible.cfg`?

Accepted Answer

It replaces the default search path for filter plugins with the specified directory.. In Ansible, the `filter_plugins` setting in `ansible.cfg` specifies a directory that replaces the default search path for filter plugins. This means Ansible will look only in the specified directory for filter plugins, ignoring the default locations such as `~/.ansible/plugins/filter` or the `filter_plugins` directory relative to the playbook. This is a configuration override, not an addition.

Answer

It sets the directory for filter plugins but only for the current playbook.

Answer

It configures the path for lookup plugins, not filter plugins.

Answer

It adds the directory to the default search path for filter plugins.

Question 6

What is the output of this playbook task?

Accepted Answer

'APPLE'. Option A is correct because the `map` filter in Ansible applies the `upper` filter to each element of the list `['apple', 'banana']`, converting both strings to uppercase. The `map` filter returns a generator, but when used in a `debug` task, Ansible automatically converts it to a list, producing `['APPLE', 'BANANA']`. However, the question's output is shown as `'APPLE'` (a single string), which is incorrect for the given list; the correct output should be `['APPLE', 'BANANA']`. Based on the answer options, A is marked as correct, but this is a misalignment—the actual output would be a list, not a single string. Assuming the question intended a single-element list or a different input, the `map` filter with `upper` on a list of strings yields a list of uppercased strings.

Answer

An error because map expects a list of strings.

Answer

['APPLE', 'BANANA']

Answer

'apple'

Question 7

An administrator must parse an inventory file where hostnames are stored in YAML format under a list 'nodes'. The task needs to extract only hostnames that contain 'prod' in the name, then sort them in reverse order. Which combination of filters in a single Ansible expression achieves this?

Accepted Answer

nodes | select('match', '.*prod.*') | sort(reverse=True). Option A is correct because the `select` filter with the `match` test returns only list items that match the regex `'.*prod.*'`, i.e., hostnames containing 'prod'. The `sort(reverse=True)` then sorts the resulting list in descending alphabetical order, fulfilling both requirements in a single Ansible expression.

Answer

nodes | regex_search('prod') | sort(True)

Answer

nodes | map('regex_search', 'prod') | sort(reverse=True)

Answer

nodes | reject('match', '.*prod.*') | sort(reverse=True)

Question 8

A security team requires that all passwords in an Ansible vault be encrypted with a different key from the host variables. They want to use a custom lookup plugin that fetches secrets from an external API. Which plugin type should be developed?

Accepted Answer

Lookup plugin. A lookup plugin is the correct choice because it is designed to retrieve data from external sources (like an API) and return it as a string or list for use in Ansible playbooks. This aligns with the requirement to fetch secrets from an external API, and lookup plugins can be used directly in variables or templates without modifying the host state.

Answer

Module

Answer

Action plugin

Answer

Filter plugin

Question 9

An Ansible task uses the variable `{{ my_var | default(required=true) }}`. What happens if `my_var` is undefined?

Accepted Answer

The task fails with an error message. The `default(required=true)` filter in Ansible explicitly marks the variable as required. If `my_var` is undefined, the filter raises an error because it enforces that the variable must be provided, causing the task to fail with an error message. This is a deliberate mechanism to catch missing mandatory variables early in playbook execution.

Answer

The task skips the host

Answer

The task uses an empty string

Answer

The task uses the string 'required'

Question 10

A large-scale Ansible deployment processes a list of thousands of network devices. Using the `subelements` filter to iterate over interfaces is causing very slow playbook execution. Which approach can significantly improve performance?

Accepted Answer

Use a custom filter plugin in Python that uses list comprehensions. The `subelements` filter in Ansible processes nested data structures by iterating over each parent element and its child elements, which can be extremely slow for large datasets due to the overhead of Jinja2 template evaluation and repeated lookups. A custom filter plugin written in Python using list comprehensions avoids this overhead by executing native Python code directly, which is significantly faster because it operates at the interpreter level without the iterative Jinja2 expansion. This approach reduces the number of tasks and template evaluations, improving performance for thousands of network devices.

Answer

Use `with_nested` instead

Answer

Use `set_fact` with loops inside the task

Answer

Use `with_items` with `json_query` instead