EX200 Practice Test 16 — 15 Questions

Question 1

Which command initializes a disk partition as a physical volume for LVM?

Accepted Answer

pvcreate. `pvcreate` is the LVM command specifically designed to initialize a disk partition as a physical volume (PV), which is the first step in creating an LVM logical volume. Without a PV, LVM cannot manage the underlying block device. The command writes LVM metadata to the partition, marking it as available for inclusion in a volume group.

Answer

fdisk

Answer

vgcreate

Answer

lvcreate

Question 2

A system administrator notices that a RHEL 9 server's /var/log/messages is filling up the /var partition. The administrator wants to ensure log rotation runs daily and keeps 4 weeks of logs. Which configuration file should be modified?

Accepted Answer

/etc/logrotate.d/syslog. /etc/logrotate.d/syslog is the configuration file that controls log rotation for system log files such as /var/log/messages. By modifying this file, the administrator can set the rotation frequency to daily and specify the number of weeks (e.g., rotate 28 for 4 weeks) to retain logs, directly addressing the requirement.

Answer

/etc/systemd/journald.conf

Answer

/etc/rsyslog.conf

Answer

/etc/cron.daily/logrotate

Question 3

An administrator needs to terminate a hung process with PID 3456 that does not respond to 'kill -15 3456'. Which signal should be used next?

Accepted Answer

kill -9 3456. Kill -9 (SIGKILL) is the signal of last resort for a process that does not respond to SIGTERM (kill -15). SIGKILL cannot be caught, blocked, or ignored by the process; it forces immediate termination by the kernel. Since the process is hung and unresponsive to SIGTERM, SIGKILL is the appropriate next step.

Answer

kill -15 3456

Answer

kill -19 3456

Answer

kill -1 3456

Question 4

A company policy requires that all cron jobs run by non-root users must be logged to a specific file /var/log/usercron.log. The system administrator decides to use rsyslog to capture these messages. Which configuration directive should be added to /etc/rsyslog.conf or a file in /etc/rsyslog.d/ to achieve this?

Accepted Answer

cron.* /var/log/usercron.log. The cron facility in rsyslog captures messages generated by the cron daemon, including cron jobs run by non-root users. By adding the directive `cron.* /var/log/usercron.log` to the rsyslog configuration, all cron messages (regardless of priority) are logged to the specified file, satisfying the policy requirement.

Answer

user.* /var/log/usercron.log

Answer

*.* /var/log/usercron.log

Answer

authpriv.* /var/log/usercron.log

Question 5

An administrator needs to create a user account that will be used by an application service. The account should not have a valid shell or home directory. Which command correctly creates such an account?

Accepted Answer

useradd -r -s /sbin/nologin -M appuser. It uses the `-r` flag to create a system account (no aging information), `-s /sbin/nologin` to set the shell to a program that politely refuses login, and `-M` to explicitly skip creating a home directory. This combination ensures the account has no valid shell and no home directory, meeting the requirement for an application service account.

Answer

useradd -r -M -s /bin/false appuser

Answer

useradd -r -s /sbin/nologin appuser

Answer

useradd -s /bin/false -M appuser

Question 6

A system administrator has added a new disk /dev/sdb to a Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 server. The directory /data already exists. Which two steps must be performed to prepare the disk for mounting as an XFS file system at /data?

Accepted Answer

Run mkfs.xfs on the partition (e.g., mkfs.xfs /dev/sdb1). After creating a partition on /dev/sdb, you must format it with the XFS file system using mkfs.xfs. This writes the XFS superblock and metadata structures to the partition, making it ready for mounting. Without this step, the partition has no file system and cannot be mounted.

Answer

Mount the partition to /data (mount /dev/sdb1 /data)

Answer

Create the /data directory (mkdir -p /data)

Answer

Add an entry to /etc/fstab for the new mount

Question 7

A Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 system has a logical volume 'lv_data' in the volume group 'vg_data' that needs to be resized from 10G to 15G. The underlying physical volumes have enough free space. Which sequence of commands correctly resizes the logical volume and the ext4 filesystem?

Accepted Answer

lvextend -L 15G /dev/vg_data/lv_data; resize2fs /dev/vg_data/lv_data. To resize an ext4 filesystem on a logical volume, you must first extend the logical volume with `lvextend -L 15G /dev/vg_data/lv_data` to allocate the additional 5G from the volume group, then use `resize2fs /dev/vg_data/lv_data` to grow the filesystem to fill the enlarged block device. This order ensures the underlying block device has sufficient capacity before the filesystem resize operation.

Answer

resize2fs /dev/vg_data/lv_data; lvextend -L 15G /dev/vg_data/lv_data

Answer

lvextend -L 15G /dev/vg_data/lv_data; xfs_growfs /dev/vg_data/lv_data

Answer

lvreduce -L 15G /dev/vg_data/lv_data; resize2fs /dev/vg_data/lv_data

Question 8

Which THREE of the following are common steps to configure a system to automatically mount an NFS share at boot?

Accepted Answer

Ensure nfs-utils is installed. B is correct because the NFS client functionality in Red Hat Enterprise Linux is provided by the nfs-utils package. Without this package installed, the system lacks the necessary tools (such as mount.nfs and rpcbind) to mount NFS shares, making it impossible to configure automatic mounting at boot.

Answer

Run 'mount -a' after boot

Answer

Configure /etc/exports

Question 9

An administrator wants to encrypt a new partition /dev/sdc1 using LUKS. Which command sequence is correct?

Accepted Answer

cryptsetup luksFormat /dev/sdc1; cryptsetup open /dev/sdc1 secret; mkfs.ext4 /dev/mapper/secret; mount /dev/mapper/secret /mnt. The proper sequence for encrypting a new partition with LUKS is: first initialize the LUKS header on the block device with `cryptsetup luksFormat`, then open the encrypted device to create a mapping under `/dev/mapper/`, then create a filesystem on the mapped device (not the raw block device), and finally mount the mapped device. This ensures the filesystem is built on top of the encrypted layer, not on the unencrypted partition.

Answer

mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdc1; cryptsetup luksFormat /dev/sdc1; cryptsetup open /dev/sdc1 secret; mount /dev/mapper/secret /mnt

Answer

cryptsetup open /dev/sdc1 secret; mkfs.ext4 /dev/mapper/secret; cryptsetup luksFormat /dev/mapper/secret; mount /dev/mapper/secret /mnt

Answer

cryptsetup luksFormat /dev/sdc1; mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdc1; cryptsetup open /dev/sdc1 secret; mount /dev/mapper/secret /mnt

Answer

cryptsetup open /dev/sdc1 secret; cryptsetup luksFormat /dev/mapper/secret; mkfs.ext4 /dev/mapper/secret; mount /dev/mapper/secret /mnt

Question 10

An administrator needs to configure system tuning profiles for a database server. Which command is used to set the 'throughput-performance' profile?

Accepted Answer

tuned-adm profile throughput-performance. The `tuned-adm profile throughput-performance` command is correct because Tuned is the system tuning service on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and `tuned-adm` is the command-line tool used to activate predefined tuning profiles. The 'throughput-performance' profile optimizes the system for maximum network and disk throughput by disabling power-saving features and tuning kernel parameters.

Answer

powertop --set-profile=throughput-performance

Answer

sysctl -w kernel.throughput=1

Answer

systemctl set-profile throughput-performance

Question 11

A user is unable to delete a file named '-f' in the current directory. Which command will successfully remove it?

Accepted Answer

rm -- -f. The '--' double dash signals the end of command options to most Linux utilities, including rm. This allows rm to interpret '-f' as a literal filename rather than the '--force' option, enabling its deletion.

Answer

rm \-f

Answer

rm -f

Answer

rm "-f"

Question 12

An administrator needs to add a new 20GB disk /dev/sdb to a RHEL 9 server and mount it permanently at /data. The disk is unpartitioned. Which sequence of commands correctly accomplishes this?

Accepted Answer

fdisk /dev/sdb → mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdb1 → echo '/dev/sdb1 /data ext4 defaults 0 0' >> /etc/fstab → mount -a. It follows the proper sequence for adding a new unpartitioned disk: create a partition with fdisk, format the partition with mkfs.ext4, add an entry to /etc/fstab for permanent mounting, and then use mount -a to mount all filesystems from fstab. This ensures the disk is mounted persistently across reboots, which is required by the question.

Answer

fdisk /dev/sdb → mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdb1 → mount /dev/sdb1 /data

Answer

mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdb → mount /dev/sdb /data

Answer

parted /dev/sdb → mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdb1 → mount /dev/sdb1 /data

Question 13

Which TWO of the following are valid reasons to use LVM in a Red Hat Enterprise Linux environment?

Accepted Answer

Ability to resize logical volumes without repartitioning. LVM allows you to resize logical volumes (LVs) online or offline without needing to repartition the underlying disk, which is a key advantage over traditional partitions. Option C is correct because LVM provides snapshot functionality, which creates a point-in-time copy of a logical volume for consistent backups or testing, without requiring additional backup software.

Answer

Improved disk I/O performance over direct partitions

Answer

Simplification of disk partitioning by removing the need for partitions

Answer

Ability to create RAID arrays without mdadm

Question 14

Which TWO files are essential in the /boot directory for the kernel to boot?

Accepted Answer

initramfs. The initramfs (initial RAM filesystem) is essential because it contains the necessary drivers and tools to mount the root filesystem before the kernel can take over. Without it, the kernel would not be able to access the storage device containing the root partition, especially when using filesystems or hardware that require kernel modules not built into the kernel itself.

Answer

fstab

Answer

grub.cfg

Answer

kernel

Question 15

An administrator wants to install a package 'httpd' but only if it is available in the configured repositories. Which command should be used to check if the package exists?

Accepted Answer

dnf list available httpd. `dnf list available httpd` queries the configured DNF repositories and displays the package only if it exists in them. This command checks availability without installing, which matches the requirement to verify the package is present in the repositories before proceeding.

Answer

rpm -q httpd

Answer

dnf search httpd

Answer

dnf install httpd