EX200 Practice Test 4 — 25 Questions

Question 1

Which three network configuration methods are valid in RHEL 8/9?

Accepted Answer

/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-* files. In RHEL 8/9, the traditional `/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-*` files are still supported for backward compatibility, though NetworkManager is the default service. These files define interface configurations using variables like `DEVICE`, `BOOTPROTO`, and `ONBOOT`, and are read by the `ifup`/`ifdown` scripts or NetworkManager when configured to use them. This method remains valid for static or DHCP-based network setup without requiring a GUI.

Answer

system-config-network

Answer

ifconfig

Question 2

Which TWO commands can be used to create a new directory that will serve as a mount point?

Accepted Answer

install -d /mnt/newmount. `install -d /mnt/newmount` creates the directory `/mnt/newmount` if it does not already exist, setting it up as a mount point. Option D is correct because `mkdir /mnt/newmount` is the standard command to create a directory, which can then be used as a mount point for a filesystem.

Answer

touch /mnt/newmount

Answer

ln -s /mnt /mnt/newmount

Answer

ln /mnt /mnt/newmount

Question 3

A system administrator needs to ensure that a web server running Apache httpd starts automatically after a system reboot. Which command should the administrator use to enable the httpd service?

Accepted Answer

systemctl enable httpd. `systemctl enable httpd` creates the necessary symlinks in the systemd unit configuration directories (e.g., `/etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/`) to ensure the httpd service starts automatically at boot. This is the standard method for enabling a service in a Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8/9 environment using systemd.

Answer

systemctl daemon-reload

Answer

systemctl start httpd

Answer

systemctl reenable httpd

Question 4

Which command can be used to display a list of all currently mounted filesystems on a Linux system?

Accepted Answer

mount. The `mount` command with no arguments displays a list of all currently mounted filesystems, showing the device, mount point, filesystem type, and mount options. This is the standard and most direct way to view active mounts on a Linux system.

Answer

fdisk -l

Answer

lsblk -m

Answer

cat /proc/filesystems

Answer

df -a

Question 5

Match each cron syntax field to its meaning.

Accepted Answer

minute: 0-59. The five fields in a cron syntax are (in order): minute (0-59), hour (0-23), day of month (1-31), month (1-12), and day of week (0-7). Common confusions include swapping the minute and hour ranges.

Answer

minute: 0-23

Question 6

Match each user/group management command to its function.

Accepted Answer

useradd: Creates a new user account. useradd creates users, usermod modifies them, userdel deletes them, and groupadd creates groups. Common confusions arise from similar command names.

Answer

useradd: Modifies an existing user account

Answer

usermod: Deletes a user account

Answer

userdel: Creates a new group

Answer

groupadd: Modifies an existing group

Question 7

After being added to a new supplementary group with usermod -aG, a user logs out and back in but still cannot access files owned by that group. Which command should the user run to verify current effective group membership?

Accepted Answer

id. The `id` command displays the real and effective user/group IDs and all supplementary groups for the current process, making it the correct way to confirm whether the new group is actually active in the current shell. `groups $(whoami)` is incorrect because it uses the username argument, which reads the group membership from the user database (e.g., getgrouplist) and does not necessarily reflect the groups in the current process. This can misleadingly show the new group even if the current shell has not inherited it. `newgrp -c 'groups'` is not standard and is meant for changing the real group ID, not for displaying groups. `usermod -g` modifies group settings and requires superuser privileges, so it does not verify membership.

Answer

newgrp -c 'groups'

Answer

groups $(whoami)

Answer

usermod -g

Question 8

You are managing a Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 server that hosts backup scripts. A user named 'backup' (UID 1005) is a member of the 'backup' group. The directory /var/backups is owned by root:backup with permissions 775. The 'backup' user needs to create files in this directory. However, when the user attempts to create a file, they receive 'Permission denied'. You verify that 'backup' is indeed listed in the backup group in /etc/group. The user's current shell was started after their last login. Which of the following is the most likely cause and solution?

Accepted Answer

The user needs to log out and log back in to refresh their group membership.. The user 'backup' is already a member of the 'backup' group in /etc/group, but the current shell session was started before the group membership was added or refreshed. On Linux, group membership is determined at login time by the PAM modules; simply adding a user to a group does not affect already running processes. The user must log out and log back in (or start a new login shell) to acquire the new group membership via the initgroups() system call, which populates the process's supplementary group list.

Answer

The directory lacks the setgid bit; set it with 'chmod g+s /var/backups'.

Answer

The user's umask is too restrictive, preventing file creation. Change the umask to 002.

Answer

The user should use 'newgrp backup' to switch to the backup group temporarily.

Question 9

Refer to the exhibit. An administrator needs to create a new 5GB filesystem for /var/log. Which step is required?

Accepted Answer

Add /dev/sdc as a physical volume, extend vg00, create a logical volume, and format. To create a new filesystem for /var/log using available space on /dev/sdc, the disk must first be added as a physical volume (pvcreate), then added to the existing volume group vg00 (vgextend). After extending the VG, a new logical volume can be created (lvcreate) and formatted with a filesystem (e.g., mkfs.xfs). This approach leverages LVM's flexibility to allocate space from multiple physical volumes without requiring a separate volume group or partition manipulation.

Answer

Create a new partition on /dev/sdc and format with xfs

Answer

Shrink /home to free space in vg00 and create a new LV

Answer

Create a new volume group using /dev/sdb

Question 10

A company needs to create a user account for a temporary contractor who will work for exactly 90 days. The account must be automatically disabled after 90 days. Which command should the administrator use?

Accepted Answer

useradd -e $(date -d '+90 days' +%Y-%m-%d) contractor. The `-e` (expiration date) option sets the date on which the user account will be disabled. Using `$(date -d '+90 days' +%Y-%m-%d)` dynamically calculates the exact date 90 days from today in YYYY-MM-DD format, which meets the requirement for automatic disable after exactly 90 days.

Answer

useradd -f 90 contractor

Answer

useradd -e 90 contractor

Answer

useradd -f 90 -e 0 contractor

Question 11

A user named jdoe is receiving 'Permission denied' errors when trying to access a file owned by root with permissions 644. The user is a member of the root group. What is the most likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The directory containing the file lacks execute permission for the group or others.. The file has permissions 644, meaning the owner (root) has read/write, and the group (root) and others have read-only access. Since jdoe is a member of the root group, the file's group read permission should allow access. However, to traverse a directory and access any file within it, the user needs execute (x) permission on that directory. If the directory lacks execute for the group or others, jdoe will get 'Permission denied' even if the file permissions are correct.

Answer

The file's group owner is not root.

Answer

The file's read permission is not granted to the root group.

Answer

The user needs to be added to the root group again.

Question 12

An administrator needs to create a network bond interface 'bond0' with two slave interfaces 'eth0' and 'eth1' using active-backup mode. Which set of commands is correct?

Accepted Answer

nmcli con add type bond ifname bond0 mode active-backup; nmcli con add type bond-slave ifname eth0 master bond0; nmcli con add type bond-slave ifname eth1 master bond0. The commands create a bond interface with active-backup mode using nmcli. First, `nmcli con add type bond ifname bond0 mode active-backup` creates the bond with the required mode. Then, `nmcli con add type bond-slave ifname eth0 master bond0` and similarly for eth1 add the slave interfaces. This is the correct set of commands that fulfills the requirement. Option A uses an alternative syntax but does not set the mode. Option B involves manual editing, and option C uses teamd, which is for teaming, not bonding.

Answer

nmcli con add type bond ifname bond0; nmcli con add type ethernet ifname eth0 master bond0 slave-type bond

Answer

Edit /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-bond0 and ifcfg-eth0 manually

Answer

teamd -d -c '{"device":"bond0","runner":{"name":"activebackup"},"ports":{"eth0":{},"eth1":{}}}'

Question 13

Refer to the exhibit. An administrator needs to create a 1.2 TiB logical volume named 'data' in volume group 'myvg' and mount it persistently at /data. Which sequence of commands should be used?

Accepted Answer

lvcreate -L 1.2T -n data myvg
mkfs.xfs /dev/myvg/data
echo '/dev/myvg/data /data xfs defaults 0 0' >> /etc/fstab
mount -a. It creates a logical volume of exactly 1.2 TiB using the valid -L 1.2T size specification. LVM's -L option accepts floating-point values with suffixes like T for TiB. The volume is formatted with XFS (default for RHEL 8+), a correct fstab entry is added with /dev/myvg/data, and mount -a mounts it persistently. Option D uses 1200G, which yields approximately 1.17 TiB, not the required 1.2 TiB.

Answer

lvcreate -L 1.2T -n data myvg
mkfs.ext4 /dev/myvg/data
echo '/dev/myvg/data /data ext4 defaults 0 0' >> /etc/fstab
mount -a

Answer

lvcreate -l 100%FREE -n data myvg
mkfs.xfs /dev/myvg/data
echo '/dev/mapper/myvg-data /data xfs defaults 0 0' >> /etc/fstab
mount -a

Answer

lvcreate -L 1200G -n data myvg
mkfs.ext4 /dev/myvg/data
echo '/dev/myvg/data /data ext4 defaults 0 0' >> /etc/fstab
mount -a

Question 14

An administrator writes a script that uses the 'set -e' option at the top. What is the primary effect of this option?

Accepted Answer

It exits the script immediately if a command fails. The 'set -e' option instructs the shell to exit immediately if any command or pipeline returns a non-zero exit status (i.e., fails). This is commonly used in scripts to prevent execution from continuing after an error, which could lead to unpredictable behavior or data corruption. It does not affect variable handling, command printing, or debug verbosity.

Answer

It treats unset variables as an error

Answer

It prints each command before execution

Answer

It enables debug mode with verbose output

Question 15

A filesystem is reported as 'read-only' after a system crash. The admin runs fsck and sees 'clean' status. What is the most likely reason it remains read-only?

Accepted Answer

The filesystem is XFS, and fsck does not repair XFS.. If fsck reports 'clean', it means no errors were found in the filesystem's journal, so option D is incorrect. Option C is correct because XFS filesystems cannot be repaired by fsck; they require xfs_repair. Running fsck on an XFS filesystem simply reports the clean flag without performing a real check, leaving the kernel to enforce read-only status if any issues persist.

Answer

fsck cannot fix errors on ext4 filesystems.

Answer

The filesystem is still mounted; fsck cannot fix it while mounted.

Answer

fsck detected errors but did not fix them automatically.

Question 16

A script needs to be run at system boot for a specific user. Which method ensures the script runs with that user's environment?

Accepted Answer

Create a systemd user unit in ~/.config/systemd/user/. Systemd user units, placed in ~/.config/systemd/user/, are executed in the user's own session context, inheriting the user's environment variables, PATH, and D-Bus session. This ensures the script runs with the specific user's environment at boot, as systemd starts the user manager (systemd --user) early in the boot process for each enabled user.

Answer

Place the script in /etc/rc.d/rc.local

Answer

Add an entry to ~/.xprofile

Answer

Add the script to the user's crontab with @reboot

Question 17

A system administrator is troubleshooting a container that fails to start with the error: 'Error: cannot start container: listen tcp4 :80: bind: address already in use'. The container is intended to serve HTTP traffic on port 80. What is the most appropriate first step to resolve this issue?

Accepted Answer

Check which process is using port 80 and either stop that process or use a different host port. The error 'address already in use' indicates that port 80 on the host is already occupied by another process. The correct first step is to identify that process using commands like `ss -tlnp` or `lsof -i :80` and either stop it or map the container to a different host port (e.g., `-p 8080:80`). This directly resolves the binding conflict without risking data loss or unintended behavior.

Answer

Add --force to the podman run command

Answer

Add --replace to the podman run command

Answer

Use --net=host to bypass the port mapping

Question 18

Which THREE options to podman run can be used to publish container ports to the host? (Select exactly three.)

Accepted Answer

-p. (-p) is correct because it is the short form of --publish, which maps a container port to a host port. Option B (--publish) is the long form of -p and explicitly publishes container ports to the host. Option D (-P) is correct because it publishes all exposed container ports to random high-numbered ports on the host (typically in the range 32768-60999).

Answer

--expose

Answer

--port

Question 19

Refer to the exhibit. A user named 'carol' has been added to the system with the command useradd -G wheel carol. Which line in /etc/group will confirm that carol is now a member of the wheel group?

Accepted Answer

wheel:x:10:root,alice,bob,carol. The `useradd -G wheel carol` command adds 'carol' to the supplementary group 'wheel', and the `/etc/group` file lists supplementary members as a comma-separated list with no trailing comma. The line `wheel:x:10:root,alice,bob,carol` shows 'carol' appended after the existing members, which matches the expected format.

Answer

wheel:x:10:carol,root,alice,bob

Answer

wheel:x:10:root,alice,bob,carol,

Answer

wheel:x:10:root,alice,bob carol

Question 20

A developer runs the script shown in the exhibit and always sees 'Success' printed, even when the previous command fails. What is the most likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The $? variable captures the exit status of the [[ command, not the intended command. The `[[ ]]` conditional construct is a shell keyword that itself produces an exit status. When `$?` is checked immediately after `[[ ]]`, it captures the exit status of the `[[ ]]` evaluation (which is 0 if the condition is true, 1 if false), not the exit status of the command that was run before the `[[ ]]`. Since the developer always sees 'Success' printed, the `[[ ]]` condition must be evaluating to true (exit status 0), causing `$?` to be 0 and the script to always take the success path, regardless of the actual previous command's result.

Answer

The [[ ]] syntax always evaluates to true

Answer

The $? variable is only set after external commands, not builtins

Answer

The $? variable always returns 0 in a conditional