EX200 Practice Test 6 — 10 Questions

Question 1

Refer to the exhibit. An administrator attempts to mount the partition but receives an error. Which command should be run first to resolve the issue?

Accepted Answer

file -s /dev/sdc1. The error indicates that the partition /dev/sdc1 does not contain a recognized filesystem. Running 'file -s /dev/sdc1' displays the actual data on the partition, confirming whether a filesystem exists or if the partition is raw. This diagnostic step is essential before any repair or formatting action.

Answer

xfs_repair /dev/sdc1

Answer

partprobe /dev/sdc

Answer

mkfs.xfs /dev/sdc1

Question 2

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 3

Refer to the exhibit. What does the file permission -rw------- indicate about /etc/shadow?

Accepted Answer

Only root user can read and write; others have no access.. The permission string `-rw-------` breaks down as: owner (root) has read (4) and write (2) permissions, and no execute (0); group has no permissions (---); others have no permissions (---). Since `/etc/shadow` is owned by root, only the root user can read and write the file, while all other users (including group members and others) have zero access. Option D correctly states this.

Answer

Root user can read, write, and execute; group and others have no access.

Answer

Owner can read and write; group can read; others can read.

Answer

Owner can read; group can read; others cannot access.

Question 4

An administrator needs to create a new 500MB swap partition on a disk that already has an extended partition. The disk /dev/sda has partitions: /dev/sda1 (primary, /boot), /dev/sda2 (extended), /dev/sda5 (logical, swap, 2GB). The administrator wants to add another swap partition, but fdisk shows no free space. Which approach should be used?

Accepted Answer

Use a file-based swap file. The disk has no free space (the extended partition consumes all remaining space after /dev/sda1, and logical partitions are contained within it). Adding a swap file is the simplest and safest approach: it does not require repartitioning, works with any filesystem, and is fully supported by systemd and swapon. The administrator can create a 500MB file, format it as swap with mkswap, and enable it with swapon.

Answer

Use LVM to create a logical volume for swap

Answer

Shrink the filesystem on /dev/sda1 to create free space

Answer

Delete /dev/sda5 and recreate it with larger size

Question 5

After configuring sudo, a user reports: 'sudo: unable to open /etc/sudoers: Permission denied'. The admin checks the file permissions and sees '-rw-r-----' owned by root:root. What is the most likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The file permissions are too permissive (0640 instead of 0440).. The sudoers file requires strict permissions of 0440 (owner read, group read) to be considered secure by sudo. The current permissions of 0640 (owner read/write, group read) are too permissive, as they grant write access to the owner (root), which violates sudo's security model. When sudo detects that /etc/sudoers has permissions other than 0440, it refuses to open the file and reports 'Permission denied' to prevent potential tampering.

Answer

The file is owned by the wrong user.

Answer

The sudo binary is missing the setuid bit.

Answer

SELinux is blocking access.

Question 6

Which command displays the UUID of all file systems on the system?

Accepted Answer

blkid. The `blkid` command is the correct choice because it is specifically designed to locate and display block device attributes, including the UUID, filesystem type, and label, for all filesystems on the system. It reads data from the `/dev/disk/by-uuid/` directory and the `udev` database, making it the most direct and reliable tool for querying UUIDs without requiring root privileges for basic output.

Answer

dumpe2fs -h

Answer

lsblk

Answer

fdisk -l

Question 7

A script needs to execute a command that might fail, but the script should continue. The administrator wants to capture the exit status for logging. Which code snippet correctly implements this?

Accepted Answer

./risky_command; rc=$?; echo $rc. It runs the risky command, captures its exit status immediately after in the `$?` variable, and then echoes it for logging. The script continues regardless of the command's success or failure, which meets the requirement. The `$?` variable holds the exit status of the last executed foreground command, so assigning it to `rc` right after `./risky_command` ensures the correct value is stored.

Answer

set -e; ./risky_command; rc=$?; echo $rc

Answer

rc=$? ./risky_command; echo $rc

Answer

./risky_command && rc=$?; echo $rc

Question 8

A user was recently added to the 'testgrp' group using `usermod -aG testgrp user1`. However, when they try to access a file owned by testgrp with permissions 660, they get permission denied. What is the most likely reason?

Accepted Answer

The user did not log out and log back in.. When a user is added to a supplementary group with `usermod -aG`, the group membership change does not take effect in the user's current login session. The user must log out and log back in (or start a new login shell) for the new group to be recognized by the kernel's process credential system. Without this, the user's process lacks the group ID in its supplementary group list, so access to a file with group permissions (660) is denied.

Answer

The user's primary group is not testgrp.

Answer

The file's group owner is not testgrp.

Answer

The file's ACL overrides group permissions.

Question 9

In /etc/fstab, which values in the dump and pass fields enable automatic file system checking at boot?

Accepted Answer

dump=0, pass=1. The `pass` field in `/etc/fstab` controls the order of file system checks at boot. A value of 1 means the root file system is checked first, and a value of 2 or higher means other file systems are checked after root. The `dump` field is for backup utility (dump) and is not related to boot-time checking; it must be 0 to disable dump. Thus, `dump=0, pass=1` enables automatic file system checking (fsck) at boot for the root file system.

Answer

dump=1, pass=0

Answer

dump=0, pass=0

Answer

dump=1, pass=1

Question 10

A container exits immediately with status 1. The administrator runs 'podman logs container' but sees no output. What is the most likely reason for the missing logs?

Accepted Answer

The container binary is missing or has the wrong architecture (exec format error).. When a container exits immediately with status 1 and `podman logs` shows no output, the most common cause is that the container binary is missing or has the wrong architecture (e.g., an x86 binary on an ARM system). This results in an 'exec format error' that prevents the container's entrypoint from executing, so no stdout/stderr is ever written to the logging driver. The container exits before any process runs, leaving the log buffer empty.

Answer

The container's logging driver is not configured to capture stdout.

Answer

The log file is rotated and cleared.

Answer

The container is using a non-standard log location inside the container.