server-administration

A server administrator is tasked with ensuring that a critical database server remains available in the event of a hardware failure. The solution must provide automatic failover with minimal administrative overhead. Which of the following should be implemented?

Which TWO of the following are considered best practices for securing a server's remote management access?

Your organization is migrating a Windows Server 2019 file server with 2 TB of shared data to a new server running Windows Server 2022. The migration must minimize user downtime and ensure file permissions are preserved. Users access files during business hours (8 AM to 6 PM) and the migration must be completed within a four-hour window starting at 10 PM on Saturday. You plan to use DFS Replication (DFSR) for initial data copy and then perform a final synchronization during the cutover. After setting up DFSR between the old and new servers, you realize that the initial replication will take approximately 12 hours due to the large number of files. What should you do to complete the migration within the allowed window?

A technician is installing a new server for a department. The server will run a single application that requires high reliability. The operating system should be protected against a single disk failure without sacrificing read performance. Which RAID configuration is MOST appropriate?

A SQL Server database administrator wants to backup a large database (500 GB) with minimal impact on transaction log growth and recovery time. Which TWO backup strategies should the administrator implement? (Choose two.)

A company operates a Windows Server 2019 machine that functions as a domain controller and file server. Over the past week, the server has randomly rebooted several times, often during periods of heavy file access. The administrator reviews the System event log and finds multiple Event ID 41 (Kernel-Power) entries with no preceding critical errors. The server is connected to an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) that reports stable input voltage. The server room temperature sensors indicate normal ambient temperature (22°C / 72°F). The server hardware is three years old and has not had any recent changes. The administrator has already run a full antivirus scan with no threats found. Which of the following should the administrator do NEXT to diagnose the issue?

A company is migrating a legacy line-of-business application from Windows Server 2012 R2 to a new Windows Server 2022 server that is a member of an Active Directory domain. The application runs as a Windows service under a domain service account named CORP\svc_app. The service account has been granted the 'Log on as a service' user right on the old server, and the application is configured to listen on a static TCP port 8443. After installing the application on the new server and configuring it with the same service account and port, the application fails to start. The administrator checks the Windows Event Viewer and sees two errors in the System log: 'The CORP\svc_app service failed to start due to the following error: The service did not start due to a logon failure' and 'The service cannot bind to the designated port 8443'. The administrator has already verified that the service account's password is correct and has not expired, that the account is enabled, that the port 8443 is not being used by another service, and that the Windows Firewall has an inbound rule allowing traffic on port 8443. The application's configuration file correctly points to port 8443. What should the administrator do to resolve the issue?

A system administrator is configuring a backup schedule for a critical database server that must be available 24/7. The company's recovery point objective (RPO) is 1 hour and recovery time objective (RTO) is 4 hours. The database files change frequently, but the operating system and application binaries rarely change. Which of the following backup strategies would BEST meet these requirements while minimizing storage and backup window impact?

Refer to the exhibit. An administrator receives reports that a web application is returning HTTP 502 errors. The administrator examines the Nginx error log on the reverse proxy server and sees the following. Which of the following is MOST likely causing the errors?

To comply with company security policies, a server administrator must disable all unnecessary services on a newly deployed Windows Server 2019. The server will only act as a file server with no web hosting role. Which service should be disabled?

Refer to the exhibit. A Linux server is reporting slow I/O on the root filesystem. Which of the following actions should the administrator take to resolve the immediate storage bottleneck?

A user attempts to access a shared folder named \\Server\Finance. The share permissions are set to 'Everyone – Full Control'. The NTFS permissions on the folder grant the user 'Read & Execute' but deny 'Write'. What is the user's effective permission when accessing the share over the network?

Refer to the exhibit. A server administrator configured iptables rules on a Linux server. Immediately afterward, they are unable to connect to the server via SSH. The output of 'iptables -L INPUT -n' is shown. What is the most likely cause of the connectivity issue?

An administrator needs to remotely manage several Linux servers securely without using passwords. Which of the following is the BEST method?

A server administrator notices that a database server is experiencing high CPU usage at specific times of the day. After checking logs, the administrator finds that a report generation task scheduled at those times is causing the issue. The task cannot be rescheduled or optimized further. Which of the following actions should the administrator take to ensure the server remains responsive for other applications during peak usage?

A company is planning to deploy a new web application on multiple servers behind a load balancer. The application requires consistent session data across all servers for seamless user experience. Which of the following solutions would BEST meet this requirement?

A server administrator receives an alert that a critical server's disk is almost full. Upon investigation, the administrator finds a large log file that has grown significantly. The log file is rotated daily, but today's rotation failed. Which command should the administrator use FIRST to free up space immediately?

A server administrator configures a scheduled task to back up a database using a command-line tool. The task runs successfully when executed manually, but fails when run via the task scheduler. The log shows 'Error: Access denied.' What is the MOST likely cause?

A medium-sized business runs a critical internal application on a single physical server running Windows Server 2019. The application is memory-intensive, often using up to 24 GB out of 32 GB RAM during peak hours. Over the past week, the server has experienced three unexpected reboots, each occurring during peak load. The server is not part of a cluster, and all data is stored on local disks. You have checked the Windows System event log and found Event ID 41 (Kernel-Power) indicating an unexpected shutdown. There are no related critical errors in the Application log. You have also reviewed the server's firmware logs and found multiple corrected memory errors (ECC) over the last month, with an increase in frequency just before each crash. The server is under warranty, and the hardware vendor's diagnostic tools report a failing memory module in DIMM slot A1. The vendor has recommended replacing the faulty DIMM immediately. However, the server is currently processing critical end-of-quarter financial reports that cannot be interrupted for at least 6 hours. Which of the following is the BEST course of action to minimize risk of data loss and downtime until a planned maintenance window?

A system administrator is notified that a server with a RAID 5 array of four 2TB drives has a single failed drive. The server uses hot-swappable drives and a hardware RAID controller. Which of the following actions should the administrator perform FIRST?

A Linux database server has recently exhibited sluggish response times. An analysis of system performance shows high CPU wait I/O, frequent page swapping, and a low cache hit ratio. The server has 16GB of RAM, and the database itself stores 100GB of active data. Which of the following is the MOST effective long-term solution to improve performance?

A company wants to protect its Microsoft SQL Server database with a backup strategy that provides point-in-time recovery up to every 15 minutes. The database is critical and runs on a dedicated server. Which backup schedule should be implemented?

A VMware ESXi host runs six virtual machines, each configured with 8GB of RAM, totaling 48GB allocated. The host physically has 32GB of RAM, and memory overcommitment is enabled. Recently, a critical VM experienced severe performance degradation during peak hours, with the guest OS showing high memory pressure and balloon driver activity, while other VMs showed moderate usage. Which of the following actions will BEST resolve the issue without compromising other VMs?

An administrator needs to configure a critical web service on a Linux server to automatically restart if it crashes unexpectedly. The server uses systemd. Which of the following best accomplishes this goal?

A medium-sized organization runs several critical virtual machines on a Windows Server 2019 Hyper-V host with 64 GB of RAM and two 12-core processors. One of the VMs, a database server, has been experiencing intermittent performance degradation, specifically during peak hours. The VM is configured with 4 vCPUs and 16 GB of static memory. The host's overall CPU utilization rarely exceeds 40%, and memory usage is around 50%. The administrator logs into the host and checks the VM's CPU usage in Hyper-V Manager, which shows it averaging 65% with occasional spikes to 95%. However, inside the VM, Task Manager shows constant 95-100% CPU usage on all logical processors. No other VMs are reporting performance issues. The administrator needs to determine the root cause and apply a fix that does not involve adding more physical resources or rebooting the production VM during business hours. Which of the following actions should the administrator take?

A junior administrator is managing a Linux server used by a development team. The root filesystem (/) has reached 98% capacity, causing the system to slow down and some applications to fail. The server has an LVM volume group with 20 GB of free space, but the root logical volume is 50 GB with an ext4 filesystem. The administrator needs to free space quickly and safely without rebooting or adding new disks. They log in via SSH and want to identify where the large files are and then take action. There are concerns about accidentally deleting critical system files or logs that might be needed for auditing. The server has the following typical directories: /var (with logs), /home (user files), /opt (application files), /tmp. Which of the following sequences of actions is the most appropriate to resolve the issue?

A corporation's backup strategy currently involves a weekly full backup every Saturday night and daily differential backups Monday through Friday. The company has a 5 TB dataset with a daily change rate of about 10%. The full backup takes 12 hours and runs into Monday morning, impacting production performance. The backup window is from 10 PM to 6 AM. The company requires faster backups that can complete within the window, and they also want an offsite copy of the backups for disaster recovery. The existing backup server has direct-attached disk storage and a tape library. The network bandwidth to the offsite location is limited to 100 Mbps. The administrator is evaluating changes to the backup methodology and infrastructure to meet these requirements. Which of the following solutions best addresses the speed and offsite requirements?

An administrator is monitoring a server that has a hardware RAID 5 array consisting of four 2 TB disks. The RAID controller's management software reports that one disk has a status of 'Pred Fail' (predictive failure). The array also has a dedicated hot spare disk already installed and set up. The array is still fully functional with no data loss, but the 'Pred Fail' warning indicates the disk is likely to fail soon. The server is a production database server that cannot be taken offline except for scheduled maintenance windows, which are not until the following weekend. The administrator needs to ensure data integrity and avoid any risk of downtime or data loss while waiting for the replacement. Which immediate action should the administrator take?

A company has an internal web application running on a Windows Server 2019 IIS server. Recently, users have been experiencing intermittent slow responses and occasional '503 Service Unavailable' errors. The server has 32 GB RAM and currently hosts only this application. The application pool is configured to use a private memory limit of 2 GB and a request queue limit of 1000. Performance monitoring reveals that the application pool's private memory gradually increases over several hours until it reaches 2 GB, at which point the pool recycles. The slow responses and errors coincide with the recycling events. The administrator suspects a memory leak in the application code but cannot modify the application immediately. The server must remain available during business hours (8 AM to 8 PM). Which of the following is the best short-term mitigation?

A system administrator needs to apply critical security patches to a production web server that cannot be taken offline. The server runs a Linux operating system and hosts a high-availability website. The administrator wants to ensure that if the patches cause a failure, the server can be quickly rolled back to its previous state. Which of the following actions should the administrator take FIRST?

Refer to the exhibit. A server administrator is troubleshooting a DNS resolution issue on a Windows Server 2019. The exhibit shows the output of the command `nslookup` queried against the server's own IP. Based on the output, what is the most likely cause of the resolution failure?

Refer to the exhibit. A server administrator encounters an authentication issue when accessing a web server. The exhibit shows an error from the Domain Controller's event log. What is the most likely cause of the problem?

A Linux server administrator notices that the /var partition is 95% full. To free space quickly, the administrator decides to delete old log files. Which of the following commands should the administrator use to find and delete log files older than 30 days in the /var/log directory?

A server hosts a database that requires nightly backups. The backup strategy uses a full backup every Sunday and differential backups on other days. On Wednesday, the server fails. Which backup sets are required to restore to the most recent state?

A server has two NICs configured in a team using LACP. The server loses network connectivity when one NIC is physically disconnected, even though both links show as active in the teaming software before the failure. What is the most likely cause of the issue?

Refer to the exhibit. A web server is running on port 80, but users are unable to connect. The administrator has confirmed the web server service is running. The output of iptables -L is shown. What is the most likely reason for the connectivity issue?

A server has a RAID 5 array with four drives. One drive fails and is replaced. During the rebuild, a second drive reports a media error and the rebuild fails. What should the administrator do FIRST to minimize the risk of permanent data loss?

You are the lead server administrator for a mid-sized e-commerce company. The web application is hosted on a farm of four Linux servers running Apache, fronted by a hardware load balancer. The load balancer currently uses a round-robin algorithm. Recently, the customer support team has received numerous complaints about slow page load times and occasional timeouts during checkout. You log into the server monitoring console and observe that one of the web servers, web03, has a CPU utilization consistently above 95%, while the other three servers are at around 30-40%. You connect via SSH to web03 and run the 'top' command, identifying a process named 'imagick' consuming 99% CPU. Further investigation reveals that this process is related to image resizing for product thumbnails, and it appears to have entered an infinite loop due to a malformed image file. Meanwhile, the load balancer continues to send requests to all servers equally, including the overloaded web03, causing some requests to time out. You need to restore performance immediately and prevent recurrence. Which of the following actions should you take?

A MySQL database server on Linux is experiencing high CPU utilization during peak business hours. Upon investigation, the administrator finds that the query cache hit ratio is below 20%, and the query_cache_size is set to 0. The server has 64 GB of RAM and the database workload is primarily read-heavy. Which of the following actions should the administrator take FIRST to improve performance?

A company runs a popular public-facing e-commerce website hosted on a farm of five Windows Server 2019 web servers behind a hardware load balancer. Recently, users have been reporting intermittent '503 Service Unavailable' errors during peak shopping hours. The administrator checks the load balancer and finds that all servers are marked as healthy with low CPU and memory usage. However, when inspecting a sample server, the administrator notices a large number of TCP connections in the TIME_WAIT state, consuming all available ephemeral ports. The application is ASP.NET based and uses IIS. The server configuration is as follows: Windows Server 2019 Standard, 4 vCPUs, 16 GB RAM, default TCP/IP settings. The administrator needs to resolve the connectivity issues without making changes to the application code or altering the network architecture. Which of the following actions should the administrator take to fix the problem PERMANENTLY?

A small law firm has a single Windows Server 2016 Essentials server that functions as a domain controller and file server. After a sudden power outage over the weekend, the server does not boot normally. Instead, it displays a black screen with the message: 'BOOTMGR is missing. Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart.' The IT support specialist arrives on Monday morning to find the server in this state. The firm's operations are at a standstill because all case files and email archives are inaccessible. The specialist has access to the Windows Server 2016 installation media and a recent system state backup stored on an external drive. The server hardware passed POST, and all disks are detected in the BIOS. The specialist needs to restore the server's ability to boot into Windows as quickly as possible, with minimal risk to existing data. Which of the following procedures should the specialist perform FIRST?

A system administrator manages a collection of Linux web servers that store custom application configurations in /etc/app/config. The configuration changes frequently, and the admin needs to implement an automated daily backup solution that captures the directory at 1 AM, compresses it with gzip, and retains the last 5 days of backups on a central NFS-mounted backup volume /mnt/backups. The solution should be simple and use standard tools. Which approach best meets these requirements?

A junior system administrator is managing a Linux file server running CentOS 7 with logical volumes managed by LVM. The server hosts home directories for 200 users on the /dev/vg_users/lv_home logical volume, mounted at /home. Yesterday, the administrator created an LVM snapshot named home_snap_20250101 of the home logical volume using `lvcreate -L 5G -s -n home_snap_20250101 /dev/vg_users/lv_home` to prepare for a scheduled maintenance. This morning, during a misoperation, the administrator accidentally ran `rm -rf /home/user123`, permanently deleting user123's home directory and all its contents. The snapshot still exists and contains the pre-deletion state of the entire logical volume. The administrator has root access and needs to restore the /home directory to its state as of the snapshot time to recover the lost data. All users are currently logged out and the server can be briefly taken offline if needed. Which of the following procedures should the administrator follow to restore the home directory data from the snapshot with minimal impact and risk?

A Windows Server 2019 file server hosts a shared folder named \\FS01\SalesDocs. The share permissions are configured to grant the 'Everyone' group Full Control. The NTFS permissions on the D:\Shares\SalesDocs folder are set as follows: The 'Sales' security group has Allow Read & Execute, List Folder Contents, and Read. The 'Managers' group has Allow Modify. A user, Alice, is a member of the 'Sales' group and also a member of the 'Temporary_Contractors' group. She recently had her account moved from the 'Contractors' OU to the 'Sales' OU. When Alice attempts to access \\FS01\SalesDocs from her Windows 10 workstation, she receives an 'Access Denied' error. Other members of the 'Sales' group can access the folder without issues. The administrator verifies that Alice's group membership includes both 'Sales' and 'Temporary_Contractors'. The effective permissions tool on the folder shows that Alice should have Read access. However, she still cannot access the share. Which of the following is the most likely cause of Alice's access denial and the appropriate next step to resolve it?