SK0-005 Practice Test 13 — 15 Questions

Question 1

A server administrator is troubleshooting a server that intermittently loses network connectivity. The server is connected to a switch port that is configured for 802.1X authentication. The administrator checks the switch logs and sees repeated authentication failures for the server's MAC address. The server's operating system logs show no network errors. Which of the following is the MOST likely cause of the connectivity loss?

Accepted Answer

The server's 802.1X supplicant credentials are incorrect or expired.. The switch logs showing repeated 802.1X authentication failures for the server's MAC address indicate that the server is not successfully authenticating. This is typically due to incorrect or expired credentials on the supplicant. When authentication fails, the switch may place the port in a guest VLAN or block traffic, leading to intermittent connectivity if the server occasionally succeeds or if the port is reset. Verifying and correcting the supplicant configuration is the appropriate fix.

Answer

The server's NIC driver is outdated and causing intermittent link drops.

Answer

The switch port is configured for half-duplex, causing collisions.

Answer

The switch port is configured for the wrong VLAN.

Question 2

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?

Accepted Answer

Configure the service's systemd unit file with Restart=always. Option C is correct because setting Restart=always in the systemd unit file ensures the service restarts regardless of exit code, which is the proper systemd method. Option A is wrong because a cron job introduces a potential delay and is less reliable than built-in service supervision. Option B is wrong because an init.d script with a loop is an outdated approach and not recommended with systemd. Option D is wrong because inetd starts services on demand, not for persistent daemons.

Answer

Set the service to run under inetd so it starts on demand

Answer

Write a cron job to check the service status every minute and start it if stopped

Answer

Create an init.d script that loops and re-executes the service if it exits

Question 3

A server administrator is configuring a new server that will host a database. The server has four 1 TB SAS drives. The administrator wants to maximize performance while providing fault tolerance that can survive a single drive failure. Which RAID level should be used?

Accepted Answer

RAID 10. RAID 10 is the best choice because it offers both fault tolerance and improved performance through striping and mirroring. It can tolerate a single drive failure and provides better write performance than RAID 5, which is crucial for database operations.

Answer

RAID 0

Answer

RAID 1

Answer

RAID 5

Question 4

A server uses NIC teaming with LACP (802.3ad) for load balancing and failover. After replacing a failed switch with a new switch of the same model, the server loses network connectivity. The switch ports show no activity. Which of the following is the MOST likely cause?

Accepted Answer

LACP is not enabled on the switch ports.. LACP must be explicitly enabled and configured on switch ports to form a port-channel (Option D). New switches ship with default configurations that do not include LACP. The server's NIC teaming mode (Option A) was previously working, so it is likely correct. Access port configuration (Option B) would affect VLAN membership but not completely drop traffic. Firmware differences (Option C) rarely cause total loss of connectivity without other configuration mismatches.

Answer

The switch ports are not configured as access ports.

Answer

The new switch has a different firmware version.

Answer

The server's NIC teaming mode is set to active/passive.

Question 5

A technician is installing a new rack-mounted server and needs to connect it to the network. The server has two onboard Ethernet ports labeled NIC1 and NIC2. The network team requires redundant connectivity to two different switches. Which of the following should the technician implement?

Accepted Answer

Connect NIC1 to switch A and NIC2 to switch B, then configure NIC teaming or bonding on the server.. Redundant connectivity to two switches requires each NIC to connect to a different switch and the operating system to present them as a single logical interface through teaming or bonding. This provides failover if a switch, cable, or port fails. Connecting both NICs to one switch or leaving one disconnected does not meet the redundancy requirement.

Answer

Connect NIC1 to switch A and NIC2 to switch B, then assign both NICs the same IP address without teaming.

Answer

Connect both NIC1 and NIC2 to switch A and configure link aggregation.

Answer

Connect NIC1 to switch A and leave NIC2 disconnected until a failure occurs.

Question 6

An administrator is designing physical security for a new server room that also houses the company's network core. Management wants to prevent an unauthorized visitor from plugging a laptop into an unused wall jack and capturing traffic. Which control BEST addresses this specific threat?

Accepted Answer

Enable 802.1X port-based network access control on all switch ports and configure unused ports to an unauthorized VLAN.. The threat is a rogue device gaining network access through a live wall jack. Port-based access control with 802.1X forces authentication before the port forwards traffic, and assigning unused ports to a quarantined VLAN limits what an unauthenticated device can reach. Physical entry controls, IPsec between servers, and port mirroring do not prevent a plugged-in laptop from joining the local segment.

Answer

Configure port mirroring on the core switch so the security team can monitor all traffic from the server room.

Answer

Deploy IPsec transport mode between all servers in the room and require certificate-based authentication for every session.

Answer

Install a mantrap at the server room entrance and require badge plus biometric authentication for entry.

Question 7

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?

Accepted Answer

Configure a memory reservation of 8GB for the critical VM.. It guarantees physical RAM for that VM, preventing the balloon driver from reclaiming its memory and reducing hypervisor swapping. Option A (Increase host RAM) would solve it broadly but is not the most immediate, targeted action and may not be feasible. Option C (Disable balloon driver on all VMs) could cause host swapping, degrading all VMs. Option D (Reduce CPU limits) does not address memory contention.

Answer

Purchase and install an additional 32GB of physical RAM in the host.

Answer

Disable the VMware balloon driver on all virtual machines.

Answer

Reduce the CPU limit on the non-critical VMs during peak hours.

Question 8

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?

Accepted Answer

Inspect and clean the CPU and chassis fans, and check for dust buildup. Option C is correct because random reboots with Kernel-Power 41 often indicate overheating due to failing fans or dust buildup, even if ambient temperature is normal. Option A is wrong because the power supply is likely not the issue given the UPS stability. Option B is wrong because a BIOS update is unlikely to solve hardware overheating. Option D is wrong because disabling automatic restart only hides the symptom and does not prevent the reboots.

Answer

Update the server's BIOS to the latest version

Answer

Replace the power supply unit

Answer

Disable the automatic restart feature in System Properties

Question 9

A server administrator is troubleshooting a server that is experiencing slow response times. After logging in, the administrator runs the command 'iostat -x 5' on the Linux server and observes that the %util for the sda device is consistently at 100%. Which of the following is the MOST likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The disk is experiencing a high number of read/write operations, causing a bottleneck.. A %util of 100% on a disk device means the disk is continuously busy servicing I/O requests, indicating a disk bottleneck. The most likely cause is that the disk cannot handle the current I/O load, whether from a specific process or overall system activity. Further investigation with tools like iotop can identify the culprit.

Answer

The CPU is overwhelmed and cannot process I/O requests fast enough.

Answer

The network interface card is dropping packets, causing retransmissions.

Answer

The server's memory is insufficient, causing excessive swapping to disk.

Question 10

A company has a Windows Server 2022 server running Hyper-V. The server hosts a virtual machine (VM) that runs a database. The VM is configured with 16 GB of static memory. Users report that the database performance is slow during peak hours. The administrator notices that the Hyper-V host has 32 GB of RAM and is running three other VMs, each with 8 GB of static memory. The host is experiencing high memory pressure. Which of the following should the administrator implement to improve performance?

Accepted Answer

Add more physical RAM to the host.. The host is overallocated: 16 GB + 3*8 GB = 40 GB of static memory assigned, but only 32 GB physical. This causes high memory pressure and slow performance. Adding more physical RAM is the direct solution to eliminate the shortage.

Answer

Enable Hyper-V Replica for the database VM.

Answer

Configure a virtual NUMA topology for the database VM.

Answer

Enable Dynamic Memory on the database VM.

Question 11

A technician is replacing a failed hard drive in a hot-swap RAID 5 array. After inserting the new drive, the RAID controller does not automatically rebuild. What should the technician do first?

Accepted Answer

Manually initiate a rebuild from the RAID controller utility. In a hot-swap RAID 5 array, the controller detects the new drive but may not begin rebuilding automatically depending on its configuration — some controllers require an explicit rebuild command. The technician's first action should be to open the RAID controller utility (e.g., MegaRAID Storage Manager, Dell OpenManage, or HPE Smart Storage Administrator) and manually initiate the rebuild. This is the least invasive step and directly addresses the missing rebuild.

Answer

Check the SAS cable connection

Answer

Reboot the server

Answer

Replace the drive with a different model

Question 12

A datacenter technician is preparing to install a new 2U server that uses a hardware RAID controller with a battery-backed write cache. The server will run a transactional database. The technician wants to ensure the write cache remains enabled during a power loss. Which of the following should the technician verify FIRST?

Accepted Answer

That the RAID controller's battery or supercapacitor is installed, charged, and reported healthy in the controller management utility.. Hardware RAID controllers with battery-backed or supercapacitor-backed write cache enable write-back mode only while cache protection is healthy. If the protection module is missing, charging, or failed, the controller defaults to write-through, which protects data but slows database writes. Confirming the cache protection module is installed and healthy is the first step before expecting write-back performance.

Answer

That the server's redundant power supplies are connected to two separate PDUs on different utility feeds.

Answer

That the database is configured with a RAID 10 volume rather than RAID 5 to reduce write amplification.

Answer

That the operating system write cache is disabled at the volume level to prevent double caching.

Question 13

A company runs a critical web application on a Windows Server 2022 with IIS. The application uses a SQL Server 2019 database on a separate server. Users report that the application sometimes becomes unresponsive for 30–60 seconds, then recovers. Performance Monitor on the web server shows a spike in ASP.NET Requests Queued and a drop in Requests/Sec during the incidents. The database server shows no performance issues. Which action should the administrator take to resolve the intermittent unresponsiveness?

Accepted Answer

Analyze and optimize the application code to eliminate blocking calls and improve asynchronous processing.. Intermittent unresponsiveness with spikes in ASP.NET Requests Queued and reduced Requests/Sec typically indicates thread pool starvation caused by blocking operations in the application. Optimizing code to use asynchronous calls and eliminating blocking I/O allows the thread pool to handle more concurrent requests, resolving the queuing and restoring responsiveness. Other options do not address the root cause.

Answer

Configure the application pool to use a dedicated identity with higher privileges.

Answer

Enable Web Garden mode by setting the maximum worker processes to 4.

Answer

Increase the ASP.NET request queue limit in the application pool settings.

Question 14

A technician is preparing to add a second processor to a dual-socket server that currently has one CPU installed. The server will run a memory-intensive virtualization workload. Which of the following steps are required for the upgrade to function correctly? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

Populate the memory slots associated with the new processor according to the server's population rules.. Adding a second physical processor requires a matched CPU that the firmware supports, and it requires memory to be installed in the DIMM slots wired to that processor's integrated memory controller. Without matched CPUs the system may not POST, and without populated local memory the new socket cannot operate correctly.

Answer

Move all existing DIMMs to the slots belonging to the second processor to balance the load.

Answer

Reinstall the operating system so it can detect the additional processor sockets.

Answer

Disable hyper-threading in firmware so the second processor's cores are recognized.

Question 15

A technician is adding a second CPU to a previously single-socket 2U server. The server boots but the operating system reports only half of the newly installed CPU's memory channels as populated, and total RAM is lower than expected. Which of the following is the MOST likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The DIMMs for the second CPU were not populated according to the memory population guidelines for that socket.. A second physical CPU brings its own memory controller and DIMM slots, and those slots must be filled following the platform's population rules. When slots are left unpopulated in the required order, the corresponding channels are disabled and the OS reports less memory and fewer channels than installed. Verifying the vendor population table for the second socket restores full capacity.

Answer

The system BIOS requires a firmware downgrade to recognize the second CPU's memory controller.

Answer

The second CPU's integrated memory controller failed and must be replaced under warranty.

Answer

The second CPU was installed in the wrong socket orientation and is running at reduced capacity.