XK0-006 System Management Practice Question
An administrator wants to display the last 20 lines of a log file and also write those lines to a file called recent.log. Which command should be used?
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
tail -n 20 file | tee recent.log
tail -n 20 file | tee recent.log displays the last 20 lines and writes them to recent.log. tee is used to split output to file and stdout.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
tail -n 20 file > recent.log
Why it's wrong here
Redirection writes to file but doesn't display to terminal.
- ✗
head -n 20 file > recent.log
Why it's wrong here
head shows first lines, not last; redirection writes to file but doesn't display.
- ✗
cat file | head -n 20 > recent.log
Why it's wrong here
Shows first 20 lines and writes to file, not last 20.
- ✓
tail -n 20 file | tee recent.log
Why this is correct
Correct: tail outputs last 20 lines, tee sends to both stdout and recent.log.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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