LPIC-1 Devices, Filesystems and FHS Practice Question
A Linux system has a 500GB SSD. The administrator wants to partition it to support a web server with the following requirements: root (/) 20GB, swap 4GB, /var 50GB, /home 100GB, and the remaining for /srv. Which partitioning strategy is best practice according to the FHS and performance considerations?
⚠ Common exam trap
A common mix-up: candidates choose LVM (Option B) thinking it is always best practice for flexibility, but the question explicitly asks for best practice according to the FHS and performance considerations — for a fixed-size single disk with known requirements, simple partitions are simpler, faster, and more aligned with FHS separation principles than LVM's added abstraction layer.
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
✓
Create separate partitions for root, swap, /var, /home, and /srv.
Creating separate partitions for root, swap, /var, /home, and /srv aligns with best practices for the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (FHS) and performance isolation. This approach prevents one filesystem from exhausting space needed by another (e.g., runaway logs in /var cannot fill /home) and allows independent mount options (e.g., noexec on /home) and filesystem tuning for each mount point.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Use a single partition for root, but create separate partitions for /tmp, /var, /home, and /srv.
Why it's wrong here
Separating /tmp is unnecessary and reduces available space for other uses.
- ✗
Create a single LVM volume group with logical volumes for each mount point.
Why it's wrong here
LVM introduces metadata overhead and logical volume management complexity that is unnecessary for a fixed-size, single-disk deployment with static partition sizes explicitly defined in the requirements; the scenario does not demand dynamic resizing or snapshot capabilities. It is tempting because LVM excels in environments requiring flexible storage reallocation across multiple physical disks or frequent partition resizing, where its volume abstraction would be the correct choice.
- ✓
Create separate partitions for root, swap, /var, /home, and /srv.
Why this is correct
Separate partitions provide isolation, prevent one oversize from affecting others, and allow different mount options per filesystem.
- ✗
Allocate one large partition for root and use bind mounts for /var, /home, and /srv.
Why it's wrong here
Bind mounts don't provide isolation; if root fills, all directories are affected.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This LPIC-1 practice question is part of Courseiva's free LPI certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the LPIC-1 exam.