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Administrative Tasks

Practise Linux Professional Institute Certification Level 1 LPIC-1 Administrative Tasks practice questions — original exam-style scenarios with answer choices, explanations, and analysis of common mistakes.

71 questions19 easy26 medium26 hard

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What this domain covers

What to know about Administrative Tasks

Administrative Tasks questions test whether you can apply the concept in context, not just recognise a definition.

How the topic appears in realistic exam-style scenarios.

Which detail in the question changes the correct answer.

How to eliminate plausible but wrong options.

How to connect the question back to the wider exam objective.

Watch out for

Common Administrative Tasks exam traps

  • Answering from memory before reading the full scenario.
  • Missing a constraint such as cost, availability, security, scope or command context.
  • Choosing a broad answer when the question asks for the most specific fix.
  • Ignoring why the wrong options are tempting.

Question index

All Administrative Tasks questions (71)

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1

A system administrator wants to configure log rotation to compress log files daily and keep 30 days of logs. Which of the following configurations achieves this goal?

Medium
2

Which TWO commands can be used to display the current runlevel of a system?

Medium
3

Refer to the exhibit. The root partition is at 80% usage. Which action would reduce usage the most?

Medium
4

An administrator adds the line 'DenyUsers john' to /etc/ssh/sshd_config and restarts the SSH service. What is the effect?

Easy
5

Which two commands can be used to display the amount of free and used memory in the system?

Easy
6

A Linux administrator is responsible for a server that runs a critical database application. The server uses SysV init and the current runlevel is 3. The administrator needs to schedule a maintenance window for next Sunday at 2:00 AM to apply security patches that require a reboot. The administrator wants to ensure that after the reboot, the system returns to runlevel 3 and the database service (db_service) starts automatically. The administrator also wants to log the maintenance actions to /var/log/maintenance.log. Which of the following is the BEST approach to accomplish these tasks?

Medium
7

A server has a backup script that runs daily at midnight. The system administrator notices that the script sometimes fails because the filesystem is mounted read-only. Which approach is the best practice to ensure the script runs only when the filesystem is writable?

Hard
8

Which configuration file is the primary configuration file for logrotate?

Medium
9

Based on the exhibit, which of the following is true about the cleanup.sh job?

Medium
10

Which command displays all error messages from the systemd journal since the last boot?

Medium
11

An administrator wants to run a shell script every day at 2:00 AM. Which command should be used to edit the user's personal crontab?

Easy
12

To prevent the 'nouveau' kernel module from loading at boot, which configuration file should be edited?

Hard
13

An administrator wants to allow user 'john' to run all commands as root without a password. Which sudoers entry accomplishes this?

Medium
14

An administrator notices the system clock is drifting. Which command can be used to enable automatic time synchronization using NTP on a system with systemd?

Medium
15

Which THREE files are used by CUPS to manage printer queues? (Choose THREE.)

Hard
16

A system is not logging messages to /var/log/syslog. Which command should an administrator use first to diagnose the issue?

Medium
17

Which THREE commands are used to manage systemd services? (Choose THREE.)

Medium
18

Arrange the steps to troubleshoot a service that fails to start.

Medium
19

An administrator ran 'dnf update' and a critical application broke. The administrator wants to undo the last transaction and return to previous state. Which command should be used?

Hard
20

An administrator needs to find all files in the /var/log directory that have been modified in the last 24 hours. Which command should be used?

Easy
21

Which TWO commands can be used to display the current runlevel of a SysV init system?

Easy
22

Which TWO commands can be used to view all running processes on a Linux system? (Choose TWO.)

Easy
23

A user reports that a cron job is not executing. The cron job is defined in /etc/crontab. The administrator checks the system logs and finds no errors. Which command should the administrator use to verify that the cron daemon is running?

Easy
24

An administrator needs to check the system's load averages without displaying any process information. Which command should be used?

Easy
25

An administrator wants to prevent a specific user, 'john', from being able to schedule cron jobs. Which file should the administrator modify?

Medium
26

Refer to the exhibit. What can be concluded about the cron daemon based on this systemctl output?

Medium
27

A system administrator needs to ensure a custom script runs every time the system boots. Where should the script be placed for execution during the boot process on a standard Linux system?

Medium
28

A user can successfully ping a web server but cannot access the website via a browser. Which is the most likely cause?

Hard
29

Which THREE directories are commonly used for mounting removable media in Linux?

Medium
30

Refer to the exhibit. An administrator runs 'ntpq -p' and sees the output shown. What is the most likely cause of the '16' stratum and '0.000' delay/offset?

Hard
31

After creating a new user with 'useradd john', the user 'john' cannot log in. What is the most likely cause?

Hard
32

A Linux system fails to boot with the error 'Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(0,0)'. Which of the following is the most likely cause?

Hard
33

A systemd service unit file must be configured to automatically restart the service if it exits unexpectedly. Which directive should be used?

Hard
34

Which THREE of the following statements are true about the /etc/shadow file?

Hard
35

Which THREE signals are commonly used to terminate a process with the kill command?

Hard
36

A system administrator needs to schedule a recurring maintenance task that runs every Monday at 3 AM. Which crontab entry is correct?

Easy
37

A zombie process appears in the process list. The parent process has PID 1234. Which command will most likely remove the zombie?

Medium
38

Refer to the exhibit. What is the file permission in numeric mode for /etc/crontab?

Easy
39

A system administrator wants to ensure that the syslog service starts automatically on boot and is running immediately without a reboot. Which command sequence should be used?

Hard
40

A system administrator needs to perform incremental backups of a large directory /data. The backup strategy requires a full backup every Sunday and incremental backups on weekdays. Which tar command satisfies this requirement using the --listed-incremental option?

Hard
41

Based on the exhibit, what will happen if the syslog service is stopped?

Hard
42

Refer to the exhibit. The administrator restarts the sshd service. What is the new main PID after restart?

Hard
43

Match each Linux signal to its default action.

Medium
44

An administrator wants to change the owner of all files in /data to user 'web' without changing the group. Which command should be used?

Medium
45

A user 'jdoe' already exists. The administrator needs to add 'jdoe' to the 'staff' and 'admin' groups without changing other group memberships. Which command accomplishes this?

Hard
46

To enable disk quotas for user quotas on a filesystem, which line should be added to /etc/fstab's mount options?

Easy
47

Which THREE steps are necessary to configure a static IP address using ifcfg files on a RHEL-based system? (Choose THREE.)

Hard
48

Which three commands are commonly used to display information about running processes?

Hard
49

An administrator needs to display the current and previous runlevels of a Linux system. Which command provides this information?

Hard
50

Refer to the exhibit. What is the current state of the SSH service?

Easy
51

Which command schedules a job to run once at 2:30 PM today?

Easy
52

A user reports that a file cannot be saved due to 'No space left on device'. Which command should the administrator use to verify disk usage?

Easy
53

Refer to the exhibit. During the next boot, which filesystem will be checked first by fsck?

Medium
54

Refer to the exhibit. The job runs every hour but the administrator notices that it does not execute on Sundays. Which cron syntax element is responsible?

Hard
55

A user reports that their cron jobs are not executing. The user has a valid crontab file and can execute the commands manually. Which of the following is the most likely cause of this issue?

Easy
56

Which three actions can an administrator take to securely erase data on a disk before decommissioning?

Medium
57

Which command is used to view the last few lines of a log file and simultaneously follow new entries as they are written?

Easy
58

Refer to the exhibit. This line is from /etc/passwd. What does the third field (1001) represent?

Easy
59

Refer to the exhibit. What is the purpose of the 'test -x /usr/sbin/anacron' command in the cron entries?

Hard
60

An administrator notices that /var/log/syslog is 3 GB in size, despite logrotate being configured to rotate logs weekly and keep 4 weeks. The logrotate configuration file /etc/logrotate.d/syslog contains: /var/log/syslog { weekly rotate 4 compress missingok notifempty } The administrator checks that logrotate is scheduled via cron and sees that the cron job exists. However, the administrator suspects that logrotate might not have been running. Which of the following commands should the administrator run first to force log rotation and diagnose the issue?

Medium
61

A medium-sized company runs a web application on a Linux server. The server uses systemd and has the following configuration: the web application service (webapp.service) is configured to start after network.target and requires a database service (database.service) to be running. The database service has a Restart=on-failure directive. Recently, the server experienced a power outage. Upon reboot, the system administrator notices that the web application fails to start because the database service is in a failed state. The administrator checks the status of database.service and sees 'inactive (dead)' with no recent attempts to restart. The journal shows that the database service failed to start because a required filesystem (mounted at /var/lib/database) was not mounted when the database service tried to start. The filesystem is listed in /etc/fstab with the nofail option. The administrator wants to ensure that in future reboots, the database service starts successfully and the web application comes up without manual intervention. Which of the following is the best course of action?

Hard
62

A small business uses a Linux server running CUPS to share a network printer. For several months, all employees could print successfully. Today, an employee in a different subnet reports that printing does not work. The administrator checks the server: cupsd is running, the printer is configured with an IPP URI pointing to the printer's IP address, and the printer is idle. The administrator can ping the printer from the server. The administrator checks the CUPS error log and sees the following line multiple times: 'E [04/Oct/2024:10:15:22 -0400] [Client 5] client-error-not-authorized'. Which of the following actions should the administrator take to resolve the issue?

Easy
63

Which TWO commands can be used to schedule a one-time task at a specific time in the future? (Choose TWO.)

Medium
64

A small business runs a Linux server hosting a web application and a PostgreSQL database. The server uses LVM for storage, with a single volume group vg_data containing two logical volumes: lv_web (50GB) and lv_db (100GB). The root filesystem is on a separate disk. The administrator receives alerts that the database volume is at 95% capacity. The server has additional unused space from a recently added disk that was added to the volume group as an additional physical volume, but the space has not been allocated. The administrator runs 'vgs' which shows VG vg_data with total size 500GB, allocated 150GB, and free 350GB. The administrator wants to increase the size of lv_db by 50GB. Which course of action should the administrator take?

Hard
65

An administrator wants to enforce a password history that prevents using the last 5 passwords. Which directive should be added to /etc/pam.d/system-auth?

Hard
66

An administrator needs to restart the SSH service after a configuration change. Which TWO commands can accomplish this on a systemd-based system?

Medium
67

In the /etc/shadow file, a user's password hash begins with '$6$'. What hash algorithm does this prefix indicate?

Hard
68

A company security policy requires that user accounts be disabled after 90 days of inactivity. The system administrator locks user accounts using 'usermod -L username'. However, users with SSH key authentication can still log in. The administrator has verified that the locked flag is set in /etc/shadow. Which of the following is the most likely explanation?

Hard
69

A system administrator wants to schedule a script to run every Monday at 3:00 AM, but only if the system clock is set to local time (not UTC). Which crontab entry should be used?

Medium
70

Which command adds a new group named 'developers' to the system?

Easy
71

An administrator needs to extend a logical volume by 10GB. The volume group has available physical extents. Which command should be used?

Medium

Frequently asked questions

What does the Administrative Tasks domain cover on the LPIC-1 exam?
Administrative Tasks questions test whether you can apply the concept in context, not just recognise a definition.
How many questions are in this domain?
This page lists all 71 Administrative Tasks questions in the LPIC-1 question bank. The actual exam draws from this domain proportionally to its weighting in the official exam blueprint.
What is the best way to practise this domain?
Start with a short focused session (10 questions) to identify gaps, then work through explanations. Repeat with a longer session once the weak areas feel solid.
Can I practise only Administrative Tasks questions?
Yes — the session launcher on this page filters questions to this domain only. Choose any session length for inline explanations and scoring.
lpi-lpic1 LPI-LPIC1 admin tasks Practice Questions