LPIC-1 · domain
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.
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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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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?
Medium2Which TWO commands can be used to display the current runlevel of a system?
Medium3Refer to the exhibit. The root partition is at 80% usage. Which action would reduce usage the most?
Medium4An administrator adds the line 'DenyUsers john' to /etc/ssh/sshd_config and restarts the SSH service. What is the effect?
Easy5Which two commands can be used to display the amount of free and used memory in the system?
Easy6A 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?
Medium7A 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?
Hard8Which configuration file is the primary configuration file for logrotate?
Medium9Based on the exhibit, which of the following is true about the cleanup.sh job?
Medium10Which command displays all error messages from the systemd journal since the last boot?
Medium11An 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?
Easy12To prevent the 'nouveau' kernel module from loading at boot, which configuration file should be edited?
Hard13An administrator wants to allow user 'john' to run all commands as root without a password. Which sudoers entry accomplishes this?
Medium14An administrator notices the system clock is drifting. Which command can be used to enable automatic time synchronization using NTP on a system with systemd?
Medium15Which THREE files are used by CUPS to manage printer queues? (Choose THREE.)
Hard16A system is not logging messages to /var/log/syslog. Which command should an administrator use first to diagnose the issue?
Medium17Which THREE commands are used to manage systemd services? (Choose THREE.)
Medium18Arrange the steps to troubleshoot a service that fails to start.
Medium19An 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?
Hard20An 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?
Easy21Which TWO commands can be used to display the current runlevel of a SysV init system?
Easy22Which TWO commands can be used to view all running processes on a Linux system? (Choose TWO.)
Easy23A 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?
Easy24An administrator needs to check the system's load averages without displaying any process information. Which command should be used?
Easy25An administrator wants to prevent a specific user, 'john', from being able to schedule cron jobs. Which file should the administrator modify?
Medium26Refer to the exhibit. What can be concluded about the cron daemon based on this systemctl output?
Medium27A 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?
Medium28A user can successfully ping a web server but cannot access the website via a browser. Which is the most likely cause?
Hard29Which THREE directories are commonly used for mounting removable media in Linux?
Medium30Refer 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?
Hard31After creating a new user with 'useradd john', the user 'john' cannot log in. What is the most likely cause?
Hard32A 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?
Hard33A systemd service unit file must be configured to automatically restart the service if it exits unexpectedly. Which directive should be used?
Hard34Which THREE of the following statements are true about the /etc/shadow file?
Hard35Which THREE signals are commonly used to terminate a process with the kill command?
Hard36A system administrator needs to schedule a recurring maintenance task that runs every Monday at 3 AM. Which crontab entry is correct?
Easy37A zombie process appears in the process list. The parent process has PID 1234. Which command will most likely remove the zombie?
Medium38Refer to the exhibit. What is the file permission in numeric mode for /etc/crontab?
Easy39A 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?
Hard40A 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?
Hard41Based on the exhibit, what will happen if the syslog service is stopped?
Hard42Refer to the exhibit. The administrator restarts the sshd service. What is the new main PID after restart?
Hard43Match each Linux signal to its default action.
Medium44An administrator wants to change the owner of all files in /data to user 'web' without changing the group. Which command should be used?
Medium45A 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?
Hard46To enable disk quotas for user quotas on a filesystem, which line should be added to /etc/fstab's mount options?
Easy47Which THREE steps are necessary to configure a static IP address using ifcfg files on a RHEL-based system? (Choose THREE.)
Hard48Which three commands are commonly used to display information about running processes?
Hard49An administrator needs to display the current and previous runlevels of a Linux system. Which command provides this information?
Hard50Refer to the exhibit. What is the current state of the SSH service?
Easy51Which command schedules a job to run once at 2:30 PM today?
Easy52A 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?
Easy53Refer to the exhibit. During the next boot, which filesystem will be checked first by fsck?
Medium54Refer 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?
Hard55A 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?
Easy56Which three actions can an administrator take to securely erase data on a disk before decommissioning?
Medium57Which command is used to view the last few lines of a log file and simultaneously follow new entries as they are written?
Easy58Refer to the exhibit. This line is from /etc/passwd. What does the third field (1001) represent?
Easy59Refer to the exhibit. What is the purpose of the 'test -x /usr/sbin/anacron' command in the cron entries?
Hard60An 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?
Medium61A 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?
Hard62A 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?
Easy63Which TWO commands can be used to schedule a one-time task at a specific time in the future? (Choose TWO.)
Medium64A 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?
Hard65An 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?
Hard66An administrator needs to restart the SSH service after a configuration change. Which TWO commands can accomplish this on a systemd-based system?
Medium67In the /etc/shadow file, a user's password hash begins with '$6$'. What hash algorithm does this prefix indicate?
Hard68A 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?
Hard69A 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?
Medium70Which command adds a new group named 'developers' to the system?
Easy71An administrator needs to extend a logical volume by 10GB. The volume group has available physical extents. Which command should be used?
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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.