This LPIC-2 practice question tests your understanding of network client management. Read the scenario carefully and evaluate each option against the stated constraints before committing to an answer. After answering, compare your reasoning against the explanation and wrong-answer breakdown below. Once you have made your selection, read the full explanation to reinforce the concept and understand why each distractor is designed to mislead on exam day.
An administrator notices that an NFS mount on a client becomes unresponsive when the NFS server goes offline. The admin wants the mount to return an error to the application after a short timeout instead of hanging indefinitely. Which mount option should be added to the fstab entry?
intr
Why wrong: intr allows signals to interrupt a hard mount but does not cause immediate failure.
bg
Why wrong: bg only affects the mount attempt itself, not the behavior after mount.
hard
Why wrong: hard retries indefinitely, causing the mount to hang.
soft
The soft option allows NFS to time out and return an error.
Answer choices
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
soft
The `soft` mount option causes the NFS client to return an error to the application after a short timeout (typically 60 seconds by default) if the NFS server becomes unresponsive, rather than hanging indefinitely. This is the correct choice because the administrator specifically wants the mount to return an error after a short timeout instead of hanging.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Answer analysis
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
intr
Why it's wrong here
intr allows signals to interrupt a hard mount but does not cause immediate failure.
bg
Why it's wrong here
bg only affects the mount attempt itself, not the behavior after mount.
hard
Why it's wrong here
hard retries indefinitely, causing the mount to hang.
soft
Why this is correct
The soft option allows NFS to time out and return an error.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Common exam traps
LPI often tests the distinction between `hard` and `soft` mounts, and the trap here is that candidates may confuse `intr` (which only makes hard mounts interruptible) with a timeout-based error return, or think `bg` affects runtime behavior instead of mount-time retries.
Detailed technical explanation
Under the hood, the `soft` mount option sets the NFS client to use a `soft` retransmission policy: after the `timeo` (timeout) and `retrans` (retransmission count) thresholds are exceeded, the client returns an error (typically EIO or ESTALE) to the calling application. The default `timeo` is 0.7 seconds (700 ms) and `retrans` is 3, so the total timeout is roughly 2.1 seconds before an error is returned, though this can be tuned. In real-world scenarios, `soft` mounts are risky for critical data because they can cause silent data corruption if the server briefly goes offline during a write operation, as the client may return a success to the application even if the write was not committed to stable storage.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
A practitioner preparing for the LPIC-2 exam encounters this exact type of scenario on the job. The correct answer here is not the most general option — it is the best answer for the specific constraint described. Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option. Real exam questions reward reading the full scenario before eliminating options, because the constraint defines which answer fits.
What to study next
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FAQ
Network Client Management — This question tests Network Client Management — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
The correct answer is: soft — The `soft` mount option causes the NFS client to return an error to the application after a short timeout (typically 60 seconds by default) if the NFS server becomes unresponsive, rather than hanging indefinitely. This is the correct choice because the administrator specifically wants the mount to return an error after a short timeout instead of hanging.
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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Last reviewed: Jun 30, 2026
This LPIC-2 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-2 exam.
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