EX200 Create and configure file systems Practice Question
Exhibit
# mkfs.ext4 /dev/vg_data/lv_web mke2fs 1.45.6 (20-Mar-2020) Creating filesystem with 1048576 4k blocks and 262144 inodes Filesystem UUID: a1b2c3d4-e5f6-7890-abcd-ef1234567890 Superblock backups stored on blocks: 32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912, 819200, 884736 Allocating group tables: done Writing inode tables: done Creating journal (16384 blocks): done Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done # mount /dev/vg_data/lv_web /var/www/html # df -h /var/www/html Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/mapper/vg_data-lv_web 3.9G 16M 3.7G 1% /var/www/html # cat /etc/fstab | grep lv_web /dev/vg_data/lv_web /var/www/html ext4 defaults 0 0
Refer to the exhibit. The filesystem /var/www/html is mounted, but after a reboot, the directory is empty. What is the most likely cause?
⚠ Common exam trap
Red Hat often tests the misconception that a missing mount point or incorrect fstab entry is the cause, when the real issue is LVM volume group auto-activation being disabled or misconfigured.
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
✓
The logical volume is not activated at boot because the volume group is not set to auto-activate
If the volume group containing the logical volume is not set to auto-activate, the logical volume will not be available after reboot, causing the mount to fail silently or the filesystem to appear empty. The `auto_activation_volume_list` in `/etc/lvm/lvm.conf` controls which volume groups are activated automatically at boot; if the VG is excluded, the LV never becomes visible to the system.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
The filesystem type is incorrectly specified as ext4 in fstab
Why it's wrong here
The ext4 filesystem type in /etc/fstab is not the problem. The exhibit shows that the logical volume /dev/vg_data/lv_web was explicitly formatted with mkfs.ext4, so the on-disk format and the fstab entry agree. If the type were wrong, the mount command would report 'wrong fs type' or 'superblock invalid', but here the mount attempt would succeed once the device node actually exists. Since the filesystem is genuinely ext4, this option is incorrect.
- ✗
The mount point /var/www/html does not exist after reboot
Why it's wrong here
The mount point /var/www/html is a standard directory that exists on the root filesystem in a typical Red Hat Enterprise Linux installation, and unlike a filesystem device, a directory persists across reboots as long as the root filesystem itself mounts correctly. The failure occurs after the root filesystem is mounted and during the mount of the additional filesystem, so the mount point is already present. A missing mount point would produce an entirely different error at mount time ('mount point does not exist'), which is not the situation in this question.
- ✗
The device path /dev/vg_data/lv_web is not persistent across reboots
Why it's wrong here
The device path /dev/vg_data/lv_web is persistent across reboots because LVM uses stable device-mapper names based on the volume group and logical volume names, not on hardware enumeration order. As long as the volume group is recognized by LVM, the same /dev/vg_data/lv_web node will be created. The failure here is not that the path changes, but that the logical volume is never activated at boot, so the /dev node is never created in the first place. Thus blaming the device path persistence is incorrect.
- ✓
The logical volume is not activated at boot because the volume group is not set to auto-activate
Why this is correct
The logical volume /dev/vg_data/lv_web is not activated at boot because the volume group vg_data is not set to auto-activate. In RHEL, LVM auto-activation is controlled by the volume_list setting in /etc/lvm/lvm.conf or by the LVM systemd units; if vg_data is excluded, the /dev/mapper/vg_data-lv_web device node is not created at boot, so /etc/fstab's mount attempt fails with a 'special device does not exist' error. Running vgchange -ay vg_data or enabling auto-activation would make the mount succeed. This precisely matches the symptom in the exhibit, so this is the correct answer.
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