EX200 Create and configure file systems Practice Question
Which command displays the UUID of all file systems on the system?
⚠ Common exam trap
Red Hat often tests the distinction between partition-level identifiers (shown by `fdisk -l` for GPT partition UUIDs) and filesystem-level UUIDs (shown by `blkid`), leading candidates to mistakenly choose `fdisk -l` when the question specifically asks for filesystem UUIDs.
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
✓
blkid
The `blkid` command is the correct choice because it is specifically designed to locate and display block device attributes, including the UUID, filesystem type, and label, for all filesystems on the system. It reads data from the `/dev/disk/by-uuid/` directory and the `udev` database, making it the most direct and reliable tool for querying UUIDs without requiring root privileges for basic output.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
blkid
Why this is correct
blkid is the dedicated utility that enumerates all block devices visible to the system and prints each file system's UUID, TYPE, LABEL, PARTUUID, and other attributes by default. Since it scans every block device under /dev via libblkid, a bare `blkid` command displays the UUIDs of all file systems without needing a device argument or a filesystem-specific tool.
- ✗
dumpe2fs -h
Why it's wrong here
dumpe2fs -h reads and prints the ext superblock and group descriptors, and while it does include the filesystem UUID in its output, it only works for ext2/ext3/ext4 and requires you to explicitly pass one device (e.g., `dumpe2fs -h /dev/sda1`). It cannot enumerate all file systems on the machine, and it fails outright on other filesystem types such as XFS or Btrfs, so it is not a general-purpose UUID listing tool.
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lsblk
Why it's wrong here
lsblk displays block devices in a dependency tree, but by default its columns are NAME, MAJ:MIN, RM, SIZE, RO, TYPE, and MOUNTPOINTS — not UUID. You would have to add `-f` (or `-o UUID`) to make lsblk show filesystem UUIDs, so the bare command does not satisfy the requirement, even though it is a common tool for inspecting block-device topology.
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fdisk -l
Why it's wrong here
fdisk -l reads the partition table on a disk and reports partition entries such as start/end sectors, size, and partition type IDs, but it does not parse the filesystem superblock to recover filesystem UUIDs. It can show a disk identifier and, on GPT, partition UUIDs, yet these are partition-table UUIDs, not the filesystem UUID values that `blkid` prints.
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