CST2415

Which option of the rpm command is used to verify the cryptographic signature so you know for certain the person or organization that created a given rpm file?

-checksig or -K

The GRUB boot manager can be reconfigured directly as you boot your system, but is also controlled by this configuration file:

/boot/grub/grub.conf

The ____ file can include a username in order to deny that user access to the crontab command.

/etc/cron.deny

The init program relies on the following configuration file:

/etc/inittab

Name the two run levels normally used to run a Linux-based computer, and describe the difference between the two run levels.

1 for single-user, 3 for multi-user (server) The difference between the two is very obvious level one is for single users, level 3 is for multiple for instance Pandora that we use is a multi user linux coputer.

A simple method for root to schedule recurring system administration tasks is to:

Add a script to a directory such as /etc/cron.daily or /etc/cron.weekly

The command ps -A XO comm displays the following information:

All processes running on the system, including those with no controlling terminal, with the command-line field displayed for each one

Describe the difference between an alias and a symbolic link.

An alias is a string substitution by a shell. a symbolic link is a pointer.

If you attempt to unmount a mounted file system and receive an error message, the most likely cause is:

An error on the physical media that Linux cannot interpret

Thrashing occurs when

An excessive amount of information is moved to and from the swap partition in a short time

The chkconfig command is used to:

Change the boot-up status of a service that is controlled via a script located in /etc/rc.d/init.d

Explain the difference between the configuration data stored in files within the /etc/sysconfig directory and service-specific configuration data stored in other subdirectories of /etc.

Configurations in the sysconfig directory can be edited by the user, service-specific configurations are made by the system.

When using the at command interactively to enter commands scheduled for future execution, you indicate that you have finished entering commands

Ctrl+d

The command rpm -q packagename does the following:

Determines whether packagename is installed on the system

The command vmstat 4 will do which of the following?

Display continuous updates of the virtual memory status on a new line every four seconds.

The fdisk utility is used to:

Establish partitions of the correct type to hold a Linux file system

If you have an rpm-format file stored on your system, then you use the rpm command to install that software package, the rpm file will no longer be on your system. True or False?

FALSE

A boot loader can be configured to boot multiple Linux kernel that use the same partition as their root file system. True or False?

False

Virtual memory space to be used by the kernel must be located on a single separate partition, which can be located either on the same hard disk or a different hard disk from the root file system. True or False?

False

Output from a command executed as part of a cron job cannot be redirected to a file using standard redirection operators because the environment in which the cron job was created is unlikely to exist when the cron job is executed. True or False?

False. Data can be redirected to a file; messages cannot as easily be written to the screen

The df utility provides information about which one of the following?

File system capacity, device name, and percentage used status

The df utility provides information about which one of the following?

File system capacity, device name, and percentage used status for each mounted file system

How can you switch between multiple virtual consoles in text and graphical environments?

From graphical mode, press Ctrl+Alt+F1 through +F6. From text mode, press Alt+F1 through +F6, or Alt+F7 to return to graphical interface.

Explain the meaning of this line in the /etc/group file: webmasters:x:710:rthomas,cyang

GID of 710 users as members

On new computers, the BIOS can typically boot from which of the following devices?

Hard disks, CD-ROM drives, removable disks, a network connection, or USB devices

A mounted file system is defined as one that:

Has been included as part of the Linux directory structure

A mounted file system is one that:

Has been included as part of the Linux directory structure

The Shadow Password Suite enhances Linux security by:

Hiding encrypted passwords in a file that only root can read

Name, in order from left to right, the fields of the crontab time specification, giving the range of valid numeric values for each one. Minute of the hour: This field can range from 0 to 59.

Hour of the day: range from 0 to 23. Day of the month: range from 0 to 31, Month of the year: range from 0 to 12. Day of the week: range 0 to 7 (0 and 7 are both Sunday; 1 is Monday) name (in upper- or lowercase).

The timeout= parameter in a GRUB configuration and the delay=parameter in a LILO configuration both refer to:

How long the boot loader waits for user input before booting the default operating system.

Describe how the newgrp command relates to the second field of each record in the /etc/group file.

If the second field of the /etc/group file includes an encrypted password for a group, then 7sers can execute the newgrp command

Which command is typically executed when the Ctrl+Alt+Del key combination is pressed, and where is that command configured?

Immediately restarts the machine; It is stored in the /etc/initab file.

Which feature is part of GRUB but not LILO?

Including non-Linux operating systems in the list of bootable devices.

Describe the main advantage of having swap space located on a hard disk separate from the Linux data partitions.

It avoids the problem of "sharing" time as both the kernel and application programs compete for hard disk access to the same disk.

Describe why the find command is often used with tar or cpio for backups.

It can select files with specific characteristics.

Describe the effect of the defaults option in a configuration line of the /etc/fstab file.

It sets the following options for the file system to which it is applied: rw, suid, dev, exec, auto, nouser, and async

Execute permission on a file is required to:

Launch that file as a program

By starting multiple jobs from one shell, you can:

Manage those jobs with the jobs, fg, and bg commands

If you enter a new password for a user account that can be easily guessed, the message BAD PASSWORD appears and the password is:

Not updated unless you are root

Disk quotas let you manage how much disk space a user consumes, but they must be first enabled:

On the file system where you want the quota to apply (in /etc/fstab)

If you attempt to unmount a mounted file system and receive an error message, the most likely cause is:

One or more users are working in the file system

Name the two widely used software package formats for Linux, with the file extension used for each type and the command line utility used to manage each.

Red Hat Package Manager, with an .rpm extension, managed by the rpm command Debian package format, with a .deb extension, managed by the dpkg command

When using LILO rather than GRUB, you must do which of the following after making a configuration change in order for the change to be effective the next time you boot Linux?

Run the lilo command as root.

Name the graphical configuration utility provided with Red Hat Linux and Fedora that can be used in place of the command-line utilities service and chkconfig.

Service Configuration utility

If a journaling file system prevents partially written information from causing a corrupted file system in Linux, why is it still important to use graceful shutdown techniques rather than just turning off the system power?

So that all information is saved, including settings of any program.

The files in /etc/rc.d/init.d can be used to:

Stop and restart most standard services in Linux.

The field in the ps command output defines how much cumulative CPU time a process has used since it was started.

TIME

Which of the following occurs first when a computer is booted?

The CPU starts executing commands found in the BIOS.

What does the fourth field in /etc/passwd contain?

The GID for the primary user group .

Assuming a standard configuration, the BIOS looks first in which of the following locations on a hard disk when trying to find a boot loader or operating system?

The boot record of the active partition on the first IDE hard disk.

The CMDLlNE field of the ps command output displays:

The command line used to start the process shown on each line

The output of the id command includes:

The effective UID, the effective GID, and a list of groups that the effective UID user is a member of.

The /etc/passwd file does not contain which of the following fields:

The file privileges for the user

In order to use chained boot loaders, you must be certain that:

The first boot loader can be found by the BIOS, and each operating system can be reached via one of the chained boot loaders.

Describe the effect of including a hyphen when executing the su command.

The hyphen causes the su command to execute all login scripts.

Name two attributes that are currently supported by the ext3 file system and two attributes that are not yet supported or are used only for developers at this time.

The i, a, D and A attributes are supported and likely to be useful. Unsupported attributes include c and u. Others are mentioned in the section "File System Attributes"

Dynamically linked applications are preferred for their better memory usage unless:

The necessary libraries to run the application are not installed on the Linux system

Describe the output of the uname command.

The output of the uname command is it prints the name of the system on the screen.

To create or change a password on any user account, the following is used:

The passwd command

The scripts in /etc/rc.d/init.d are provided by

The software package that installs the service that the script controls.

The batch command is used to schedule jobs so that:

The system will not be overloaded with scheduled tasks

Why should you not use a standard text editor to add users to /etc/passwd

There might be two administrator editing the same user password at the same time or making a typing mistake. Best practice is to use passwd to create password.

Which of the following statements about boot parameters is accurate?

They are passed to the Linux kernel by the boot loader.

A user's primary group can be a User Private Group. True or False? Explain.

True. User Private Group is used when a user must be in that users primary group.

Describe at least four fields of information provided by the command ps auxf.

USER, TTY, TIME, PID

Describe why you should try SIGTERM before using SIGKILL.

Using SIGKILL causes the kernel to end a process, which may cause data loss. SIGTERM asks the process itself to finish its work and exit.

The service command is used to:

View or change the current status of a service via a script in /etc/rc.d/init.d

The Linux kernel is able to support multiple file systems types because it uses

a virtual file system that separates standard disk operations from the drivers that perform those operations.

The background processes that manage commands submitted using at and cron are:

atd and crond

Name the two separate commands that can be used instead of at -l and at -d.

atq and atrm

Which utility typically provides the highest compression ratio (makes the smallest compressed file from a given data file).

bzip2

The tar utility differs from the cpio utility in that:

cpio always reads and writes to STDIN and STDOUT, while tar uses command-line parameters

Briefly explain the difference in time specification formats for the at and crontab commands.

crontab lets you specify multiple occasions to run a program using a set of indicators I think 5; at lets you specify a single time in the future but lets you use words like "now," "tomorrow," and "hours."

Which of the following lists contains only commands used to learn about the status of file systems?

df, du, fsck, tune2fs, mount

The _ utility displays kernel hardware configuration messages from the system boot process.

dmesg

The output of a cron job is normally sent via _____ to the user who submitted the cron job or to the user defined by the _____ variable within the file containing the cron job.

e-mail, MAILTO

Which command is used to establish a quota for a user when disk space quotas have been enabled for a file system?

edquota

Which of these programs does not allow you to change the nice level of a running process?

free

The tar command creates archive files that are most often compressed by the ____ command.

gzip

Name three commands that can be used to begin a graceful shutdown of Linux.

halt, reboot, poweroff

A zombie process is one that

is no longer in existence, though the Linux kernel still maintains information as if it were

Defragmentation, the process of collecting all parts of a file into one contiguous part of a hard disk,

is not needed in Linux because of the way ext2, ext3, and other Linux file systems arrange files.

Which command is used to create a symbolic link?

ln

The owner and group assigned to a file are shown by which of the following commands?

ls -l

The ____ command is used to display the attributes assigned to a file or directory.

lsattr

Within the redhat-config-packages utility, selecting details and checking a package name

marks the package as one that will be installed after the Update button is selected after other categories of packages have also been reviewed for possible changes.

The Linux command used to format a Linux ext3 hard disk partition is

mke2fs

The autofs service is used to

permit users to access file systems that are not mounted by automatically mounting them when the user enters a configured directory (mount point).

Which of the following commands is invalid if run by a regular user?

renice -10 1035

If you know the name of a package, you can see a list of all the files contained in that package using this command:

rpm -ql packagename

To update the process data displayed by the top command, you would press which key?

spacebar

If the far left column in the output of the ls -l command showed the character "s" you would know that the object on that line was a

special block device file

The volume label for a file system is

stored in the superblock

What is the command you use to cause the init program to reread its configuration file after you have made changes to it?

telinit q

When querying an installed package using the -q option, you use _____; when installing an rpm file using the -U option, you use_____

the name of the package alone; the complete filename with all version numbers and file extensions.

Which piece of information is not provided in the output when the mount command is entered with no parameters or options?

the size of each mounted file system

The command chmod 744 report.doc grants_______ execute permission to the report.doc file.

user (the file's owner)

The Linux kernel is a file having a name that starts with _____ and typically stored in the ______ subdirectory.

vmlinuz, /boot

All processes in Linux, except the init process (PID 1) are created

when another process forks

The ___ option causes the tar command to extract files from an archive file or device.

x