Master Linux System Admin: 100 Quiz Questions & Answers

1. cron daemon is used for: Answer: D

2. Which of the following is a block device in most Linux distributions? Answer: B

3. Which Linux command can display one page of output at a time? Answer: C

4. How do you find out how much space is left in the current directory? Answer: D

5. How do you change a file's permission settings? Answer: B

6. To find which package a file belongs to (e.g., /etc/my.conf), you can run: Answer: C

7. If the system is running at level 3, how can you switch to level 5 without rebooting? Answer: B

8. Which command changes IDE hard‑disk settings? Answer: C

9. Which command lists all tasks scheduled to run once at a specific future time? Answer: A

10. The command "set PS1=\"[\u\w\t]\\$\" ; export PS1" does what? Answer: B

11. To place a default .bashrc in every new user's home directory, which directory should you use? Answer: A

12. In bash, what does the export command do? Answer: C

13. With shadow passwords, the correct permissions for /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow are: Answer: C

14. Which parameter deletes a user and their home directory? Answer: C

15. To run a backup program at 1 pm and 8 pm Monday‑Friday, which crontab entry works? Answer: B

16. How do you unmount a mounted filesystem? Answer: A

17. With a umask of 022, the default permissions for a newly created file are: Answer: D

18. Which command finds the path of a binary command Xconfigurator? Answer: D

19. Which command mounts all filesystems defined in /etc/fstab? Answer: B

20. To run a script, the user does NOT need which permission? Answer: B

21. How is the second extended partition of a slave IDE0 hard‑disk identified? Answer: C

22. Which command sets a process's priority at startup? Answer: B

23. In bash, what does "1>&2" mean? Answer: C

24. Which command copies f1.txt to f2.txt? Answer: C

25. Which command shows the last few lines of a file? Answer: B

26. How do you quickly switch to user John’s home directory? Answer: D

27. Which command converts all characters in a stream to uppercase? Answer: A

28. Which command displays Linux boot information? Answer: B

29. Run‑level definitions are stored in: Answer: B

30. How to mount all filesystems defined in /etc/fstab? Answer: A

31. If a symbolic link points to file old and old is deleted, can you still access the data? Answer: A

32. In an xt2fs filesystem, what default space is reserved for root? Answer: C

33. Which command shows inode usage for each partition? Answer: A

34. In most Linux distributions, which run‑level corresponds to graphical mode? Answer: D

35. To find all documentation about the word "print" in system docs, you use: Answer: D

36. What does "man 5 passwd" display? Answer: B

37. How to find all lines starting with "*" in a file? Answer: D

38. Which ps option shows processes of all users? Answer: A

39. Which command displays a binary file? Answer: A

40. How to display the number of registered users (including system users) in Linux? Answer: D

41. Which symbol at the end of a line indicates continuation on the next line? Answer: B

42. What does "kill -9" mean? Answer: D

43. How to delete a non‑empty subdirectory /tmp? Answer: B

44. Which command runs cmd1 at midnight today? Answer: D

45. For incremental backups, in what order should you restore data? Answer: B

46. Where should system‑wide variable settings be placed? Answer: B

47. If ls is aliased to "ls --color", how can you use the original ls? Answer: A

48. What should a typical Linux script start with? Answer: B

49. Which syntax runs cmd2 only if cmd1 succeeds? Answer: A

50. In which file are the network card I/O addresses defined? Answer: C

51. What software provides TCP/IP packet filtering in Linux? Answer: C

52. How to pause a print queue? Answer: C

53. Which vi command exits without saving? Answer: D

54. In XFree86 3.x, the default font server is: Answer: A

55. Which command checks basic network connectivity? Answer: A

56. Which protocol uses more than one port? Answer: B

57. In PPP, which authentication protocol does NOT transmit passwords in clear text? Answer: D

58. Which filesystem should be allocated the most space? Answer: A

59. How to install an rpm package on Debian? Answer: D

60. Which step of software installation requires root privileges? Answer: D

61. Which command updates already installed rpm packages? Answer: B

62. In a Windows‑Linux dual‑boot system, where should LILO be placed to manage boot? Answer: A

63. The configuration file for ldconfig is: Answer: B

64. Which command compresses a set of files? Answer: C

65. Which daemon is a network service? Answer: D

66. Which daemon is needed for Linux‑Windows network sharing? Answer: B

67. For Apache, the default user for child processes is: Answer: D

68. In sendmail, the default location for unsent mail is: Answer: C

69. The main configuration file for Apache is: Answer: A

70. Where are parameters like I/O addresses for loadable modules stored? Answer: A

71. How to disable mail notifications in Linux? Answer: B

72. In a bash shell, pressing Control‑Z while a command runs will: Answer: C

73. Which files define the bash environment for a user? Answer: D

74. Which command shows the libraries used by a program? Answer: A

75. How to view the configuration files of an RPM package? Answer: A

76. How to view the changelog of an RPM package? Answer: D

77. Which Makefile command installs compiled code? Answer: D

78. Which command extracts a tar archive? Answer: B

79. In XF86Config, which section sets the font file? Answer: A

80. 8‑bit color refers to: Answer: C

81. Which file sets the X window display resolution? Answer: D

82. Which variable specifies the X server for remote X applications? Answer: A

83. In xdm’s configuration, which file defines applications started after login? Answer: A

84. If "netstat -a" hangs, the likely problem is with: Answer: B

85. The protocol used by ping is: Answer: D

86. Which command is NOT used for network troubleshooting? Answer: B

87. The protocol commonly used for dial‑up networking is: Answer: A

88. Which protocol provides automatic IP allocation? Answer: C

89. Which file defines network service ports? Answer: B

90. Which command generates a file checksum? Answer: D

91. By default, where are user mails stored? Answer: D

92. Which file lists directories exported for NFS daemon? Answer: C

93. How to stop the telnet service on a machine? Answer: D

94. In which file are sendmail aliases saved? Answer: A

95. The configuration file for smbd and nmbd daemons is: Answer: B

96. Which command unloads a kernel module? Answer: A

97. When must you run lilo? Answer: C

98. Which command shows all loaded modules? Answer: A

99. Which command flushes the printer queue? Answer: B

100. Which command displays network card interrupts? Answer: B