Topics for a Unix sysadmin interview

  1. Job Scheduling; mainly crontab, at, batch command
  2. Backup stetegy; incremental, full system back up; diff between tar & ufsdump
  3. diff between hard link & softlink
  4. How to list only the directories inside a directory (Ans. ls -l|grep "^d")
  5. RAID levels; pros & cons of diffrent levels; what is RAID 1+0
  6. How to recover a system whose root password has lost?
  7. What is a daemon?
  8. How to put a job in background & bring it to foreground?
  9. What is default permissions for others in a file?
  10. Questions on shell initialization scripts?
  11. Questions on restricted shell
  12. What is diff betwn grep & find?
  13. What is egrep?
  14. Questions on shell programming
  15. What is a pipe?
  16. Questions on Solaris patch management like pkgadd etc
  17. Questions on file system creation; actually what happens when we create a file system?
  18. Questions on RBAC? what is a role accound & what is a profile?
  19. From command line how will you add a user account? the full command will all arguments.
  20. Fs it advisable to put a swap partion in RAID1 (mirroring?) pros & cons?
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12 Comments on Topics for a Unix sysadmin interview

  1. Posted 6/5/2006 at 9:16 am | Permalink

    your interview questions are very good.I want linux interview questions and answers. thank you.

  2. chandru
    Posted 7/7/2006 at 3:53 am | Permalink

    I want GOOD LINUX INTERVIEW quastions.. if possible provide with answer.

  3. Raghavender
    Posted 7/16/2006 at 12:21 pm | Permalink

    Kindly request you to post the solutions too for the above questions, which would help us all to succeed in facing interviews..Am eagerly looking forward for my career in Unix Administration( linux and Solaris )…

  4. Raghavender
    Posted 7/16/2006 at 12:23 pm | Permalink

    Deamons are background running applications…

  5. Raghavender
    Posted 7/16/2006 at 12:41 pm | Permalink

    Default permissions for Others for a file would be r–( only read permssion )

  6. Raghavender
    Posted 7/16/2006 at 12:46 pm | Permalink

    To recover a system when the root password is lost— During reboot of the system, press ‘e’, with the help of arrow keys, highlight the second option which tells Kernel, and the append the line with ‘S’ at the end of the sentence, which would go into Single User Mode, then after entering, it wud ask you for root password, there-in you can create a new password for the root—— or —– u can type init S which would take you to the Single user Mode and then continue typing the new password for the root user…

  7. Raj Kumar
    Posted 7/26/2006 at 1:36 pm | Permalink

    1. crontab - to run a job(in background) at regular intervals of time.
    crontab -l -> lists all the cronjobs running under ur login.
    crontab -e -> to edit the cronjobs running under ur login.
    crontab -r -> to remove all the cronjobs running under ur login.

    at - command is for running a job at some point of time(given)
    {at
    list of jobs/scripts}

    3. A symbolic (soft) linked file and the targeted file can be located on the same or different file system while for a hard link they must be located on the same file system.

    8. to move it to background, bg
    to bring it to foreground, fg

    12. grep - searching for a pattern in a file (or some files).
    find - searching for a file and executing some commands on it.

    13. egrep - to search for multiple - patterns or expressions(stored in a file).

    15. pipe - redirection operator, the output of a command will be provided as an input to another.

  8. Larry Jones
    Posted 2/23/2007 at 12:03 pm | Permalink

    forgotten root password for redhat ws ?
    At the login screen, choose single session at right bottom of login screen. Wait, it will take to command prompt then type ‘passwd’. Change your password then type ‘exit’.

  9. Sumir
    Posted 5/23/2007 at 3:28 pm | Permalink

    Q> Which command would you use to trace system calls
    used by current processes?

    A> truss

    eg. truss cat /etc/resolv.conf

  10. radhakrishnan
    Posted 7/6/2007 at 9:17 am | Permalink

    to put a job in background we have to press ctrl+Z not bg..bg and fg is to resume the process in background and fore ground respectively

  11. sni
    Posted 10/5/2007 at 11:06 am | Permalink

    1)batch
    executes commands when system load levels permit; in other words, when the load average drops below 0.8, or the value specified in the invocation of atrun.

  12. sni
    Posted 10/5/2007 at 11:42 am | Permalink

    2)Ufsdump is a flavour specific command for backup in Solaris where as tar is a general unix command for the backup.With ufsdump we have incremental backup and we take offline backup also where as with tar we cant do it.

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