EX342 Sample Questions & Answers
Centers on five tied leaders: general troubleshooting methods, diagnosing startup failures, recovering broken file systems, fixing network connectivity, and debugging applications, plus package dependency issues, PAM and LDAP problems, and crash-dump analysis.
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- Question 1AdvancedSelect 2
Understand and Employ General Methods for Troubleshooting · Configure systems to send log messages to a centralized host
You are configuring a centralized log server using
rsyslog. The requirement is to accept logs from clients over TCP on port 514 and store them in dynamic directories based on the hostname. Which TWO configuration directives must be present in/etc/rsyslog.confon the server? (Select TWO)Show answer & explanation
Correct answers: B, C
A dynamic template is required to store logs in directories based on properties like
%HOSTNAME%. The rule*.* ?RemoteLogsapplies this template to incoming messages.To accept TCP connections, the
imtcpmodule must be loaded and an input defined on port 514. - Question 2Intermediate
Understand and Employ General Methods for Troubleshooting · Configure systems to send log messages to a centralized host
A system administrator needs to troubleshoot a recurring issue where the
systemd-journaldservice rotates logs too frequently, losing critical historical data. The system has a dedicated/var/log/journaldirectory. Which configuration in/etc/systemd/journald.confshould be adjusted to increase the maximum disk space used by the journal?Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: A
SystemMaxUsecontrols the maximum disk space the persistent journal may use. Increasing this value allows more logs to be retained before rotation occurs. - Question 3Intermediate
Diagnose and Troubleshoot System Startup Issues · Identify and resolve service failures affecting boot
You are troubleshooting a system that hangs indefinitely during the boot process. You suspect a specific service is failing to start and blocking the boot sequence. To diagnose this, you want to enable a root shell on TTY9 early in the boot process. Which kernel command line parameter should you append to the boot loader entry?
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: D
Appending
systemd.debug-shell=1to the kernel command line enables thedebug-shell.service. This service spawns a root shell on TTY9 (Ctrl+Alt+F9) early in the boot process, allowing you to inspect the system state, checksystemctl list-jobs, and debug hanging services while the system is still booting. - Question 4Intermediate
Diagnose and Troubleshoot System Startup Issues · Regain root control of a system
A system administrator has lost the root password for a Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 system. They have rebooted the system, interrupted the GRUB boot loader, and appended
rd.breakto the kernel line. After the system boots into emergency mode, which sequence of commands is required to reset the password and ensure the system remains accessible after reboot?Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: D
The correct sequence is: 1) Remount
/sysrootas read-write (mount -o remount,rw /sysroot). 2) Change root into/sysroot(chroot /sysroot). 3) Change the password (passwd). 4) Create the autorelabel file (touch /.autorelabel) to ensure SELinux contexts are corrected on reboot, otherwise the system may fail to boot or deny access. - Question 5Intermediate
Diagnose and Troubleshoot System Startup Issues · Troubleshoot boot issues
After modifying
/etc/default/grubto remove therhgbandquietparameters for troubleshooting, you need to apply these changes. On a UEFI-based RHEL 8 system, which command should you run to regenerate the GRUB2 configuration file correctly?Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: C
On RHEL 8 systems using UEFI, the GRUB configuration file is located at
/boot/efi/EFI/redhat/grub.cfg. The commandgrub2-mkconfiggenerates the configuration, and-ospecifies the output file. Writing to/boot/grub2/grub.cfgis for BIOS-based systems and will not update the active configuration on a UEFI system. - Question 6Advanced
Diagnose and Troubleshoot System Startup Issues · Identify hardware and hardware problems
A server fails to boot after a kernel update, dropping into the emergency shell. The logs indicate that the system cannot find the logical volume containing the root filesystem. You suspect that the required LVM kernel modules are missing from the initramfs image. Which command can you use to inspect the contents of the initramfs image to verify this suspicion?
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: C
The
lsinitrdcommand lists the contents of an initramfs image. By piping the output to grep, you can verify if specific modules (like LVM drivers) are present. If they are missing, you would need to regenerate the initramfs usingdracut --force.
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