Skill / Hiring Test Two

A Technical Test for Unix System Administrators 

Scoring: 1 point for each correct answer, zero for "I don't know" or
an incorrect answer clearly identified as a guess, and -1 for obvious
guessing or BS-ing.


1.	Identify 5 options to the `ls' command and what they produce.














2.	How many fields are there in a standard BSD 4.3 /etc/passwd file,
	without shadow password or other extentions?




3.	What is the default login shell if that field in /etc/passwd is
	left blank?




4.	What are the limitations on a user login name in /etc/passwd?





5.	What is the difference between sections 1 and 8 in the Unix
	manual set?






6.	What is the difference between sections 4 and 5 in the Unix
	manual set?





7.	When is a user's .cshrc file executed and when is his/her
	.login executed relative to .cshrc?








8.	What is the difference between .xinitrc and .xsession?







9.	What files, ownerships and permissions must be set for rsh
	to work?









10.	What is the easiest way to tell which disk partition a
	particular file resides on?




11.	What is the difference between a hard link and a soft link?








12.	What does the setjmp() system call do in C?





13.	What is an advisable way to set your PATH environment variable
	to protect yourself from unintentionally invoking trojan horses?





14.	What does the `archie' tool do?




15.	What umask value would prevent anyone but you from writing or
	executing your files but still allows reads?




16.	What is the difference between a gateway and a router?









17.	What is the difference between the real and effective UID of
	a process (UID vs. EUID).







18.	What is the difference between sections 2 and 3 of the Unix
	manual set?








19.	What is the separator between messages in a UCB mbox mail file?




20.	What is the path of the C pre-processor on a standard BSD system?




21.	Where would you find the executable for `init' on SunOS,
	BSD 4.4, Ultrix, OSF/1.







22.	Where would you find the numeric value of the SIGPIPE signal?





23.	What is the primary difference between SIGKILL and SIGTERM.





24.	What does a file linked to the rlogin program do?






25.	How do you make a link to a directory?
	





26.	What is the class designation of an IP address (A, B, or C)
	used to determine?





27.	What class of IP address is 128.138.243.8?




28.	How do you unpack neattoy.tar.gz.shar?








29.	How do you forge mail "From santa.claus@northpole.org"?








30.	What does the -m option to lpr produce?





31.	How many SCSI devices can be connected to a workstation
	with a single SCSI controller interface?




32.	What is the SCSI id number of a workstation SCSI controller
	interface?




33.	What three commands are used to modify file ownership
	and permissions?




34.	How many terminators does an Ethernet network have?




35.	If a SCSI hard disk was formatted on a Sun and no data
	has yet been written to it, what needs to be done to
	use it on a non-Sun Unix system?





36.	If you've been using a SCSI hard disk on a Sun, what
	do you need to do in order to move that disk to a
	non-Sun Unix system and preserve the data.






	
37.	What information is stored in a disk label?






38.	What is the difference between mkfs and newfs?




39.	How do you calculate the total number of blocks or
	sectors available on a disk?





40.	What must a text file begin with to be recognized as
	PostScript code?




41.	What is the difference between PostScript and Encapsulated
	PostScript?




42.	What is the `lf' parameter used to designate in an lpd printer
	configuration (printcap) entry and why should you always
	define it?





43.	What is the command which controls or manages the BSD line
	printer daemon?




44.	Where are the files which are used to re-build a kernel?




45.	Which system or systems on a network answers an ARP request packet?




46.	What is the procedure for building a new kernel from a
	kernel configuration file?








47.	What command is the SLIP equivalent to `ifconfig'?




48.	To use a serial port for both dial-in and dial-out,
	how must the system and modem be configured?









49.	Why should 'routed' always be run with the -q option
	or not run at all?






50.	When you change /etc/exports, what must be done for
	mountd to recognize and incorporate the change?






51.	How does the fsck(8) command determine in which order
	to check the filesystems at boot time?








52.	Via NFS, by default the root access is enabled or disabled?




53.     On an NFS mounted filesystem, is a soft link is evaluated
	(followed) in the server hierarchy or client hierarchy?






54.	What file must be configured on all DNS clients and what
	are the minimum two lines it must contain to function?






55.	What is the "u" option to the dump command and why would
	you use it?








56.	What option to sendmail invokes rule parsing test mode?




57.	What shell does cron(8) execute command lines in?




58.	Name the three basic data types in PERL?




59.	How does the system determine which shell to invoke to
	execute a shell script?








60.	What can you use to edit a binary file?




61.	If a user has a mail loop, what two things should be
	checked at both systems involved to determine the
	source of the problem?






22.	Where would you find the numeric value of the SIGPIPE signal?


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