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Red Hat Certified Specialist in Linux Diagnostics and Troubleshooting Free Sample Questions

Description

Covers general troubleshooting methodology, diagnosing boot and file system failures, recovering LVM and encrypted file systems, package dependency issues, network and application debugging, and PAM.

12 free sample questions135 in the full practice test

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EX342 Sample Questions

  1. Question 1

    Intermediate

    Understand and Employ General Methods for Troubleshooting · Collect system information to aid in troubleshooting

    A critical production server running Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 has experienced a sudden performance degradation. You need to collect comprehensive system configuration and diagnostic information to open a support case with Red Hat. You want to ensure that the collection includes all enabled plugins but excludes specific sensitive data located in /var/tmp/. Which command should you execute?

    Answer and explanation

    Correct answer: A

    The sos report command (formerly sosreport) generates a diagnostic tarball. The --all-options flag enables all options for all loaded plugins, ensuring comprehensive data collection. The --forbidden-path option explicitly excludes specific directories or files from the collection to protect sensitive data or reduce size.

  2. Question 2

    Intermediate

    Understand and Employ General Methods for Troubleshooting · Collect system information to aid in troubleshooting

    You are configuring Performance Co-Pilot (PCP) on a fleet of web servers to collect historical performance metrics for retrospective analysis. You need to ensure that the pmlogger service collects metrics for the correct host and persists them across reboots. After installing the pcp package, what is the correct sequence of actions to enable the primary logger?

    Answer and explanation

    Correct answer: C

    The pmlogger service is responsible for archiving performance metrics. The configuration for which hosts to log is defined in /etc/pcp/pmlogger/control. After configuring this file (or verifying the default localhost entry), the service must be enabled and started using systemctl enable --now pmlogger.

  3. Question 3

    Beginner

    Understand and Employ General Methods for Troubleshooting · Monitor systems for vital characteristics

    A security audit requires that you verify the integrity of system binaries daily. You have installed and initialized AIDE (Advanced Intrusion Detection Environment). After applying a legitimate system update using dnf update, you notice that AIDE reports thousands of discrepancies. What is the correct procedure to resolve this and prepare for the next audit?

    Answer and explanation

    Correct answer: B

    When valid changes occur (like a system update), the AIDE database must be updated to reflect the new state of the files. Running aide --update creates a new database (typically aide.db.new.gz) which must then replace the original database (aide.db.gz) to prevent false positives in future checks.

  4. Question 4

    AdvancedMultiple answers

    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.conf on the server? (Select TWO)

    Answer and explanation

    Correct answers: B, C

    A dynamic template is required to store logs in directories based on properties like %HOSTNAME%. The rule *.* ?RemoteLogs applies this template to incoming messages.

    To accept TCP connections, the imtcp module must be loaded and an input defined on port 514.

  5. Question 5

    Intermediate

    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-journald service rotates logs too frequently, losing critical historical data. The system has a dedicated /var/log/journal directory. Which configuration in /etc/systemd/journald.conf should be adjusted to increase the maximum disk space used by the journal?

    Answer and explanation

    Correct answer: A

    SystemMaxUse controls the maximum disk space the persistent journal may use. Increasing this value allows more logs to be retained before rotation occurs.

  6. Question 6

    Intermediate

    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?

    Answer and explanation

    Correct answer: D

    Appending systemd.debug-shell=1 to the kernel command line enables the debug-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, check systemctl list-jobs, and debug hanging services while the system is still booting.

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