[mdlug] Job Interview Questions: Linux Admin

[Michael Corral]

Le 2022-11-29, Monsieur Gib a ecrit:
> I had an interview for a Linux Admin job today. The technical questions had
> to do with diagnosis of problems:
>
> What would you do to diagnose a slow system?

After checking top (or htop) for memory/cpu hogs, I'd use systemctl to see 
what services are running and which ones are not needed. Some indexing 
services can really slow down a system. Also check disk space---it's 
amazing how often slowness is due to a full or near full filesystem. 
Lastly, check the fstab for mount options that could be slowing things 
down.

> How would you do a performance problem when more swap space needs to be
> added?

Swap space? I thought 1998 was over. This had to be a trick question.

> How would you handle a root password loss?

In the old days you could boot into single-user mode without needing the 
root password, but I think most distros have made it not so simple now. 
Typically you have to boot into some special rescue mode and do a chroot, 
then you can run passwd to reset root's password. If SELinux is enabled 
then you'll have an additional step or two.

Michael