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[[Category:Jobs]]
==Unix System Administrator Questions==
==Unix System Administrator Questions==


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* What is IRQ balancing, how would you do it?  What does 64-bit computing really mean?
* What is IRQ balancing, how would you do it?  What does 64-bit computing really mean?


* What is the difference between Maildir and mbox? Advantages of Maildir?


===Network administration:===
* Customer has 10Gb /var, 5Gb /usr and wants to swap the two without losing any data. Explain the steps required to do so.
 
* Can you explain how to work out how many addresses are usable in a standard subnet?
 
* If you had to write some code to see if an IP address was in a particular subnet, how would you do it?
 
* What is a VLAN? How do they work?
 
* Can you explain some differences between, and give examples of when you would use HSRP, VRRP and BGP for resilience?
 
* Give an example of when you might use, or have used, tcpdump/ethtool/sniffer ?
 
* Updating ACLs safely, how would you go about it?
 
* Can you describe the three-way handshake, roughly?
 
* What's a link-state protocol?


* Do you know what an administrative distance is? Any examples?                                         
* Give me the basic commands for an SMTP session.


* PKI: Can you describe, roughly how Public Key Cyrpto works? If a protocol is encrypted, how can it be proxied?
* Explain why the ``From:'' header in a standard e-mail is essentially useless for tracking an email. What should you be looking at?

Latest revision as of 23:29, 21 April 2026

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Unix System Administrator Questions

Back to Interview Questions

Unix

  • What's the latest version of the Linux kernel?
  • Can you tell me how you would make a directory group writable? how would you rm a file that starts with a minus.
  • Filesystem is full, but no large files seem to be present. What do you do? What could it be?
  • What's the system.map file?
  • Could you write a cd command in the programming language of yoru choice ?
  • What does the fork() system call return?
  • explain the steps between sending an e-mail and it being received.
  • What language do you generally use for scripting;
    • shell: Do you know what the "shift" command does? What variable contains the return value? of the last process?
    • Perl: Can you explain what tainting is? Can you explain what the -w command line argument does?
    • Python: Can you explain what a dictionary is?
  • A command is going haywire, can you describe the steps you would take to diagnose the problem? How would you collate information useful for forming a detailed bug report?
  • What is IRQ balancing, how would you do it? What does 64-bit computing really mean?
  • What is the difference between Maildir and mbox? Advantages of Maildir?
  • Customer has 10Gb /var, 5Gb /usr and wants to swap the two without losing any data. Explain the steps required to do so.
  • Give me the basic commands for an SMTP session.
  • Explain why the ``From: header in a standard e-mail is essentially useless for tracking an email. What should you be looking at?
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