Unit 2

1. What is a root account in Linux and how does it differ from a user account?
2. State whether true or false: “Only authorized users can access the Linux system.”
3. The Linux command for shutting down a Linux system is ______ and the command
for changing the user password is _________?
4. What would happen if an incorrect login name was entered by a user and the
username had a password associated with it? Can you kill your own login shell from
other terminal?
5. Describe login scripts and their order in various shells with the help of suitable
examples. (6)
6. How can passwords be changed in Linux? Which rules are followed while giving
passwords?
7. How passwords are managed in Linux? (2)
8. List the steps needed to add a user to a Linux system. What is the purpose of a
shadow password file? (3)
9. How do you perform disabling user accounts in Linux? (5)
10. Write a Linux command that will tell you about the number of users currently logged
onto the system? (5)
11. What is the usage of who and pwd command? (2)
12.
Unit 3

1. What is the purpose of redirection?

2. What is the difference between redirection and piping? (5)
3. How do you perform Input & Output redirection in Linux? (5)
4. Explain I/O redirection and pipes with appropriate examples. How may the standard error
be redirected to a file? (5)
5. What are pipes?
6. How do pipes work in Linux systems as a communication mechanism for cooperating
processes? (5)
7. Explain Piping commands.
8. Explain the concept of piped process.
9. What are filters? Name any three filters. (2)
10. Define the term filter and pipe. Explain the use of the filter. How does a pipe work?
11. Give significance of pipe and tee features of Linux. (2)
12. Give an example of pipe and tell what it does? Why we use pipe?
13. Why and how do you work with pipe? Describe with small examples.
14. There is a set of accepted notational conventions used to describe, in a concise and
consistent way, the correct syntax for any Linux command. Describe this notational
convention. (4)
15. What is the main difference between man and info commands? Give some advantages of
each. (2)
16. What are man pages? What does man stand for? (2)
17. Explain the facilities available in Linux for ‘Online help’ by taking suitable example.
18. What are the various methods in Linux to get help?
19. What are Linux wildcard characters and in what situations would you use these
characters? (5)
20. Explain the use of the following wildcard characters in file name generation giving an
example of each one: “*”, “[]”, “.” and “?”. How are wildcards characters different from
regular expression characters? (8)
21. What do the following Linux system variables signify?
a. HOME, PS1, PATH, TERM, MAIL, TEMP (6)
22. Explain the facilities available in Linux for the following by taking suitable examples:
a. Finding out the running processes
b. Managing background processes
23. Suppose that a user at your site has started a long running program that is a significant
function of a machine’s resources:
a. How would you recognize a process that is hogging resources?
b. Assume that the process needs to be killed what signal would you send and why?
What if you needed to guarantee that the process died?
24. What is a process in Linux? Differentiate between background process and foreground
process with suitable examples. How do you kill a process in Linux (8)
25. Explain why a “process” is not a “program”. (2)
26. How processes are managed in Linux? Discuss briefly the commands used for it. (8)
27. How would parent and child communication to each other?
28. What are the various IDs associated with process?
29. What is inter-process communication? Discuss its significance.
30. When a Linux process starts, the input and output streams stdin, stdout and stderr are
opened. (True/False). (2)
31. From an OS perspective, compare and contrast the following methods for destroying a
Linux process: (5)
a. Typing Ctrl-C at the terminal from which the process was activated.
b. Finding out the process identifier pid of the process, and then issuing the
following command from another terminal: “kill -9 <pid>”.
32. The Linux command “ps –l” shows much more information than the “ps” command
without any command line options. Give three examples of the additional information
that is available. (5)
33. How would you kill a process?
34. Differentiate between ps and kill commands. (2)
35. What are the requirements for a user to be able to kill a process in Linux? Write the
necessary commands. (8)
36. What is the difference between the command “kill 1234” and the command “kill -9
1234”? (2)
37. What is PPID? Which command can be used to see PPID? (2)
38. Explain the facility available in Linux for ‘Becoming super user’ by taking suitable
examples.
39. What is the purpose SU command?
40. Explain the utility of grep command in Linux. How grep works? Explain with any eight
examples. (8)
41. What is regular expression? Explain the use of regular expression with the grep filter, and
the following options of grep: -n, -c, -v. (5)
42. Explain the purpose of each of the following Linux commands, and how to use them,
giving examples:cat, chmod, cp, du, find, grep, kill, ls, man, more, mv, passwd, ps, pwd,
rm, su, umask, who (20)
43. What does the following command line produce? Explain each aspect of this line.
a. find / -type f –atime -30 > dec.files (3)
44. Explain the use of find command of Linux to locate files and the following options of
find: -name, -mtime, -exec.
45. What does the following Linux shell pipeline do? (3)
a. grep ^ xy $ pqr | wc –l
b. What is the purpose of the following command:
c. tr ‘[a-z]’ ‘[A-Z]’ sample SAMPLE
46. Explain the purpose of the following commands in Linux:
a. Who | sort
b. Ls | wc –l
c. Who | wc –l
d. Who | grep Linux
47. What is difference between :
a. WC – l < File1
b. WC – l File1
48. Design a pipe that sorts by login name the list of people currently using the system. (5)
49. Write a Linux pipeline that prints the eighth line of file Z on the standard output.
50. Write a Linux command that will list lines 10 through 20 in a given file.
51. Write a Linux command that will list lines 5 through 10 in a given file
52. How do you list all files in a directory including hidden files? (1)
53. How can you count the number of files in a directory? (ls –l | egrep –c ‘^-‘)
54. How do you remove only the hidden file of your directory?
55. Give a Linux command that merges the contents of files File1, File2 & File3 in that order
into a new file File4
56. Give a single Linux command, which will delete the sub directory from the current
working directory along with all the contents of the sub directory.
57. What is the purpose of the following Linux pipe:
a. man man | wc-l
58. Give a Linux command to convert all digits in FileX into Question marks and save the
result to FileY ($cat filex | sed ‘s/[0-9]/?/g’ > filey)
59. Explain the purpose of the following: (2)
a. PATH=$PATH:/getstuff/bin ; export PATH
60. What would be the effect of the Linux command: cut –f 1,3 file1? (2)
61. Give a pipeline of Linux command that uses HEAD & TAIL to produce as output the
18th, 19th& 20th lines of the file OLD FILE ($ head -20 old file | tail - 3)
62. A hypothetical Linux command has this synopsis: abcdef [-qms] [-x] filea fileb. Which
one of the following uses is invalid? Why?
a. Abcdef ruby
b. Abcdef –m tip top
c. Abcd –qx run ran
d. Abcdef –s-x one two
63. Give a Linux command that will print the contents of the environment variable whose
name is PATH
64. Explain the purpose of the following:
PATH=$PATH :/homef/bin ; export PATH
65. Give a Linux command that will change the current working directory to the root
directory for the system
66. The output from the command grep ‘^[a-z]’ $ file consist of?
67. What is the output of the following command? ls [!a-z]*?
68.
Unit 4

1. Draw the diagram of the standard Linux/Unix file system hierarchy and explain the role
of the bin, etc, lib, tmp, and dev directories. (8)
2. Describe the Linux file system. Describe salient features of the file system of Linux.
Explain the role of different directories used in it. (12)
3. What type of file system does Linux use? List four directories found at the root (/) level
of Linux and describe what kinds of files are kept there. (12)
4. What is the name of Linux’s own file system? (2)
5. Give an account on the Linux commands for managing files and directories. How do you
create null file in Linux? (5)
6. What happens to the text that is redirected to the file /dev/null? (2)
7. List important directories in the Linux file system and their purpose. (8)
8. Why Linux directory system is important? Explain various “responsibilities of all
facilities” offered by Linux Directory System.
9. Can you explain how the directory structure of Linux works?
10. Discuss in detail about the standard Linux subdirectories of the Root Directory. (7)
11. Explain the purpose of the following Linux directories: /bin, /dev, /etc, /home, /mnt,
/root, /sbin, /usr. (8)
12. Describe about directory representation in Linux.
13. What purpose does the /home directory serve? How is it referenced in the login process?
(2)
14. How directories are named in Linux? (4)
15. Match the following default file systems with their intended use: (5)
a. / (root) 1. System files that change or grow such as logs or spool areas
b. /usr 2. User home directories
c. /home 3. Kernel and device files
d. /var 4. Third-party software and applications
e. /opt 5. System commands and programs
16. Give difference between ext2 and ext3 Linux file system. How do you create these file
systems and convert from one file system type to another? (8)
17. Differentiate among ext2, ext3 and ext4 file systems. (8)
18. What is the /proc directory used for? (2)
19. What are various file types available in Linux? Explain with examples. (8)
20. What is a file? Write the rules of name them in Linux. Discuss different types of files
available in Linux. (6)
21. What are Pseudo File Systems? List significance of various pseudo file systems. (8)
22. Give synopsis, description, options and examples of tune2fs Linux command that allows
the system administrator to adjust various tunable file system parameters. (4)
23. In a Linux file system, there are multiple timestamps (usually 3) associated with each file.
What does each of these timestamps represent? (5)
24. For each of the following pairs of terms, identify the context in which they occur. Then
define each term and clarify the key difference between the two terms with examples:
a. File and directory
b. File and inode
25. What is the function of an i-node in Linux? (2)
26. Explain the structure of a directory with i-nodes.
27. What is an i-node? Explain with an example how i-nodes are allocated?
28. What is an inode in a Linux file system? Give six examples of fields contained in an
inode (other than pointers to disk blocks). (8)
29. A Linux i-node has 10 disk addresses for data blocks, as well as the addresses of single,
double and triple indirect blocks. If each of these holds 256 disk addresses, what is the
size of the largest file that can be handled, assuming that a disk block is 1KB?
30. A file containing 1500Kb of data is to be stored in a Linux file system with 1Kb data
blocks. Each indirect block can hold 256 disk addresses (i.e. 32-bits per address). What is
the total number of data blocks required to store this file (including all indirect blocks but
not the inode itself)? Explain your answer in detail. (7)
31. What is a Linux file system “superblock”? What purpose does it serve? What information
does it contain? How is this information protected? (5)
32. Summarize the differences between symbolic and hard links and differentiate between
using links and simply duplicating a file. (6)
33. What is the difference between hard links and soft links? When is it appropriate to use
one or the other? (5)
34. Explain the notion of links and why it is useful to have more than one name for a file.
Write the command to create a link between the name filelist and the ls command. (5)
35. Long pathnames are a pain to type in, is there any sort of shortcut you can use?
36. Give two examples of the advantages of relative pathnames over absolute ones in Linux.
(3)
37. Differentiate between absolute pathname and relative pathname in Linux.
38. Explain the facilities available in Linux for the following by taking suitable examples:
a. Removing files and directories
b. Concatenating files
c. Displaying beginning and End of files
d. Cut and paste
e. Sorting
39. How do “more” and “less” differ from “cat”? (2)
40. How can you create text files with cat? Can this method be used to alter an existing file?
41. Write the commands to create and delete files and directories. Give examples.
42. How can we create, move and copy files and directories in Linux? Write the syntax and
examples. (10)
43. Explain the command used to view detail of files and directories. (2)
44. Explain any four file manipulation commands.
45. Explain Linux system commands, which manipulate files and directories and control
processes, with the help of examples.
46. Write a Linux command that will list lines 5 through 10 in a given file
47. How do you remove only the hidden file of your directory?
48. Give a Linux command that merges the contents of files File1, File2 & File3 in that order
into a new file File4
49. Give a single Linux command, which will delete the sub directory from the current
working directory along with all the contents of the sub directory.
50. Give a Linux command to convert all digits in FileX into Question marks and save the
result to FileY ($cat filex | sed ‘s/[0-9]/?/g’ > filey)
51. Give a pipeline of Linux command that uses HEAD & TAIL to produce as output the
18th, 19th& 20th lines of the file OLD FILE ($ head -20 old file | tail - 3)
52. Which of the following characters are allowed as part of a file name under Linux?
a. +
b. S
c. /
d. \
e. @
f. >
g. .
53. Give a Linux command that will change the current working directory to the root
directory for the system
54. Explain and differentiate cp and mv commands. (2)
55. What is the effect of cd ~. (1)
56. Explain the difference and similarity between the following three commands: (2)
a. cp a b
b. cn a b
c. cp –l a b
57. Define and differentiate the following in Linux: (4)
a. cd and md
b. rm and rmdir
58.
Unit 5

1. What is sharing of files? How can file protection and security be maintained?
2. How Linux provide file protection? Examine this method with its merits/demerits.
3. How are file permissions assigned and removed from files? Discuss with examples.
4. What do you mean by file access permissions in Linux? How are they used? Discuss
Linux commands with syntax.
5. How can we change file and directory Permissions? Give commands and examples. (10)
6. Explain the different file access permission and different types of user.
7. Explain the security options available under standard Linux systems, including user IDs,
passwords and the use of owner, group and world rights.
8. What is the difference between umask and chmod? Explain the difference among the
following umask values: 077, 027, 022 and 755. How would you attempt to implement
one of these values as a site-wide default for new users? (9)
9. A file has got a protection 777 (octal). What protection does it really have? (2)
10. A file has got a protection 756 (octal). What protection does it really have? (2)
11. A file has got a protection 644(octal). What protection does it really have? (2)
12. Suppose your umask is set to 022. What is the initial access permission for a file you
create? What is it for a directory? (4)
13. Suppose your umask is set to “123”. What is the initial access permission for a file you
create? What is it for a directory?
14. If umask shows the value 000 or 002. What implications do they have form the security
viewpoint?
15. What does rwx stand for when viewing file permissions? What about for directories? (2)
16. What is the octal representation of the file permissions: rwx - - x – w - ? Explain. (2)
17. You discover a file in your home directory that is owned by the superuser(root). The
permission on the file is 600. Can you delete this file?
18. With a umask of 011, the permissions for newly created files will be _______. (2)
19. Discuss about alias command and its usage. (2)
20. What is umask? Create umask that would give no permissions to the group and others.
21. Can you remove files from a directory if you lack write permissions on them?
22. Explain how file permissions operate in a Linux environment. How do you display what
file permissions are associated with a file called myfile. How you would arrange for
myfile to have the following permissions: (8)
a. Only the file owner can read/write the file – no other access if provided
b. Only the file owner and members of the owner’s group can execute the file
c. All users can read the file
23. Name the Linux command that can be used to specify the user and group ownership of a
file?
24. What is shell? How does the shell get started? List the most common shells. (5)
25. How does shell function? How it interacts with OS?
26. In a Linux system, the shell is an interface that allows the user to communicate with the
kernel of the operating system. (True or False)
27. Describe various features of bash shell. (5)
28. List some hot keys for ‘bash’ shell. (2)
29. Define a shell in Linux. Discuss various types of shells. Also list some of the
environment variables available in the Bourne Again Shell (BASH). (8)
30. Compare and contrast Bourne Again Shell (BASH) and TC-Shell (TCSH). Explain the
function of the login initialization file and related system files in both the shells. (9)
31. How do you customize both BASH and TCSH? List some of the environment variables
in each of these shells. (6)
32. Compare and contrast the features of Bourne Again Shell (BASH) with TCSH. (5)
33. Differentiate between BASH and TCSH. (2)
34. Suppose you have downloaded script script.sh into your home directory. When you tried
running it, you get an error: “-bash: ./script.sh: Permission denied”. What is the problem
with the script and how can you fix it? (2)
35. Explain the function of the login initialization file and related files in a Linux shell. Write
Linux shell commands to carry out the following:
a. Define an alias “ll” for the command “ls-lt”.
b. Change the prompt to show your current directory.
 c. Change the default search path so that a “bin” directory in your home directory is
included in the search path. (9)
36. List some of the most useful commands built into the bash shell. (1)
37. Some filenames are preceded by a dot(.). What does this mean? Explain the purpose
of .bash and .bash_profile files in a bash shell.
38. What do the files .(dot) and ..(dot dot) represent in Linux? (2)
39.
Unit 6

1. What is tcsh? List some of the improvements over the csh in the areas of command-line
editing, history, navigation and aliases. (8)
2. How tcsh is better than other shells? How do you customize tcsh? (8)
3. Explain the following in the context of tcsh shell:
a. Tcsh built-in variables
b. Command history
c. Job control (6)
4. Discuss various conditional control statements available in tcsh with suitable examples.
(10)
5. Explain the case and while programming constructs in a tcsh script by taking a suitable
example. (9)
6. How do you set up your own prompt in tcsh shell?
7. Explain the following tcsh variables/commands in Linux by taking suitable examples:
autocorrect, histfile, history, path, alias, exit, source, set. (4)
8. Give the default file name for the history file. How can it be changed? Discuss various
options used to view command history in tcsh shell. (6)
9.
Unit 7

1. Explain the purpose of a shell program.

2. How does shell program work? Discuss.
3. Write down the various steps in executing a shell program through a program?
4. How can utility programs and shell be used to create own applications?
5. What is a shell script? What is an advantage of shell scripting? How do you use
command-line arguments in a shell script? (5)
6. In a Linux shell script, how does one specify that the program /bin/bash is to be used for
interpreting the script? (2)
7. What is shell programming? What are the uses of shell programming? Discuss in detail
various features of shell programming.
8. Discuss in detail various features of shell programming constructs in Linux.
9. What do you mean by environment variables in Linux? What is their role? How are they
used by the shell? Explain with syntax and examples. (8)
10. List some of the environment variables available in the shell. (2)
11. Explain the use of following predefined variables in Bourne shell
a. PS1
b. IFS
12. Write short note on Special Shell Parameters and their purpose in shell programming.
13. Explain the use of positional parameters in a shell programming. (2)
14. What is the utility of shift command in shell programming? Explain with example. (4)
15. What do you understand by ECHO and READ in Linux?
16. What are various reserved words in shell programming?
17. What is the importance of quotation marks in shell programming? (2)
18. What types of variables are used in shell programming? Discuss with example.
19. What is a test command in bash shell? Give the tcsh equivalent of the test command. (5)
20. What are various types of statements in shell programming?
21. Explain various programming constructs in a shell script by taking suitable examples. (7)
22. Explain conditional expressions with example.
23. Explain different loop control structure available in Bourne shell.
24. What are the looping statements in shell? Explain each with suitable example
25. Explain the case and while programming constructs in a shell script by taking a suitable
example. (3)
26. What is the purpose and syntax of the following in shell programming: if-elif, $, #,
While..do..done, cut, case.
27. What are the various syntaxes of branching, jumping and looping in Linux?
28. Explain the role of wild cards in shell programming.
29. Compare and contrast shell scripts in Linux and batch files in DOS. (2)
30. You have to compile a shell script before you can run it. (True or False)
31. Write a shell script that changes the name of files passed as argument to lowercase. (8)
32. Write a shell script to find out biggest number from given three numbers. The numbers
are supplied as command line arguments. Print error if sufficient arguments are not
supplied. (8)
33. Write a shell script to check whether a given string is a palindrome or not (without
actually reversing the string). (9)
34. Write a shell script that-
a. Takes as command line options any number of text files.
b. Reads in each of these files, converts all the letters to uppercase, and then stores
the results in a file of the same name but with a .caps extension. (15)
35. Write a shell script that lists the command-line arguments that were passed to the script.
(8)
36. Write a shell script for adding first 10 positive integers. (5)
37. Write a shell script to find the greatest common divisor(GCD) of two numbers.
38. Write a shell script ‘fifteen’ that prints the fifteenth argument on the command line. (7)
39. Write a shell script to find a factorial of a number.
40. Write a shell script that presents a multiple-choice questions gets the user’s answer and
reports back whether the answer is right, wrong or not one of the choices. (5)
41. Write a shell script to find whether a given number is positive or negative. (8)
42. Write a shell script to reverse a string (8)
43. Write a shell script to show that you can do shell I/O, looping and invoke Linux
commands from a shell script. (10)
44. Write a shell script that checks to see if the first command-line option is –l or –e. If it is –
l, the program counts the number of lines in the file specified by the second command-
line option that begins with the letter l. If the first option is –e, the program counts the
number of lines in the file specified by the second command-line option that begins with
 the letter e. If the first command-line option is not –l or –e, the program prints a brief
error message to the screen. (10)
45. Create a shell script. ‘addphone’, that asks for a name and then a phone number. The
name and phone number will be put in a file ‘phonebook’. You should be able to run
‘addphone’ several times without destroying the previous content of ‘phonebook’.
46. Write a shell script to check whether a number is a prime or not.
47. Write a shell script to interchange the value of two variables.
48. Write a shell script ‘palin’ to check whether a given number is palindrome or not.
49. Write a shell script which can find the sum of N even numbers.
50. Write a shell script to find whether a given file exists in current directory and if found
check whether file has read permission.
51. Write a shell script to illustrate the use of logical operators.
52. Write a shell script to check whether a number is odd or even.
53. Write a shell script to read a positive number from the user and then print all the prime
numbers between 1 and the entered number.
54. Write a shell script to count number of vowels in a entered string.
55. Write a shell script “calc” which allows you to perform some numerical operations
between the data. The typical functions that may be performed by “calc” are shown
below:
$calc 5 + 3

$calc 3 – 3

$calc 2 \* 3

$calc 3 % 2

$calc 3 / 5

unknown operator

56.
Unit 8

1. What are editors? How a file is opened using VI editor? Also discuss commands used in
different modes of VI. List various editors.
2. What are the various text-editing features provided VI text editor? What are the two
operational modes of VI editor? What is the use of each? (7)
3. What is VI editor? What are features of VI editor? Write steps to create any program in
VI editor and run it.
4. Write short note on VI editor. (6)
5. Explain the facilities available in a VI editor for the following by taking suitable
examples:
a. Moving around the file
b. Copying and moving text
c. Cursor movement commands
d. Pattern finding commands
e. Searching and replacing text
f. Changing one mode to another mode of VI
6. Explain the search and replace features of VI editor. (5)
7. List some important features of VI editor to create and modify a file. (5)
8. What is the difference between the following VI commands
a. W
b. :q!
c. :wq
d. :zz
9. 3yy is a command in VI editor, which means ____________. (2)
10. How can we delete the current line in VI editor?
11. How can we insert/delete text in different ways? (2)
12. What text editor do you use the most in Linux? How do you save changes and exit in that
text editor? (2)
13. List out few text editor used with Linux. (2)
14. Discuss at least one non-graphical text editors that may be included with a Linux
distribution.
15.
Unit 9

1. What is a scripting language? Discuss features of PERL that make it useful for scripting.
(8)
2. What is PERL used for? (2)
3. What is PERL?
4. How can we create and execute PERL programs? (2)
5. Describe various data types and operators available in Perl. (8)
6. There are three types of variables in Perl: Scalars, Arrays and Hashes. Describe each one
and show how they are initialized? (6)
7. Define an array in PERL. (2)
8. Describe each of the following programming constructs provided by PERL: if, unless,
for, foreach, while, until. (8)
9. Differentiate between while and until statements with the help of examples. (8)
10. How foreach statement is used in Perl? Explain with example. (5)
11. What is the first line in a Perl script? Explain its purpose. (2)
12. Briefly describe how the Perl type system works. Does Perl have dynamic type binding?
(5)
13. In Perl, what is an associative array and what are the advantages of using it (compared to
a normal array)? Give an example of one task for which an associative array is well
suited. (5)
14. What is a function in PERL? How do you create your own functions in PERL? List
various PERL operators. (8)
15. The keyword ‘class’ is used to define a Perl class [True/False]. (1)
16. Compare and contrast PERL and BASH in terms of
a. Target applications-give an example for each
b. Ease of use
c. Execution efficiency (8)
17. Compare and contrast scripting languages (BASH and PERL) to more traditional
application development languages. Be sure to explain what each kind of language is
good for, what each is poor for, and when you would want to use each one. (5)
18. Write a Perl function to display any message. (6)
19. Write a Perl program to prompt the user for a number and then prompt for string. Print
the string that number of times on separate lines. Do not use any looping structures. (8)
20. Write a Perl program that accepts two command-line arguments, a string and a filename,
opens the file specified by filename and lists all lines in file that contain the string. When
lines are printed, occurrences of string in the line should be surrounded by parentheses.
(14)
21. Write a Perl program “copy.pl” that implements a simple version of the Linux cp
command. (9)
22. Write a Perl program to find GCD of 2 numbers.
23. Consider the following Perl program:
a. my($total,$n)=(0,0);
b. while(<>) {
c. my @f=split;
d. $total +=$f[0];
e. ++$n;
f. }
g. print $total/$n;
h. Using plain English, give a brief written description of what this program does.
(5)
24. Write a program myecho in PERL to “echo” its command line parameters as follows: (8)
i. % myecho par1 par2 par3
ii. Program name: myecho
iii. Argument 1: par1
iv. Argument 2: par2
v. Argument 3: par3
25. Explain what the following PERL program (called prog) does: (2)
a. #!/usr/bin/perl
b. print $ARGV[1] + $ARGV[0] + $#ARGV;
26.
Unit 10

1. What is Linux file system? Describe file system administration facilities in Linux, which
involves creating, checking and mounting file systems along with monitoring their use.
(7)
2. Write short notes on:
a. Creating new user account in Linux
 b. Use of tar facility
c. Create and check a Linux file system. (15)
3. How do you perform the following in Linux as a system administrator:
a. Using LILO to Boot
b. Setting the login message
c. Maintaining user accounts
d. Checking and repairing file systems
e. Creating, mounting/un-mounting and checking file system
f. Backup and restore strategies
g. Starting and stopping LINUX system (14)
4. What is boot loader? What is LILO and what is its primary configuration file? How do
you use LILO? (2)
5. Explain the concept of run-levels in Linux. What is the most graceful way to get to run-
level single-user mode? What is the relationship between run level 1 and run level 5? (7)
6. Give the command that will boot Linux into single user mode. Also discuss various run
levels. (2)
7. Explain what happens when a user is added to a Linux system in terms of files/directories
that have to be created or modified. Give example and explanations of the commands that
are used to make these changes (e.g. chown, chgrp, chmod). (6)
8. Describe Linux system run levels, the services available at the different run levels, and
how to move between the run levels (including shutdown). (7)
9. How do you administer user and group accounts in Linux? List the system files used to
store the user and group account information and the initialization files associated with
user accounts. (8)
10. What is system administration and what does it entail? Explain the role and function of a
system administrator in Linux. Discuss the role of tar facility for system administration.
(9)
11. How does a Linux system manager send a message to all user terminals? (3)
12. How do you display the jobs in a print queue? How are jobs added to and removed from a
print queue? (2)
13. How do you display, how much disk space is used by files and how much disk space is
free? (2)
14. What is the need for maintaining backups? Explain the processes of backup and
restoration in Linux.
15. What is a root account and how does it differ from a user account? (2)
16. What is a shadow password? (2)
17. What is rpm utility in Linux? Explain its options in detail. (3)
18. How do you set the Login message? (2)
19. The init process is directly responsible for starting up the programs listed in /etc/inittab.
(True/False) (2)
20. An instantiation of a program is called ______. (2)
21. Give the command that will boot Linux into single user mode. (2)
22. Name the Linux command that would allow a user to switch from a user account to the
root account to execute a program that requires root permissions. (2)
23. Give LINUX commands to accomplish the following tasks:
 a. Execute permissions on the file README: to read/write the owner and read for
everyone else.
b. Turn on a file’s setuid bit without changing (or knowing) the current permissions
c. List the contents of the current directory, sorting by modification time and listing
the most recently modified file last.
24. What is xfree86? How do you install and configure it? What is the purpose of .xinitrc
file?
25. What are the various commands available in Linux for taking backup? (5)
26. List the advantages of Linux. (3)
27. What is full form of LILO? (1)
28. What is the RPM tool used with the Red Hat compatible systems? (4)
29. What are the run levels used for on a Linux system? What is the role of the run level
directories (rc.d) in the boot process? (8)
30. Compare tar and dump archiving tools. (4)
31. How is a user added to the Linux system? Explain why the /etc/shadow password file
exists. (6)
32. What is the relationship of the mount command and fstab? (2)
33. What is the purpose of the SetUID bit? (2)
34. Distinguish between archiving and compression. Explain the syntax and use of various
archiving tools for Linux Server Administration. (8)
35. Describe gzip command. (2)
36. How can you compress files with gzip? (5)
37. What is the purpose of /etc/fstab file in Linux? (4)
38. How do you configure Linux disk quotas to limit user disk resources? (4)
39. What are the various files associated with a new user account? What is the difference
between /etc/passwd and the /etc/shadow file? (6)
40. Explain the syntax of /etc/passwd. How do you setup password aging policies in Linux?
(4)
41. What command can you use to remove print job number 12 from the print queue? (2)
42. As a system administration, how do you install and configure Linux as a standalone
workstation or as a multi-user environment? (5)
43. Which command is used to check and repair a Linux file system? (1)
44. What is the relationship between the passwd and shadow files in Linux? Why is it
necessary for all users to be able to read the passwd file? Why is it only necessary for
root to be able to read the shadow file? If only root could read the passwd file, what
changes would need to be made to programs like ps and ls? Why would this change lead
to reduced security for all users? (5)
45. List different types of Access Control List (ACL) elements available in the Squid
configuration file. (6)
46.
Unit 10

1. What do you understand by Linux system administration and what does it entail?
2. Explain the role and function of a system administration in Linux?
3. What is need of system administration in Linux?
4. How do perform the following in Linux as a system administrator?
a. Accounting of system usage and billing
 b. Adding and removing users
c. Changing groups and passwords
d. Installation of printers and peripherals
e. Maintaining security
f. Managing hard-disk space
g. Monitoring system activity
h. Recovering from system crash
i. Setting up remote communication
j. Starting and Shutting down of Linux
k. Taking backups on tape and restoring back on disk
5. Explain Functional Activities of system administrator.
6. Explain the role and common tasks of a system administrator. Name various essential
tools to perform system administrative tasks.
7. What are various system administration commands? Discuss each in detail.
8. Discuss the role of tar facility and fsck facility for system administration.
9. Who is super user? How can one be super user while working as ordinary user? Why
should super user do routine activities as ordinary user?
10. Explain super user. How super user login is maintained in Linux? List down few
privileges of super user.
11. How do you display, how much disk-space is used by file and how much disk space is
free? Discuss commands with different options.
12. How is remote communication setup in Linux?
13. Name two administrative functions that can’t be performed by a non privileged user.
14. What is the difference between ‘su’ and ‘su-romeo’
15. Discuss mounting and unmounting file system.
16. Which commands are used to manage disk space? Write the syntax and usage of these
commands
17. Why should we take backups? Which are the commands used for taking backups?
Explain their syntax and usage?
18. Explain booting process in Linux.
19. Write and explain commands for the following purposes:
a. Security and protection commands (chmod)
b. System administration commands
c. Redirection and piping commands
d. Process management commands
20. Give Linux command to mount Linux file system.
21. Explain the commands used for secondary storage management.
22.
Unit 11

1. Explain the use of netstat and ping networking commands in Linux. (4)
2. What is the function of the netstat utility? (2)
3. What does the command netstat –rn do? (2)
4. What is DNS? (2)
5. What do you understand by DNS? What its purpose? How is it setup? Explain its
services? Give a full form of DNS. What is DNS server?
6. Explain the function of the following DNS records: SOA, PTR, A, MX, CNAME, NS (6)
7. How does DNS do domain name resolution? What is the difference between “forward
resolution” and “reverse resolution” when converting DNS names? When installing DNS
what is the function of named.conf file? (8)
8. How do you perform basic network configuration, including TCP/IP and DNS
(resolv.conf, hosts, nsswitch.conf) and use basic networking monitoring and trouble-
shooting tools such as ping, ipconfig, trace-route and route? (9)
9. What is WWW? What are WWW servers? How do you setup WWW server under Linux
platform? Explain the uses of WWW in Linux.
10. Differentiate between Mail, WWW and FTP. (6)
11. Differentiate between FTP and WWW.
12. Write short note on Setting up the mail server.
13. Explain sending and handling mail.
14. Explain various email protocols. Write the steps to setup an email on a Linux based
system.
15. What is TCP/IP? Explain the use of the following: IP Address, Network Address,
Network Mask, Broadcast Address, Gateway Address, Nameserver Address. (8)
16. Illustrate IP address with an example. Also explain TCP/IP protocol in detail. (7)
17. What is TCP/IP? Provide an overview of FTP and Email protocols. (5)
18. What is TCP/IP?
19. Explain the purpose of the following files for configuring LINUX for TCP/IP:
/etc/hosts, /etc/networks, /etc/host.conf. (5)
20. What is FTP? (2)
21. What is NFS? (2)
22. Illustrate the significance of /etc/exports file with respect to NFS. (2)
23. Describe with the aid of a diagram if necessary, the concepts of Networked File System
(NFS, designed by Sun Microsystems). (5)
24. “Slave servers provide load sharing for the NIS server”. Is this statement true of NIS? (2)
25. What role does NIS play in supporting NFS? Explain one way this capability helps
protect users’ files. (4)
26. The standard Linux command that configures a network interface is _________. (2)
27. Differentiate between NIS and NFS. (6)
28. Explain the concept of subnetting and explain why it is useful. What are net-masks? How
do net-masks relate to the split between the network and the host section of an IP
address?
29. The term localhost is the hostname corresponding to the loopback interface IP address of
127.0.0.1 (True/False) (2)
30. IP address, Network mask and broadcast address are essential for configuring an IP
interface to send packets. (True/False) (2)
31. Explain the use of the following: Network Address, Network Mask, Broadcast Address,
and Gateway Address. (2)
32. Explain the use of the following: IP address, network address, network mask, broadcast
address, gateway address.
33. Compare and contrast: (8)
a. IPv4 vs IPv6
b. POP vs IMAP
34. Why has Network Address Translation been so widely deployed, despite the intent that it
was meant to provide temporary relief from IP address space exhaustion until IPv6 could
be designed and deployed? (2)
35. Which naming service uses ASCII text files, supports hostname-to-IP-address resolution
and IP-address-to-hostname resolution, and is used on the Internet? Explain in detail. (5)
36. Name the most popular type of package manager available for Linux. (2)
37. What are xinetd managed services? What are the various files in the /etc/xinetd.d/
directory that contains the configuration files for each service managed by xinetd? (8)
38. Describe the following: SMTP, SSH, IMAP, IPv4. (16)
39. What is Network Time Protocol (NTP) and where is it used? How can you set up a NTP
client and server in local environment? (8)
40. What are various components of email system? What is the best MTA? Explain the
process of deploying a postfix mail server with related configuration files for the domain:
xyz.com. (8)
41. Compare and contrast Destination NAT (DNAT) vs Sources NAT (SNAT). (8)
42. What is virtual network computing? (2)
43. What Linux command returns the current routing table? (2)
44. What are various naming services used in Linux? Explain how BIND is installed and
configured to run a caching name server, Master Name server for the domain:
example.com. (8)
45. What are the daemons responsible for logging information in Linux? Elaborate the
process of log management with example. (8)
46. What is a netmask? Explain what it is used for? (2)
47. Name and explain the use of various network trouble-shooting tools in Linux and the
corresponding system files that these tools use. (4)
48. What is URL?
49. What does the API Abbreviation stands for?
50. What is server?
51.
Unit 1

1. What is Linux? Draw the architecture of Linux system and describe each layer. (5)
2. What is Linux OS? Discuss salient features of Linux in detail.
3. Name any three main components of Linux OS and briefly describe their role. (5)
4. What is the name of the Linux penguin? (1)
5. What is Red Hat Linux? What features are in Red Hat Linux? (5)
6. Who is the creator of Linux and when was it created? (2)
7. Name three Linux distributions. (3)
8. What are the important features of Linux that make it unique as an OS? Briefly trace the
history of Linux.
9. What are the important features of Linux that make it unique as an operating system? (6)
10. Give various security features available in Linux. (5)
11. Briefly trace the history of Linux OS.
12. Give history of Linux. (2)
13. What are minimum system requirements for installing Linux? List various steps for its
installation. (7)
14. Write various steps for installing a Linux OS. How do you set up your hard disk? (5)
15. List and explain the steps to install, configure and administer the Linux operating system
on a workstation computer connected to a network. (8)
16. What are various ways of installing Linux operating system? Explain kick start
installation with related configuration files. (8)
17. Give a brief overview of the procedure to install the Linux software. How do you set up
the mouse?
18. What is bootstrapping? List the steps involved and discuss what happens at each stage.
(8)
19. Describe various hard disk administration facilities in Linux including formatting and
partitioning of disks. Highlight the naming conventions for disk drives. (8)
20. Explain the disk partitioning process in Linux? What type of planning should a system
administrator do before going through the disk partitioning process? (8)
21. What is the difference between formatting a disk and partitioning a disk? What is the
difference between partitioning and creating a file system? (8)
22. Name the Linux partition that generally contains the kernel. (2)
23. Explain the procedure to make your Linux kernel settings persistent? (8)
24. Name significant events in kernel initialization. (2)
25. What Linux file contains the kernel initialization messages? (2)
26. Explain the following in the context of Linux OS:
a. Setting up your hard drive
b. Creating Linux file-system partitions.
c. partitioning the hard disk and formatting these partitions
d. Setting up the Ethernet. (20)
27. Describe the various Linux OS installation issues such as:
a. partitioning and disk layout
b. disk technology (SCSI versus IDE)
c. logical volume management (9)
28. Discuss some of the common problems and their possible solutions with SCSI controllers
and devices.
29. What are the differences between IDE and SCSI? What are the standard device file
names for the third IDE device and the second SCSI device?
30. Differentiate between IDE and SCSI storage systems.
31. You have a printer attached to a parallel port. What is this port called in Linux?
32. What is floppy drive called in Linux? (1)
33. You have a device attached to a serial port. What is this port called in Linux? (2)
34. During Linux installation Linux creates a swap space partition. Why do you need these
and how is different from a windows swap file?
35. What is a swap partition? What is a program you can use to partition your hard drive? (2)
36. What is the purpose of Linux swap space? (2)
37. How do you partition your hard disk with fdisk? (2)
38. How does fdisk command work in Linux? Write steps. (5)
39. What Linux command will list all the configured partitions from all attached hard drives?
(2)
40. Define and differentiate the following in the context of Linux: fdisk and Disk Druid as
Linux disk partitioning tools. (8)
41. How do you create boot and root floppies?
42. Differentiate between the Root disk and Boot disk. (5)
43. Describe general principles involved in booting a system. Explain the transfer of control
from hardware, to firmware, to software during system boot. (8)
44. Describe briefly the initial process sequence while the system boots up.
45. Explain the sequence of operations when a user logs in and starts working.
46. What is the difference between Linux and DOS?
47. Linux commands tend to be shorter than their DOS counterparts. Why do you think this
is so?
48. Write a brief note comparing and contrasting the key features of Linux with any
Microsoft Windows OS. (7)
49. Differentiate between Linux and Windows.
50. What is the GRUB used for? What is the MBR? What is the relationship between GRUB
and MBR? (4)
51. Define RAID. Explain RAID levels 0, 1, 5. Compare and contrast LVM with RAID.
When is one better than the other? (8)
52. Explain the following in the context of Linux:
a. Yum (Yellow Dog Update Manager) for Linux (5)
b. System V Run Levels (5)
53. During the boot process, how does the Linux OS know which services it needs to run at
different run levels? How does it determine the order in which these services are started?
(8)
54. What is the difference between run levels Q and 6?
55. What is the name of the first Ethernet device in Linux? (2)
56. What is the Apache directive that specifies the base directory for configuration and log
files? (2)
57.
Objective Questions

1. Which of the following statements does not accurately describe an advantage of the Perl
programming language? (2)
a. Perl offers higher-level data structures and algorithms, such as hash tables and
sorting.
b. Perl has unambiguous syntax: there is typically only one natural way to
implement any given algorithm.
c. Perl includes many built-in functions that link up to the UNIX operating system.
d. Perl programs do not require an explicit compilation step between editing the
program and running it.
2. Which of the following are all Perl keywords that can be used to manipulate strings? (2)
a. foreach, each, for
b. reverse, uc, chop
c. while, if, unless
d. reverse, sort, grep
3. The number of inode entry in the kernel for each file used in the system is (2)
a. Exactly one
b. Two
c. Three
d. None of these
4. A special shell variable that includes all of the parameters on the command line is (2)
a. #!
b. $@
c. #$
d. None of these
5. A configuration script that can be located in each user’s home directory (2)
a. .profile
b. .bashrc
c. Macro
d. None of these
6. The configuration file in which encrypted user passwords and password configuration
data are stored (2)
a. /etc/group
b. /etc/password
c. /etc/fstab
d. /etc/shadow
7. The configuration file in which user account information is stored (2)
a. /etc/group
b. /etc/password
c. /etc/fstab
d. /etc/shadow
8. The command used to obtain detailed information about processes running on Linux (2)
a. Pipe
b. Ps
c. Pwd
d. None of these
9. A command used to test a network connection (2)
a. Ps
b. Pipe
c. Ping
d. None of these
10. Command used to create a single archive file that contains many other files, often
compressed to save space (2)
a. Tar
b. Sed
c. Set
d. None of these
11. Command used to set the file permissions assigned when you create a new file (2)
a. Umount
b. Uname
c. Umask
d. None of these
12. Who is original developer of Linux, the free Unix clone on the PC? (2)
a. Bill gates
b. Linus torvalds
c. Dennis Ritchie
 d. Richard Stallman
Extra

1. Describe the escaping sequencing characters in Linux.

2. Differentiate between monolithic and a modular kernel? Explain the process of up
gradation of a kernel. What are Linux kernel modules? (8)
3. How do you perform the Disk Administration in Linux?
4. List various communication capabilities of Linux.
5.