DevOps Shack

200 scenario-based Linux interview questions

Basic Linux Administration

1.​
User Management: A user complains they cannot log
in. How will you troubleshoot?
2.​
File Permissions: A script is executable by one
user but not another. How do you resolve this?
3.​
Process Management: A service is consuming 100%
CPU. How will you find and fix it?
4.​
SSH Issues: You cannot SSH into a remote machine.
How do you debug?
5.​
Disk Space Full: / partition is full. How do you
find and delete large files safely?
6.​
File Corruption: A log file is showing junk
characters. How will you check and recover it?
7.​
Crontab Not Running: A scheduled job is not
executing. How do you debug?
8.​
Package Installation Failing: yum or apt is
failing. How will you resolve it?
9.​
User Cannot Sudo: A user was added to sudoers, but
sudo still doesn’t work. What could be wrong?
10.​ Kernel Panic: How do you troubleshoot and recover
from a kernel panic?
11.​ Zombie Processes: How do you identify and remove
zombie processes?​
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12.​ Too Many Open Files Error: How do you fix “Too
many open files” in Linux?
13.​ Finding and Killing Processes: A process is
causing high memory usage. How do you locate and
stop it?
14.​ Home Directory Missing: A user's home directory
is missing. How will you restore it?
15.​ Time Sync Issues: The server time is incorrect.
How do you fix NTP sync?
16.​ Finding Recently Changed Files: How do you find
all files modified in the last 10 minutes?
17.​ Deleting Large Files But Space Not Freeing Up:
What could be the reason?
18.​ Checking System Load: How do you analyze high
system load issues?
19.​ NFS Mount Issues: How do you troubleshoot an NFS
mount not working?
20.​ Hostname Resolution Issues: ping is working, but
ssh is failing by hostname. Why?

File System & Storage

21.​ How do you extend a partition without unmounting
it?
22.​ What steps are needed to add a new disk to a
Linux server?
23.​ How to check which processes are writing to a
file in real time?
24.​ How to recover a deleted file in Linux?
25.​ How to check disk I/O performance in Linux?​
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26.​ A directory is taking too much space. How do you

analyze it?
27.​ How do you remount a filesystem in read-write
mode without rebooting?
28.​ What happens when a file is deleted but is still
in use by a process?
29.​ How do you create and mount a swap file?
30.​ How do you find large unused files across
multiple partitions?
31.​ How do you fix a corrupted file system using
fsck?
32.​ What is inode exhaustion, and how do you resolve
it?
33.​ You need to copy a huge file across servers.
What’s the fastest way?
34.​ Your df -h and du -sh show different disk usage.
Why?
35.​ How do you find out which directory is consuming
the most in /var?
36.​ A file is not getting deleted despite rm -f. Why?
37.​ How do you enable disk quotas for users?
38.​ A RAID-5 disk has failed. How do you replace and
rebuild it?
39.​ How do you check bad sectors on a disk?
40.​ A user needs 500GB storage. How do you allocate
it using LVM?

Networking & Security

41.​ How do you check which ports are open on a
server?​
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42.​ How to configure a static IP in Linux?

43.​ How to allow a port through the firewall
permanently?
44.​ A service is listening on an unintended port. How
do you investigate?
45.​ How do you capture network packets using tcpdump?
46.​ How do you check which process is using a
specific port?
47.​ How do you block an IP from accessing your
server?
48.​ SSH keeps disconnecting. How do you fix it?
49.​ How do you check and renew an expired SSL
certificate?
50.​ How do you securely transfer files between two
servers?
51.​ How do you monitor real-time network bandwidth
usage per process?
52.​ A user reports slow SSH login. How do you
troubleshoot?
53.​ How to check if your DNS resolution is working
correctly?
54.​ How do you limit network bandwidth usage for a
specific process?
55.​ How do you find the default gateway of a Linux
server?
56.​ How do you detect ARP spoofing on a Linux system?
57.​ How do you allow only specific users to SSH into
a server?
58.​ How to configure failover between two network
interfaces?
59.​ How to prevent brute-force attacks on SSH?​
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60.​ How do you configure IP forwarding in Linux?

Performance & Optimization

61.​ How do you optimize Linux performance for a
high-load server?
62.​ What do the load average values mean in top?
63.​ How to find the highest CPU-consuming process?
64.​ How do you reduce swap usage on a system?
65.​ What are ulimit settings, and how do you use
them?
66.​ How do you benchmark disk read/write speeds?
67.​ How do you tune Linux for a high-performance
database?
68.​ How do you reduce the startup time of a Linux
server?
69.​ How do you monitor real-time CPU and memory
usage?
70.​ How to debug an application consuming high
memory?
71.​ How do you enable huge pages for memory
optimization?
72.​ A process is leaking memory. How do you identify
and fix it?
73.​ How do you find the I/O bottleneck on a server?
74.​ What is vm.swappiness, and how does it affect
performance?
75.​ How do you check if the CPU is throttling?
76.​ How do you disable a specific CPU core for
testing?​
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77.​ How do you monitor Linux system health in

real-time?
78.​ How do you configure Linux for low-latency
workloads?
79.​ How do you limit resource usage for a specific
user or group?
80.​ How do you detect and fix a memory leak in a
running process?

Automation & Troubleshooting

81.​ How do you automate log rotation?
82.​ How do you create a systemd service for a custom
script?
83.​ How do you schedule a job to run every Sunday at
midnight?
84.​ How do you find why a system rebooted
unexpectedly?
85.​ A user's process keeps getting killed. How do you
find the reason?
86.​ How do you troubleshoot a stuck SSH session?
87.​ How do you automate patch management?
88.​ How do you take a backup of all users and groups?
89.​ How do you check why a systemd service failed?
90.​ How do you debug a frozen Linux system?
91.​ How do you use Ansible to configure Linux
servers?
92.​ How do you log all sudo commands executed by
users?
93.​ How do you recover from a lost root password?​
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94.​ How do you configure an automated backup using

rsync?
95.​ How do you migrate a Linux server to a new host
with minimal downtime?
96.​ How do you enable and debug SELinux policies?
97.​ How do you safely upgrade a running Linux system?
98.​ How do you audit security logs for suspicious
activity?
99.​ How do you create a chroot jail for an
application?
100.​How do you recover a corrupted grub bootloader?

Advanced User & Process Management

101.​How do you list all users who have logged into a
system?
102.​A user is unable to change their password. How do
you troubleshoot?
103.​How do you expire a user’s password immediately?
104.​How do you lock and unlock a user account?
105.​How do you check which users are using the most
disk space?
106.​How do you create a user with no shell access?
107.​A process gets killed due to an "OOM (Out of
Memory)" error. How do you diagnose and fix it?
108.​How do you schedule a script to run when CPU
usage goes above 80%?
109.​How do you set CPU affinity for a process?
110.​How do you find the total number of processes
running on a system?​
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111.​How do you prevent a user from executing certain

commands?
112.​How do you restart a crashed process
automatically?
113.​How do you run a process in the background and
ensure it keeps running after logout?
114.​A user wants to execute a script on system
startup. How do you configure it?
115.​How do you allow a user to run only specific
commands with sudo?
116.​How do you enable core dumps for debugging a
process crash?
117.​How do you analyze a core dump file?
118.​How do you check the parent process of a given
PID?
119.​How do you create a new group and assign users to
it?
120.​How do you configure a system to automatically
remove inactive user accounts?

File & Directory Operations

121.​How do you find files that haven't been accessed
in the last 30 days?
122.​How do you remove all empty directories inside a
given directory?
123.​How do you create a compressed tarball while
excluding certain files?
124.​How do you extract only specific files from a tar
archive?​
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125.​How do you split a large file into smaller parts

and merge them back?
126.​How do you create a symbolic link and a hard
link?
127.​How do you determine if a given path is a file,
directory, or symlink?
128.​How do you securely delete a file to prevent
recovery?
129.​How do you copy files from one server to another
while preserving permissions and timestamps?
130.​How do you find duplicate files in a directory?
131.​How do you count the number of lines in multiple
files?
132.​How do you merge multiple text files into a
single file?
133.​How do you replace a specific word inside
multiple files?
134.​How do you rename multiple files in bulk based on
a pattern?
135.​How do you identify and remove trailing spaces
from a text file?
136.​How do you create a read-only directory that only
the root user can modify?
137.​How do you prevent accidental deletion of
important files?
138.​How do you compare two files and highlight the
differences?
139.​How do you count the occurrence of a specific
word in a file?
140.​How do you find and replace text inside a ​
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compressed file without extracting it?

Networking & Security

141.​How do you permanently change the hostname of a
Linux machine?
142.​How do you check and modify the MTU of a network
interface?
143.​How do you diagnose a network latency issue?
144.​How do you verify if a remote server is reachable
on a specific port?
145.​How do you check which network services are
running on a machine?
146.​How do you configure a Linux firewall to block
traffic from a specific country?
147.​How do you limit the number of simultaneous SSH
connections?
148.​How do you generate and install a self-signed SSL
certificate?
149.​How do you monitor incoming and outgoing network
connections?
150.​How do you restrict SSH access to only a specific
IP range?
151.​How do you troubleshoot a failing VPN connection?
152.​How do you disable IPv6 on a Linux machine?
153.​How do you check for open and listening ports on
a server?
154.​How do you set up a basic IDS (Intrusion
Detection System) on Linux?
155.​How do you set up a VPN tunnel using OpenVPN?​
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156.​How do you prevent unauthorized USB device usage

on a Linux system?
157.​How do you encrypt a file using GPG?
158.​How do you securely share a file with another
user without using a password?
159.​How do you find and remove hidden backdoors on a
compromised Linux server?
160.​How do you detect unauthorized logins to a
server?

Troubleshooting & Performance Optimization

161.​How do you diagnose an unresponsive Linux system?
162.​How do you troubleshoot slow SSH login times?
163.​How do you identify memory leaks in a running
application?
164.​How do you debug a high CPU usage issue on a
production server?
165.​How do you analyze and optimize disk performance?
166.​How do you fix a corrupted MySQL database on a
Linux server?
167.​How do you monitor real-time I/O activity?
168.​How do you analyze logs efficiently for
debugging?
169.​How do you find the most resource-hungry user on
a system?
170.​How do you optimize a Linux server for
low-latency networking?
171.​How do you configure a system for maximum power
efficiency?​
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172.​How do you enable automatic system updates?

173.​How do you check the health of a hard disk?
174.​How do you limit the CPU usage of a specific
process?
175.​How do you analyze a system crash dump?
176.​How do you identify and kill runaway processes?
177.​How do you troubleshoot a system where commands
are executing very slowly?
178.​How do you configure Linux for high-performance
computing workloads?
179.​How do you reduce the boot time of a Linux
system?
180.​How do you analyze a server freeze that happened
in the past?

Automation, Monitoring & Cloud

181.​How do you automate log file cleanup using a
script?
182.​How do you configure a Linux system to send email
alerts on high CPU usage?
183.​How do you use Ansible to deploy software across
multiple servers?
184.​How do you create a cron job that runs only on
weekdays?
185.​How do you use rsync to create an incremental
backup?
186.​How do you set up log forwarding to a centralized
log server?
187.​How do you configure a Linux system to
auto-reboot on kernel panic?​
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188.​How do you monitor the uptime of a Linux system?

189.​How do you configure automatic disk cleanup for
temporary files?
190.​How do you use Prometheus and Grafana to monitor
system performance?
191.​How do you configure system alerts for failed
services?
192.​How do you troubleshoot a slow web application
running on Linux?
193.​How do you monitor system logs in real time?
194.​How do you create a cloud-init script for
provisioning cloud instances?
195.​How do you automate user creation across multiple
Linux servers?
196.​How do you configure auto-scaling for a
Linux-based cloud environment?
197.​How do you manage multiple servers using
SaltStack or Chef?
198.​How do you set up a private container registry on
a Linux server?
199.​How do you configure Kubernetes nodes to optimize
Linux networking?
200.​How do you create a high-availability cluster on
Linux?