Can you describe SAN in your won word?

A storage area network (SAN) is a high-speed special-purpose network (or subnetwork) that
interconnects different kinds of data storage devices with associated data servers on behalf of a
larger network of users. Typically, a storage area network is part of the overall network of
computing resources for an enterprise. A storage area network is usually clustered in close
proximity to other computing resources such as IBM Power5 boxes but may also extend to
remote locations for backup and archival storage, using wide area network carrier technologies
such as ATM or SONET .
A storage area network can use existing communication technology such as IBMs optical
fiber ESCON or it may use the newer Fibre Channel technology. Some SAN system integrators
liken it to the common storage bus (flow of data) in a personal computer that is shared by
different kinds of storage devices such as a hard disk or a CD-ROM player.
SANs support disk mirroring, backup and restore, archival and retrieval of archived data, data
migration from one storage device to another, and the sharing of data among different servers in
a network. SANs can incorporate subnetworks with network-attached storage (NAS) systems.

So you mention NAS, but What is NAS?

Network-attached storage (NAS) is hard disk storage that is set up with its own network address
rather than being attached to the department computer that is serving applications to a
networks workstation users. By removing storage access and its management from the
department server, both application programming and files can be served faster because they
are not competing for the same processor resources. The network-attached storage device is
attached to a local area network (typically, an Ethernet network) and assigned an IP address.
File requests are mapped by the main server to the NAS file server.
Network-attached storage consists of hard disk storage, including multi-disk RAID systems, and
software for configuring and mapping file locations to the network-attached device. Networkattached storage can be a step toward and included as part of a more sophisticated storage
system known as a storage area network (SAN).
NAS software can usually handle a number of network protocols, including Microsofts
Internetwork Packet Exchange and NetBEUI, Novells Netware Internetwork Packet Exchange,
and Sun Microsystems Network File System. Configuration, including the setting of user access
priorities, is usually possible using a Web browser.

What is SMTP and how it works?

SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) is a TCP/IP protocol used in sending and receiving email. However, since it is limited in its ability to queue messages at the receiving end, it is
usually used with one of two other protocols, POP3 or IMAP, that let the user save messages in
a server mailbox and download them periodically from the server. In other words, users typically
use a program that uses SMTP for sending e-mail and either POP3 or IMAP for receiving email. On Unix-based systems, sendmail is the most widely-used SMTP server for e-mail. A
commercial package, Sendmail, includes a POP3 server. Microsoft Exchange includes an
SMTP server and can also be set up to include POP3 support.
SMTP usually is implemented to operate over Internet port 25.

Do you have any idea about NAT?

Short for Network Address Translation, an Internet standard that enables a local-area network
(LAN) to use one set of IP addresses for internal traffic and a second set of addresses for
external traffic. A NAT box located where the LAN meets the Internet makes all necessary IP
address translations.

NAT serves three main purposes:

Provides a type of firewall by hiding internal IP addresses

Enables a company to use more internal IP addresses. Since theyre used internally
only, theres no possibility of conflict with IP addresses used by other companies and
organizations.

Allows a company to combine multiple ISDN connections into a single Internet

connection.

Explain DHCP and its uses to an environment?

Short for Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol, a protocol for assigning dynamic IP addresses
to devices on a network. With dynamic addressing, a device can have a different IP address
every time it connects to the network. In some systems, the devices IP address can even
change while it is still connected. DHCP also supports a mix of static and dynamic IP addresses.
Dynamic addressing simplifies network administration because the software keeps track of IP
addresses rather than requiring an administrator to manage the task. This means that a new
computer can be added to a network without the hassle of manually assigning it a unique IP
address. Many ISPs use dynamic IP addressing for dial-up users.

What does SNMP stands for?

Short for Simple Network Management Protocol, a set of protocols for managing complex
networks. SNMP works by sending messages, called Protocol Data Units, to different parts of a

network. SNMP-compliant devices, called Agents, store data about themselves in Management
Information Bases and return this data to the SNMP requesters.

What do you know about TCPDump?

TCPdump is a common computer network debugging tool that runs under the command line. It
allows the user to intercept and display TCP/IP and other packets being transmitted or received
over a network to which the computer is attached. Tcpdump works on most Unix-like platforms:
Linux, Solaris, BSD, Mac OS X, HP-UX and AIX among others. On Windows, WinDump can be
used; its a port of tcpdump to Windows.
You must have a root or super user authority to use TCPdumps in UNIX like envrionment.

What is software RAID Levels do?

Redundant Arrays of Independent Disks (RAID) is formally defined as a method to store data on
any type of disk medium.

LDAP
The Light Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) defines a standard method for accessing and
updating information in a directory (a database) either locally or remotely in a client-server
model.

What are the benefits of fibre channel SANs?

Fibre Channel SANs are the de facto standard for storage networking in the corporate data
center because they provide exceptional reliability, scalability, consolidation, and performance.
Fibre Channel SANs provide significant advantages over direct-attached storage through
improved storage utilization, higher data availability, reduced management costs, and highly
scalable capacity and performance.

What environment is most suitable for fibre channel

SANs?
Typically, Fibre Channel SANs are most suitable for large data centers running business-critical
data, as well as applications that require high-bandwidth performance such as medical imaging,
streaming media, and large databases. Fibre Channel SAN solutions can easily scale to meet
the most demanding performance and availability requirements.

What customer problems do fibre channel SANs solve?

The increased performance of Fibre Channel enables a highly effective backup and recovery
approach, including LAN-free and server-free backup models. The result is a faster, more

scalable, and more reliable backup and recovery solution. By providing flexible connectivity
options and resource sharing, Fibre Channel SANs also greatly reduce the number of physical
devices and disparate systems that must be purchased and managed, which can dramatically
lower capital expenditures. Heterogeneous SAN management provides a single point of control
for all devices on the SAN, lowering costs and freeing personnel to do other tasks.

How long has fibre channel been around?

Development started in 1988, ANSI standard approval occurred in 1994, and large deployments
began in 1998. Fibre Channel is a mature, safe, and widely deployed solution for high-speed (1
GB, 2 GB, 4 GB) communications and is the foundation for the majority of SAN installations
throughout the world.

What is the future of fibre channel SANs?

Fibre Channel is a well-established, widely deployed technology with a proven track record and
a very large installed base, particularly in high-performance, business-critical data center
environments. Fibre Channel SANs continue to grow and will be enhanced for a long time to
come. The reduced costs of Fibre Channel components, the availability of SAN kits, and the
next generation of Fibre Channel (4 GB) are helping to fuel that growth. In addition, the Fibre
Channel roadmap includes plans to double performance every three years.

What are the benefits of 4gb fibre channel?

Benefits include twice the performance with little or no price increase, investment protection with
backward compatibility to 2 GB, higher reliability due to fewer SAN components (switch and
HBA ports) required, and the ability to replicate, back up, and restore data more quickly. 4 GB
Fibre Channel systems are ideally suited for applications that need to quickly transfer large
amounts of data such as remote replication across a SAN, streaming video on demand,
modeling and rendering, and large databases. 4 GB technology is shipping today.

How is fibre channel different from ISCSI?

Fibre Channel and iSCSI each have a distinct place in the IT infrastructure as SAN alternatives
to DAS. Fibre Channel generally provides high performance and high availability for businesscritical applications, usually in the corporate data center. In contrast, iSCSI is generally used to
provide SANs for business applications in smaller regional or departmental data centers.
When should I deploy fibre channel instead of ISCSI?
For environments consisting of high-end servers that require high bandwidth or data center
environments with business-critical data, Fibre Channel is a better fit than iSCSI. For
environments consisting of many midrange or low-end servers, an IP SAN solution often
delivers the most appropriate price/performance.

Name some of the SAN topologies ?

Point-to-point, arbitrated loop, and switched fabric topologies.
Whats the need for separate network for storage why LAN cannot be used?
LAN hardware and operating systems are geared to user traffic, and LANs are tuned for a fast
user response to messaging requests.
With a SAN, the storage units can be secured separately from the servers and totally apart from
the user network enhancing storage access in data blocks (bulk data transfers), advantageous
for server-less backups.
What are the advantages of RAID?
Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks
Depending on how we configure the array, we can have the
- data mirrored [RAID 1] (duplicate copies on separate drives)
- striped [RAID 0] (interleaved across several drives), or
- parity protected [RAID 5](extra data written to identify errors).
These can be used in combination to deliver the balance of performance and reliability that the
user requires.
Define RAID? Which one you feel is good choice?
RAID (Redundant array of Independent Disks) is a technology to achieve redundancy with
faster I/O. There are Many Levels of RAID to meet different needs of the customer which are:
R0, R1, R3, R4, R5, R10, R6.
Generally customer chooses R5 to achieve better redundancy and speed and it is cost effective.
R0 Striped set without parity/[Non-Redundant Array].
Provides improved performance and additional storage but no fault tolerance. Any disk failure
destroys the array, which becomes more likely with more disks in the array. A single disk failure
destroys the entire array because when data is written to a RAID 0 drive, the data is broken into
fragments. The number of fragments is dictated by the number of disks in the drive. The
fragments are written to their respective disks simultaneously on the same sector. This allows
smaller sections of the entire chunk of data to be read off the drive in parallel, giving this type of
arrangement huge bandwidth. RAID 0 does not implement error checking so any error is
unrecoverable. More disks in the array means higher bandwidth, but greater risk of data loss

R1 Mirrored set without parity.

Provides fault tolerance from disk errors and failure of all but one of the drives. Increased read

performance occurs when using a multi-threaded operating system that supports split seeks,
very small performance reduction when writing. Array continues to operate so long as at least
one drive is functioning. Using RAID 1 with a separate controller for each disk is sometimes
called duplexing.

R3 Striped set with dedicated parity/Bit

interleaved parity.
This mechanism provides an improved performance and fault tolerance similar to RAID 5, but
with a dedicated parity disk rather than rotated parity stripes. The single parity disk is a bottleneck for writing since every write requires updating the parity data. One minor benefit is the
dedicated parity disk allows the parity drive to fail and operation will continue without parity or
performance penalty.

R4 Block level parity.

Identical to RAID 3, but does block-level striping instead of byte-level striping. In this setup, files
can be distributed between multiple disks. Each disk operates independently which allows I/O
requests to be performed in parallel, though data transfer speeds can suffer due to the type of
parity. The error detection is achieved through dedicated parity and is stored in a separate,
single disk unit.

R5 Striped set with distributed parity.

Distributed parity requires all drives but one to be present to operate; drive failure requires
replacement, but the array is not destroyed by a single drive failure. Upon drive failure, any
subsequent reads can be calculated from the distributed parity such that the drive failure is
masked from the end user. The array will have data loss in the event of a second drive failure
and is vulnerable until the data that was on the failed drive is rebuilt onto a replacement drive.

R6 Striped set with dual distributed Parity.

Provides fault tolerance from two drive failures; array continues to operate with up to two failed
drives. This makes larger RAID groups more practical, especially for high availability systems.
This becomes increasingly important because large-capacity drives lengthen the time needed to
recover from the failure of a single drive. Single parity RAID levels are vulnerable to data loss
until the failed drive is rebuilt: the larger the drive, the longer the rebuild will take. Dual parity
gives time to rebuild the array without the data being at risk if one drive, but no more, fails
before the rebuild is complete.

What is the difference between RAID 0+1 and RAID

1+0?
RAID 0+1 (Mirrored Stripped)
In this RAID level all the data is saved on stripped volumes which are in turn mirrored, so any
disk failure saves the data loss but it makes whole stripe unavailable. The key difference
from RAID 1+0 is that RAID 0+1 creates a second striped set to mirror a primary striped set.

The array continues to operate with one or more drives failed in the same mirror set, but if
drives fail on both sides of the mirror the data on the RAID system is lost. In this RAID level if
one disk is failed full mirror is marked as inactive and data is saved only one stripped volume.

RAID 1+0 (Stripped Mirrored)

In this RAID level all the data is saved on mirrored volumes which are in turn stripped, so any
disk failure saves data loss. The key difference from RAID 0+1 is that RAID 1+0 creates a
striped set from a series of mirrored drives. In a failed disk situation RAID 1+0 performs better
because all the remaining disks continue to be used. The array can sustain multiple drive losses
so long as no mirror loses both its drives.
This RAID level is most preferred for high performance and high data protection because
rebuilding of RAID 1+0 is less time consuming in comparison to RAID 0+1.

When JBODs are used?

Just a Bunch of Disks

It is a collection of disks that share a common connection to the server, but dont include the
mirroring,
striping, or parity facilities that RAID systems do, but these capabilities are available with hostbased software.

Differentiate RAID & JBOD?

RAID: Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks
Fault-tolerant grouping of disks that server sees as a single disk volume
Combination of parity-checking, mirroring, striping
Self-contained, manageable unit of storage
JBOD: Just a Bunch of Disks
Drives independently attached to the I/O channel
Scalable, but requires server to manage multiple volumes
Do not provide protection in case of drive failure
What is a HBA?
Host bus adapters (HBAs) are needed to connect the server (host) to the storage.
What are the advantages of SAN?
Massively extended scalability.

Greatly enhanced device connectivity.

Storage consolidation.
LAN-free backup.
Server-less (active-fabric) backup.
Server clustering.
Heterogeneous data sharing.
Disaster recovery Remote mirroring.
While answering people do NOT portray clearly what they mean & what advantages each of
them have, which are cost effective & which are to be used for the clients requirements.

What is the difference b/w SAN and NAS?

The basic difference between SAN and NAS, SAN is Fabric based and NAS is Ethernet based.
SAN Storage Area Network
It accesses data on block level and produces space to host in form of disk.
NAS Network attached Storage
It accesses data on file level and produces space to host in form of shared network folder.
What is a typical storage area network consists of if we consider it for implementation
in a small business setup?
If we consider any small business following are essentials components of SAN:
Fabric Switch.
FC Controllers.
JBODs.

Can you briefly explain each of these Storage area

components?
Fabric Switch: Its a device which interconnects multiple network devices .There are switches
starting from 16 port to 32 ports which connect 16 or 32 machine nodes etc. vendors who
manufacture these kind of switches are Brocade, McData.

What is the most critical component in SAN?

Each component has its own criticality with respect to business needs of a company.

How is a SAN managed?

There are many management softwares used for managing SANs to name a few:
Santricity.
IBM Tivoli Storage Manager.

CA Unicenter.
Veritas Volumemanger.

Which one is the Default ID for SCSI HBA?

Generally the default ID for SCSI HBA is 7.
SCSI- Small Computer System Interface.
HBA Host Bus Adaptor.

What is the highest and lowest priority of SCSI?

There are 16 different IDs which can be assigned to SCSI device 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0, 15, 14,
13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8.
Highest priority of SCSI is ID 7 and lowest ID is 8.

How do you install device drivers for the HBA first

time during OS installation?
In some scenarios you are supposed to install Operating System on the drives connected thru
SCSI HBA or SCSI RAID Controllers, but most of the OS will not be updated with drivers for
those controllers, that time you need to supply drivers externally, if you are installing windows,
you need to press F6 during the installation of OS and provide the driver disk or CD which came
along with HBA.
If you are installing Linux you need to type linux dd for installing any driver.
What is Array?
Array is a group of Independent physical disks to configure any Volumes or RAID volumes.
Can you describe at-least 3 troubleshooting scenarios which you have come across in
detail?

SCENARIO 1: How do you find/debug when there is

error while working SCSI devices?
In our daily SAN troubleshooting there are many management and configuration tools we use
them to see when there is a failure with target device or initiator device.
Some time it is even hard to troubleshoot some of the things such as media errors in the drives,
or some of the drives taking long time to spin-up. In such cases these utilities will not come to

help. To debug this kind of information most of the controller will be implemented with 3-pin
serial debug port. With serial port debug connector cable you can collect the debug information
with hyper terminal software.
SCENARIO 2: I am having an issue with a controller its taking lot of time to boot and detect all
the drives connected how can I solve this.?
There are many possibilities that might cause this problem. One of the reason might be you are
using bad drives that cannot be repaired. In those cases you replace the disks with working
ones.
Another reason might be slots you connected your controller to a slot which might not be
supported.
Try to connect with other types of slots.
One more probable reason is if you have flashed the firmware for different OEMs on the same
hardware.
To get rid of this the flash utilities will be having option to erase all the previous and EEPROM
and boot block entry option. Use that option to rectify the problem.
SCENARIO 3: I am using tape drive series 700X, even the vendor information on the Tape drive
says 700X, but the POST information while booting the server is showing as 500X what could
be the problem?
First you should make sure your hardware is of which series, you can find out this in the product
website.
Generally you can see this because in most of the testing companies they use same hardware
to test different series of same hardware type. What they do is they flash the different series
firmware. You can always flash back to exact hardware type.

Which are the 4 types of SAN architecture types ?

Core-edge.
Full-Mesh.
Partial-Mesh.
Cascade.

Which command is used in linux to know the driver

version of any hardware device?
dmesg.

How many minimum drives are required to create R5

(RAID 5)?
You need to have at least 3 disk drives to create R5.

Can you name some of the states of RAID array?

There are states of RAID arrays that represent the status of the RAID arrays which are given
below:
Online.
Degraded.
Rebuilding.
Failed.

What are the protocols used in physical/datalink and

network layer of SAN?
Ethernet.
SCSI.
Fibre Channel.

What is storage virtualization?

Storage virtualization is amalgamation of multiple n/w storage devices into single storage unit.

Describe in brief the composition of FC Frame?

Start of the Frame locator
Frame header (includes destination id and source id, 24 bytes/6 words).
Data Payload (encapsulate SCSI instruction can be 0-2112 bytes in length).
CRC (error checking, 4 bytes).
End of Frame (1 byte).

What is virtualization?
Virtualization is logical representation of physical devices. It is the technique of managing and
presenting storage devices and resources functionally, regardless of their physical layout or
location. Virtualization is the pooling of physical storage from multiple network storage devices
into what appears to be a single storage device that is managed from a central console. Storage
virtualization is commonly used in a storage area network (SAN). The management of storage

devices can be tedious and time-consuming. Storage virtualization helps the storage
administrator perform the tasks of backup, archiving, and recovery more easily, and in less time,
by disguising the actual complexity of the SAN.

What is HA?
HA High Availability is a technology to achieve failover with very less latency. Its a practical
requirement of data centers these days when customers expect the servers to be running 24
hours on all 7 days around the whole 365 days a year usually referred as 24x7x365. So to
achieve this, a redundant infrastructure is created to make sure if one database server or if one
app server fails there is a replica Database or Appserver ready to take-over the operations. End
customer never experiences any outage when there is a HA network infrastructure.

Can you name some of the available tape media types?

There are many types of tape media available to back up the data, some of them are:
DLT: Digital Linear Tape technology for tape backup/archive of networks and servers; DLT
technology addresses midrange to high-end tape backup requirements.
LTO: Linear Tape Open; a new standard tape format developed by HP, IBM, and Seagate.
AIT: Advanced Intelligent Tape; a helical scan technology developed by Sony for tape
backup/archive of networks and servers, specifically addressing midrange to high-end backup
requirements.

Can we assign a hot spare to R0 (RAID 0) array?

No, since R0 is not redundant array, failure of any disks results in failure of the entire array so
we cannot rebuild the hot spare for the R0 array.

Name the features of SCSI-3 standard?

QAS: Quick arbitration and selection.
Domain Validation.
CRC: Cyclic redundancy check.

What is Multipath I/O?

Fault tolerant technique where, there is more than one physical path between the CPU in the
computer systems and its main storage devices through the buses, controllers, switches and
other bridge devices connecting them.

What is disk array?

Set of high performance storage disks that can store several terabytes of data. Single disk array
can support multiple points of connection to the network.

What are different types of protocols used in transportation and session layers of SAN?
Fibre Channel Protocol (FCP).
Internet SCSI (iSCSI).
Fibre Channel IP (FCIP).
What is the type of Encoding used in Fibre Channel?
8b/10b, as the encoding technique is able to detect all most all the bit errors
What are the main constrains of SCSI in storage networking?
Deployment distance (max. of 25 mts).
Number of devices that can be interconnected (16).

What is a Fabric?
Interconnection of Fibre Channel Switches.

What are the services provided by Fabric to all the

nodes?
1.

Fabric Login.

2.

SNS.

3.

Fabric Address Notification.

4.

Registered state change notification.

5.

Broadcast Servers.

What is the difference between LUN and WWN?

LUN: Unique number that is assigned to each storage device or partition of the storage that the
storage can support.
WWN: 64bit address that is hard coded into a fibre channel HBA and this is used to identify
individual port (N_Port or F_Port) in the fabric.

What are the different topologies in Fibre Channel?

1.

Point-to-Point.

2.

Arbitrary Loop.

3.

Switched Fabric Loop.

What are the layers of Fibre Channel Protocol?

1.

FC Physical Media.

2.

FC Encoder and Decoder.

3.

FC Framing and Flow control.

4.

FC Common Services.

5.

FC Upper Level Protocol Mapping.

What is zoning?
Fabric management service that can be used to create logical subsets of devices within a SAN.
This enables portioning of resources for management and access control purpose.

What is the purpose of disk array?

Probability of unavailability of data stored on the
disk array due to single point failure is totally
eliminated.
How does FC Switch maintain the addresses?
FC Switch uses simple name server (SNS) to maintain the mapping table.

What are the two major classification of zoning?

Two types of zoning are:
1.

Software Zoning.

2.

Hardware Zoning.

What are different levels of zoning?

1.

Port Level zoning.

2.

WWN Level zoning.

3.

Device Level zoning.

4.

Protocol Level zoning.

5.

LUN Level zoning.

What are the 3 prominent characteristics of SAS

Protocol?
1.

Native Command Queuing (NCQ.)

2.

Port Multiplier.

3.

Port Selector.

What are the 5 states of Arbitrary Loop in FC?

1.

Loop Initialization.

2.

Loop Monitoring.

3.

Loop arbitration.

4.

Open Loop.

5.

Close Loop.

What is LUN Masking?

A method used to create an exclusive storage area and access control. And this can be
achieved by storage device control program.

What is snapshot?
A snapshot of data object contains an image of data at a particular point of time.

What is hot-swapping?
Devices are allowed to be removed and inserted into a system without turning off the system.

1 What is UAS?
The USB Attached SCSI is the computer protocol for transferring data
from the USB connected devices through the SCSI commands. This
helps us in avoiding the Mass Storage classs Bulk-Only transports.
There are two standards governing the USB + SCSI combination,
which are referred to as the USB Attached SCSI and USB Attached
SCSI Protocol (UASP).

2 What are the different fields found in the IQN?

The different fields present in the iSCSI Qualified Name are:
IQN string representation.
Date field representing the ownership begin date.
Reversed domain name of the owner.
Storage target name representing the exact target that is meant to
be connected to, which is optionally done with a : mark.
3. What is an initiator? What are the different types of initiators?
Initiator is the client side of the network which is trying to get some
data through the iSCSI connected device. This can typically be
compared to simulation of the SCSI bus that is meant to transfer the
data from the disks.
There are two different types of initiators:
Software initiator: This refers to the Operating system level or kernel
level code that can simulate the SCSI interface to higher level
application. The kernel level drivers which act on the TCP/IP data
transform them into the raw SCSI commands and data packets.
Hardware Initiator: There is dedicated hardware for having the
transformation done from TCP/IP to SCSI based protocols. This avoid
the overhead on the processing side from the OS level as these have
their own connectivity adapter and firmware meant for deciphering
data.
4 What is 8b/10b encoding? What is its use?
The 8b/10b encoding is concept of mapping 8 bit symbols to 10 bit
symbols thus avoiding the problems involving bounded disparity, DCbalance. The transmission can achieve good reliability with clock
recovery made possible. The first 3 bits of data are transformed into a

4bit code and the lower 5 bits are coded as 6 bits (5b/6b encoding).
Thus each 8 bit information is transferred into a 10 bit line code.
5 What are the advantages of using SATA over ATA?
The SATA is a more advantaged technology than ATA. The hot
swapping and hot plugging is possible in SATA and the cost of
installation can be minimal in SATA, so is the cable usage and the data
speeds are as high as 1.5gbps.
6 What is RAID? What are the advantages of using one?
The RAID refers to Redundant Array of Independent Disks. This is a
mechanism where data is stored in multiple disks and each disk
content has another copy lying in another independent disk. This way
it is possible to have redundant data which helps us in avoiding loss of
data due to malfunction of a single disk in a RAID. The management
layer for configuring and using the RAID appropriately is referred to as
RAID Controller, which offers interface to RAID access.
7 What are the FC3 level services?
The FC-3 level gives the following services:
Striping: Single chunk of data can be transmitted parallel across
multiple N_ports thus maximising bandwidth utilization.
Hunt groups: The ability for multple N_Ports to respond to the
incoming requests from specific alias address makes it possible to have
an uninterrupted access at times of heavy load.
This level offers the broadcast services where a single unit of
information can be transmitted to be received by multiple N_ports on a
FC network.
8 What is flow control? What are the different flow control mechanisms
used by the different types of frames?

Flow control refers to process control mechanism in the FC 2 standard,

where the data transmissions across the different N_ports and N_port
and the fabrics are coordinated to avoid overflow. The Class 1 type of
frames use end-to-end flow control, Class 2 uses the buffer-to-buffer
flow control while the class 3 may use either of them.
9 What is an ordered set and what are the uses of the different
ordered sets?
The ordered set is a four byte data that are meant for coordinating the
data transfers across the FC networks.
The 3 different ordered sets and their uses are:
The Frame delimiters are the ordered sets that indicate the
commencing or end of a particular chunk of data that is being
transferred.
Idle and R_RDY ordered sets are meant for signaling the availability
of server and client to send and receive data, so that unintentional loss
of data is avoided.
Primitive sequence ordered set is the one that is used to give out the
status of the devices and ports during transmission and reception.
10 What is DAS? What are the advantages of SAN over DAS?
The DAS refers to the Direct Attached Storage. This is the way of
maintaining storage where the physical disks are directly attached to
the computers (servers). This is quite feasible solution for a stand
alone server with less data needs and single point of operation. But
when it comes to an application or server infrastructure that is
dependent on a number of different servers which has to have a very
stable backup and redundant data management mechanism, the
Storage Area Networks offer a better option.
The advantages are:
Multiple point of access.

 Stability of the infrastrucure.

Avoidance of single point of failure.
Safeguarding against data loses
11 What is use of the Logical Unit Number?
The Logical Unit Number or LUN is the unique number that identifies a
specific device or a specific volume inside a device that has to be used
for a particular read/write operation in a SAN. All the storage protocols
like SCSI, iSCSI, FC etc have the storage mounted as different
volumes and the accesses to such devices have to be identified with
the LUN to specify which volume is under consideration. This comes
practically used in all RAID installations and management.
12 What is WWPN and WWNN? Can same WWNN be assigned to
different ports?
The World Wide Port Number is a unique identifier for the FC storage
port. This can be accessed from any connection worldwide. This is
similar to the MAC addresses used in the IP and ethernet standards.
The WWNN stands for the World Wide Node Name which is the unique
name assigned to a device connected to FC network. Yes, the same
node name can be assigned to multiple ports symbolizing the multiple
interfaces to the specific node or device in the network.
13 What is SCSI and iSCSI?
The SCSI stands for Small Computer System Interface which is data
transfer standard for the computer systems buses connecting the
storage disks. The iSCSI is the Internet SCSI which is the internet
(TCP/IP) protocol based simulation of the SCSI interface where
commands are exchanged just similar to SCSI bus interfaces for
fetching data.

14 How can you compare FC with iSCSI?

The FC is the network layer technology that offers higher speeds and
reliability in transfer of data in storage systems. Internet SCSI on the
other hand is a TCP/IP based protocol that allows for systems to
communicate and exchange data over the already existing TCP/IP
protocol. Thus the speed of the iSCSI is limited but the FC is one that
can give you speeds upto 10 Gigabytes/sec.
15 What is FCoE?
The Fibre Channel over Ethernet is the technology that combines the
merits of Fibre channel and the common data transfer protocol of
ethernet. The combination offers the Storage Area Networks a better
fibre channel oriented protocol of accesses. The Server-Server and
Client-Server connectivity is enhanced the infrastructure is more stable
and all the systems operate with the FC protocol which gives a better
scope of integrating the latest standards in storage devices.
16 List out the advantages of iSCSI over others.
There is minimal modifications required to be done on present
networks.
The Servers can just be the normal low cost ones.
The dependence of the servers over the actual physical storage is
taken off.
More performance from server computation side.
All types of data storage medium SATA, SCSI etc. can be integrated
easily.
Creating snapshots of data comes in handy during server
replacements, as opposed to backups.
Simpler management and storage enhancements.
17 What are the different topologies and the number of devices for

each in case of Fibre Channel?

The three different topologies and corresponding number of devices
that can be connected are:
Point to Point topology that can support 2 devices.
The FC Arbitrated loop that can can support 127 devices.
The Switched fabric topology can support 2^24 devices max.
18 What is the concept of Storage Virtualization?
The usage of a intermediate interface for managing storage logically
which gives the end user the independence from the physical storage
is called storage virtualization. This gives the abstraction for the
applications and other data accesses making it simple and generic for
the end user of the data.

SAN Interview questions (EMC Storage Clariion, DMX and

VMAX)--->
PART-II
1. What is Power path?
2. Power path CLI to manage disks
3. List Power path policy
4. What is Vault drive?
5. What is the PSM Lun?
6. Basic of Storage

7. Define RAID? Which one you feel is good choice?

8. Storage Array used in DAS
9. Explain iSCSI login, fabric login
10. Advantage of migration from DAS to SAN
11. What is Meta Lun?
12. Explain Clariion architecture
13. Explain DMX architecture
14. Explain Enginuity operation layers
15. What is hard and soft zoning?
16. Explain WWN
17. What is zoning and how to create?
18. What is VSAN and how to create?
19. Hardware Models of clarion
20. What is FCID?
21. Explain Navishere/Symmtric Management console /ECC

22. Initialization of clarion array

23. Explain rule 17 in DMX
24. Why and how symmask, symld and symdg are used in DMX?
25. Symdev
26. Explain about symcfg
27. What is SYMAPI?
28. Configuration change in DMX
29. What is VCMDB?
30. Can windows, Linux, Solaris share the same FA in DMX?
31. What is Snap view?
32. What is Mirror view?
33. What is SAN Copy?
34. Explain Time finder and SRDF
35. Difference in iSCSI and NAS
36. What is IQN?
37. Explain SAN, NAS and CAS using devices used in these model

38. Difference in iFCP and FCIP

39. What is fabric?
40. What is RAID? Explain RAID3, RAID5 and RAID1/0
41. What is Hot Spare Disk?
42. What are the bay in DMX-3
43. Version and Model
44. Brief the Symmetrix CLI command
45. Create Storage group and add device into storage group in DMX.
46. Create Time Finder Clone using CLI
47. Composite Device group
48. create SRDF
49. What is iSCSI?
50. What is Disk Controller?
51. How does data got saved in case of striping and incase of
concatenation?
52. What is the minimum no. of disks required for RAID 5 and RAID

6?
53. Difference between time finder and clone?
54. What is SRDF R1 & R2?
55. What is the version of Symmetrix DMX4?
56. In 4-24 what do 24 mean?
57. What is fabric?
58. Importance of RAID6?
59. How many disk failures RAID 5 supports?
60. Importance of masking?
61. Different RAID levels?
62. What is quorum disk and it is importance?
63. How to manually restore failed paths in Clariion?
64. Flash drives in DMX4?
65. What is LCC? Link Control Card
66. Storage provisioning in DMX?
67. Steps for zoning using CLI?

68. Describe SMCLI commands you have used

69. LUN, Base LUN and Metalun?
70. Difference between HP EVA 5000 and 8000?
71. What is CMI? Clariion Message Interface
72. What are the I/O operations in Clariion?
73. Use of SPs?
74. What is VMCDB?
75. What is Hyper?
76. What is a device in DMX?
77. What is SAN Kit?
78. Channel directors and disk directors?
79. What is global memory?
80. Difference between Emulex and Qlogic?
81. What is storage array in Clariion?
82. What FCID?

83. What is F-LOGI and P-LOGI? How authentication happens? How

many volume groups can be created in Linux ?

Answer :256.
I feel this question is unnecessary and In day to day operation,you will
never reach this limit.
I feel that the below interview questions can help you to find the right
candidate.
This articles just covers the LVM part.
1.Is it possible to increase the logical volume on fly ?
Answer: Yes.We can increase the logical volume without umount it.
2.How to reduce the logical volume ? is it possible to reduce on fly ?
Answer: No.You cant reduce the logical volume on fly. Here is the steps
to reduce the logical volume on redhat Linux.

Un-mount the filesystem

Run e2fsck on the volume device

Reduce the Filesystem.(resize2fs)

Reduce the logical Volume(lvreduce)

Mount the filesystem back for production.

The detailed step by step guide is available here.
3.How to do you scan the new LUN or disk for LVM physical volume ?
Answer:Use pvscan to scan existing physical volume from newly
connected SAN or DISKS.
4.How to scan disks for existing volume group ?
Answer:Use vgscan to scan existing volume group from newly
connected SAN or DISKS.
But you should use pvscan prior to executing this command.

5.How to scan a logical volume from exising volume group?

Answer: lvscan
6.How to stop the logical volume ? or deactivate the logical volume ?
Answer: lvchange -an /dev/vg_name/lv_name
7.How to activated the logical volume which in deactivated state ?
Answer: lvchange -ay /dev/vg_name/lv_name .
8.How to disable the volume group ? or Deactivate the volume group ?
Answer:vgchange -an volume_group_name .
9.How to enable the volume group ? or Activate the volume group ?
Answer:vgchange -ay volume_group_name .
10.How do you find that what are the disks are used for logical volume
mirroring ?
Answer: use lvs -a -o +devices
11. What
fly ?
Answer:

are steps to perform in order to increase the logical volume on

Extend the logical volume

Increase the Filesystem size
Verify the status using df command or lvs command.

12.How to list the imported volume groups ?

Answer: Use vgs command to display the imported volume group.
13.How to list the available logical volumes on the system?
Answer: Use lvs command to list the available logical volumes on the
system.

14.How to list the available physical volumes in LVM?

Answer: Use pvs command to list the available physical volumes.
15.How to see the detailed volume group information ?
Answer: Use vgdisplay vg_name
16.How to see the detailed logical volume information ?
Answer: Use lvdisplay /dev/vg_name/lv_name
17.How to see the detailed physical volume information ?
Answer: Use pvdisplay /dev/disk_name Ex: pvdisplay /dev/sde
18.How to rename volume Group ? can we rename the VG on fly ?
Answer:Yes.Its possible to rename the volume group on fly.But
the mounted volumes will not reflect the same unless you re-mount the
volume with new VG name.
Need to update the /etc/fstab with new VG name to mount the volumes
across the system reboot.
19.How to take a LVM configuration backup ?
Answer:Use vgcfgbackup vg_name to take the latest configuration
backup of volume group.The default volume group backup location is
/etc/lvm/backup .
Refer:http://www.unixarena.com/2013/08/linux-lvm-volume-groupoperations.html
20.How to re-create the device files for LVM volumes ?
Answer:Run vgmknodes to recreate the LVM devices files.
21.What is lvmdump ?
Answer: lvmdump is tool for LVM2 to collect the various information for

diagnostic purposes.By default, it creates a tarball suitable for submission

along with a problem report
22.How to replace the failed hard disk in LVM ?
23.How to create a mirrored logical volume ?
24.How to create a striped Logical volume ?
25.How to convert the linear volume to mirror volume ?
26.How are snapshots in LVM2 different from LVM1 in Redhat Linux?
Answer:LVM1 snapshots are readonly by default where LVM2 snapshots
were read/write.
27.What are the steps involved to create the logical volume
from scratch ?
Answer:
i.Create a physical volume using pvcreate command.
#pvcreate /dev/sdc
ii.Create a volume group using vgcreate command
#vgcreate vg02 /dev/sdc
iii.Create a logical volume using lvcreate command
#lvcreate -L 100M -n vol1 vg02
iv.Create a filesystem on logical volume using mkfs command.
#mkfs -t ext4 /dev/vg02/vol1
v.Mount the filesystem using mount command for use.
#mount -t ext4 /dev/vg02/vol1 /vol1
28.How to extent the volume group ?
Answer:Using vgextend we can increase the volume group.

29.Assume Volume group vg02 is already exists.How do you extend the

volume group with 50GB ? Provide all the steps with commands.
Answer:
1.Get the 50GB lun from SAN team.(/dev/sdd)
2.Create physcical volume ( # pvcreate /dev/sdd )
2.Extend the volume group (# vgextend vg02 /dev/sdd)
30.If the vg02 has two physical volumes called /dev/sdc/ & /dev/sdd.
How do you remove /dev/sdd from vg02.
Answer: vgreduce vg02 /dev/sdd/
31.How to decommission/remove LVM completely from the host ?
Answer:
1.Un-mount all the logical filesystems
2.Remove the logical volumes using lvremove command.
3.Destroy the volume group using vgremove command.
4.Use pvremove command remove the physical volumes from the
system.
1.
You need to see the last fifteen lines of the files dog, cat and
horse. What command should you use?
tail -15 dog |grep cat horse
The tail utility displays the end of a file. The -15 tells tail to display the last
fifteen lines of each specified file.
2.
Who owns the data dictionary?
The SYS user owns the data dictionary. The SYS and SYSTEM users are
created when the database is created.
3.
You routinely compress old log files. You now need to examine
a log from two months ago. In order to view its contents without
first having to decompress it, use the _________ utility.
zcat

The zcat utility allows you to examine the contents of a compressed file much
the same way that cat displays a file.
4.
You suspect that you have two commands with the same name
as the command is not producing the expected results. What
command can you use to determine the location of the command
being run?
which
The which command searches your path until it finds a command that
matches the command you are looking for and displays its full path.
5.
You locate a command in the /bin directory but do not know
what it does. What command can you use to determine its purpose.
whatis
The whatis command displays a summary line from the man page for the
specified command.
6.
You wish to create a link to the /data directory in bob's home
directory so you issue the command ln /data /home/bob/datalink
but the command fails. What option should you use in this command
line to be successful.
Use the -F option
In order to create a link to a directory you must use the -F option.
7.
When you issue the command ls -l, the first character of the
resulting display represents the file's ___________.
type
The first character of the permission block designates the type of file that is
being displayed.
8.
What utility can you use to show a dynamic listing of running
processes? __________
top
The top utility shows a listing of all running processes that is dynamically
updated.
9.
Where is standard output usually directed?
to the screen or display

By default, your shell directs standard output to your screen or display.

10.
You wish to restore the file memo.ben which was backed up in
the tarfile MyBackup.tar. What command should you type?
tar xf MyBackup.tar memo.ben
This command uses the x switch to extract a file. Here the file memo.ben will
be restored from the tarfile MyBackup.tar.
11.
You need to view the contents of the tarfile called
MyBackup.tar. What command would you use?
tar tf MyBackup.tar
The t switch tells tar to display the contents and the f modifier specifies which
file to examine.
12.
You want to create a compressed backup of the users' home
directories. What utility should you use?
tar
You can use the z modifier with tar to compress your archive at the same time
as creating it.
13.
What daemon is responsible for tracking events on your
system?
syslogd
The syslogd daemon is responsible for tracking system information and saving
it to specified log files.
14.
You have a file called phonenos that is almost 4,000 lines long.
What text filter can you use to split it into four pieces each 1,000
lines long?
split
The split text filter will divide files into equally sized pieces. The default length
of each piece is 1,000 lines.
15.
You would like to temporarily change your command line editor
to be vi. What command should you type to change it?
set -o vi

The set command is used to assign environment variables. In this case, you are
instructing your shell to assign vi as your command line editor. However, once
you log off and log back in you will return to the previously defined command
line editor.
16.
root

What account is created when you install Linux?

Whenever you install Linux, only one user account is created. This is the
superuser account also known as root.

17.
What command should you use to check the number of files
and disk space used and each user's defined quotas?
repquota
The repquota command is used to get a report on the status of the quotas you
have set including the amount of allocated space and amount of used space.
18. In order to run fsck on the root partition, the root partition must be mounted as
readonly
You cannot run fsck on a partition that is mounted as read-write.
19. In order to improve your system's security you decide to implement
shadow passwords. What command should you use?
pwconv
The pwconv command creates the file /etc/shadow and changes all passwords to 'x' in the
/etc/passwd file.
20. Bob Armstrong, who has a username of boba, calls to tell you he forgot his
password. What command should you use to reset his command?
passwd boba
The passwd command is used to change your password. If you do not specify a username, your
password will be changed.

21. The top utility can be used to change the priority of a running process? Another utility that can
also be used to change priority is ___________?
nice
Both the top and nice utilities provide the capability to change the priority of a running process.
22. What command should you type to see all the files with an extension of
'mem' listed in reverse alphabetical order in the /home/ben/memos
directory.
ls -r /home/ben/memos/*.mem
The -c option used with ls results in the files being listed in chronological order. You can use
wildcards with the ls command to specify a pattern of filenames.
23. What file defines the levels of messages written to system log files?
kernel.h
To determine the various levels of messages that are defined on your system, examine the
kernel.h file.
24. What command is used to remove the password assigned to a group?
gpasswd -r
The gpasswd command is used to change the password assigned to a group. Use the -r option
to remove the password from the group.

25. What command would you type to use the cpio to create a backup called
backup.cpio of all the users' home directories?
find /home | cpio -o > backup.cpio
The find command is used to create a list of the files and directories contained in home. This list
is then piped to the cpio utility as a list of files to include and the output is saved to a file called
backup.cpio.
26. What can you type at a command line to determine which shell you are
using?
echo $SHELL

The name and path to the shell you are using is saved to the SHELL environment variable. You
can then use the echo command to print out the value of any variable by preceding the
variable's name with $. Therefore, typing echo $SHELL will display the name of your shell.
27. What type of local file server can you use to provide the distribution installation materials to the
new machine during a network installation?
A) Inetd

B) FSSTND C) DNS

D) NNTP

E) NFS

E - You can use an NFS server to provide the distribution installation materials to the machine
on which you are performing the installation. Answers a, b, c, and d are all valid items but none
of them are file servers. Inetd is the superdaemon which controls all intermittently used network
services. The FSSTND is the Linux File System Standard. DNS provides domain name
resolution, and NNTP is the transfer protocol for usenet news.
28. If you type the command cat dog & > cat what would you see on your display? Choose one:
a. Any error messages only.
b. The contents of the file dog.
c. The contents of the file dog and any error messages.
d. Nothing as all output is saved to the file cat.
d
When you use & > for redirection, it redirects both the standard output and standard error. The
output would be saved to the file cat.
29. You are covering for another system administrator and one of the users asks you to restore a file
for him. You locate the correct tarfile by checking the backup log but do not know how the
directory structure was stored. What command can you use to determine this?
Choose one:
a. tar fx tarfile dirname
b. tar tvf tarfile filename
c. tar ctf tarfile
d. tar tvf tarfile
d
The t switch will list the files contained in the tarfile. Using the v modifier will display the stored
directory structure.

30. You have the /var directory on its own partition. You have run out of space. What should you do?
Choose one:
a. Reconfigure your system to not write to the log files.
b. Use fips to enlarge the partition.
c. Delete all the log files.
d. Delete the partition and recreate it with a larger size.
d
The only way to enlarge a partition is to delete it and recreate it. You will then have to restore
the necessary files from backup.
31. You have a new application on a CD-ROM that you wish to install. What should your first step
be?
Choose one:
a. Read the installation instructions on the CD-ROM.
b. Use the mount command to mount your CD-ROM as read-write.
c. Use the umount command to access your CD-ROM.
d. Use the mount command to mount your CD-ROM as read-only.
d
Before you can read any of the files contained on the CD-ROM, you must first mount the CDROM.
32. When you create a new partition, you need to designate its size by defining the starting and
ending _____________.
cylinders
When creating a new partition you must first specify its starting cylinder. You can then either
specify its size or the ending cylinder.
33. What key combination can you press to suspend a running job and place it in the background?
ctrl-z
Using ctrl-z will suspend a job and put it in the background.
34. The easiest, most basic form of backing up a file is to _____ it to another location.
copy

The easiest most basic form of backing up a file is to make a copy of that file to another location
such as a floppy disk.
35. What type of server is used to remotely assign IP addresses to machines during the installation
process?
A) SMB

B) NFS

C) DHCP

D) FTP

E) HTTP

C - You can use a DHCP server to assign IP addresses to individual machines during the
installation process. Answers a, b, d, and e list legitimate Linux servers, but these servers do not
provide IP addresses. The SMB, or Samba, tool is used for file and print sharing across multiOS networks. An NFS server is for file sharing across Linux net-works. FTP is a file storage
server that allows people to browse and retrieve information by logging in to it, and HTTP is for
the Web.
36. Which password package should you install to ensure that the central password file couldn't be
stolen easily?
A) PAM

B) tcp_wrappers

C) shadow D) securepass

E) ssh

C - The shadow password package moves the central password file to a more secure location.
Answers a, b, and e all point to valid packages, but none of these places the password file in a
more secure location. Answer d points to an invalid package.
37. When using useradd to create a new user account, which of the following tasks is not done
automatically.
Choose one:
a. Assign a UID.
b. Assign a default shell.
c. Create the user's home directory.
d. Define the user's home directory.
C - The useradd command will use the system default for the user's home directory. The home
directory is not created, however, unless you use the -m option.
38. You want to enter a series of commands from the command-line. What would be the quickest
way to do this?
Choose One
a. Press enter after entering each command and its arguments
b. Put them in a script and execute the script
c. Separate each command with a semi-colon (;) and press enter after the last command

d. Separate each command with a / and press enter after the last command
c
The semi-colon may be used to tell the shell that you are entering multiple commands that
should be executed serially. If these were commands that you would frequently want to run,
then a script might be more efficient. However, to run these commands only once, enter the
commands directly at the command line.
39. You attempt to use shadow passwords but are unsuccessful. What characteristic of the
/etc/passwd file may cause this?
Choose one:
a. The login command is missing.
b. The username is too long.
c. The password field is blank.
d. The password field is prefaced by an asterisk.
c
The password field must not be blank before converting to shadow passwords.
40. When you install a new application, documentation on that application is also usually installed.
Where would you look for the documentation after installing an application called MyApp?
Choose one:
a. /usr/MyApp
b. /lib/doc/MyApp
c. /usr/doc/MyApp
d. In the same directory where the application is installed.
c
The default location for application documentation is in a directory named for the application in
the /usr/doc directory.
41. What file would you edit in your home directory to change which window manager you want to
use?
A) Xinit

B) .xinitrc

C) XF86Setup

D) xstart

E) xf86init

Answer: B - The ~/.xinitrc file allows you to set which window man-ager you want to use when
logging in to X from that account.
Answers a, d, and e are all invalid files. Answer c is the main X server configuration file.

42. What command allows you to set a processor-intensive job to use less CPU time?
A) ps B) nice

C) chps

D) less

E) more

Answer: B - The nice command is used to change a job's priority level, so that it runs slower or
faster. Answers a, d, and e are valid commands but are not used to change process information.
Answer c is an invalid command.
43. While logged on as a regular user, your boss calls up and wants you to create a new user
account immediately. How can you do this without first having to close your work, log off and
logon as root?
Choose one:
a. Issue the command rootlog.
b. Issue the command su and type exit when finished.
c. Issue the command su and type logoff when finished.
d. Issue the command logon root and type exit when finished.
Answer: b
You can use the su command to imitate any user including root. You will be prompted for the
password for the root account. Once you have provided it you are logged in as root and can do
any administrative duties.
44. There are seven fields in the /etc/passwd file. Which of the following lists all the fields in the
correct order?
Choose one:
a. username, UID, GID, home directory, command, comment
b. username, UID, GID, comment, home directory, command
c. UID, username, GID, home directory, comment, command
d. username, UID, group name, GID, home directory, comment
Answer: b
The seven fields required for each line in the /etc/passwd file are username, UID, GID,
comment, home directory, command. Each of these fields must be separated by a colon even if
they are empty.
45. Which of the following commands will show a list of the files in your home directory including
hidden files and the contents of all subdirectories?
Choose one:
a. ls -c home
b. ls -aR /home/username
c. ls -aF /home/username

d. ls -l /home/username
Answer: b
The ls command is used to display a listing of files. The -a option will cause hidden files to be
displayed as well. The -R option causes ls to recurse down the directory tree. All of this starts at
your home directory.

46. In order to prevent a user from logging in, you can add a(n) ________at the beginning of the
password field.
Answer: asterick
If you add an asterick at the beginning of the password field in the /etc/passwd file, that user will
not be able to log in.
47. You have a directory called /home/ben/memos and want to move it to /home/bob/memos so you
issue the command mv /home/ben/memos /home/bob. What is the results of this action?
Choose one:
a. The files contained in /home/ben/memos are moved to the directory
/home/bob/memos/memos.
b. The files contained in /home/ben/memos are moved to the directory
/home/bob/memos.
c. The files contained in /home/ben/memos are moved to the directory /home/bob/.
d. The command fails since a directory called memos already exists in the target
directory.
Answer: a
When using the mv command to move a directory, if a directory of the same name exists then a
subdirectory is created for the files to be moved.
48. Which of the following tasks is not necessary when creating a new user by editing the
/etc/passwd file?
Choose one:
a. Create a link from the user's home directory to the shell the user will use.
b. Create the user's home directory
c. Use the passwd command to assign a password to the account.
d. Add the user to the specified group.

Answer: a
There is no need to link the user's home directory to the shell command. Rather, the specified
shell must be present on your system.
49. You issue the following command useradd -m bobm But the user cannot logon. What is the
problem?
Choose one:
a. You need to assign a password to bobm's account using the passwd command.
b. You need to create bobm's home directory and set the appropriate permissions.
c. You need to edit the /etc/passwd file and assign a shell for bobm's account.
d. The username must be at least five characters long.
Answer: a
The useradd command does not assign a password to newly created accounts. You will still
need to use the passwd command to assign a password.

50. You wish to print the file vacations with 60 lines to a page. Which of the following commands will
accomplish this? Choose one:
a. pr -l60 vacations | lpr
b. pr -f vacations | lpr
c. pr -m vacations | lpr
d. pr -l vacations | lpr
Answer: a
The default page length when using pr is 66 lines. The -l option is used to specify a different
length.
51. Which file defines all users on your system?
Choose one:
a. /etc/passwd
b. /etc/users
c. /etc/password

d. /etc/user.conf
Answer: a
The /etc/passwd file contains all the information on users who may log into your system. If a
user account is not contained in this file, then the user cannot log in.
52. Which two commands can you use to delete directories?
A) rm

B) rm rf

C) rmdir

D) rd

E) rd -rf

Answer(s): B, C - You can use rmdir or rm -rf to delete a directory. Answer a is incorrect,
because the rm command without any specific flags will not delete a directory, it will only delete
files. Answers d and e point to a non-existent command.
53. Which partitioning tool is available in all distributions?
A) Disk Druid

B) fdisk

C) Partition Magic D) FAT32

E) System Commander

Answer(s): B - The fdisk partitioning tool is available in all Linux distributions. Answers a, c, and
e all handle partitioning, but do not come with all distributions. Disk Druid is made by Red Hat
and used in its distribution along with some derivatives. Partition Magic and System
Commander are tools made by third-party companies. Answer d is not a tool, but a file system
type. Specifically, FAT32 is the file system type used in Windows 98.
54. Which partitions might you create on the mail server's hard drive(s) other than the root, swap,
and boot partitions?
[Choose all correct answers]
A) /var/spool

B) /tmp

C) /proc

D) /bin

E) /home
Answer(s): A, B, E - Separating /var/spool onto its own partition helps to ensure that if
something goes wrong with the mail server or spool, the output cannot overrun the file system.
Putting /tmp on its own partition prevents either software or user items in the /tmp directory from
overrunning the file system. Placing /home off on its own is mostly useful for system re-installs
or upgrades, allowing you to not have to wipe the /home hierarchy along with other areas.
Answers c and d are not possible, as the /proc portion of the file system is virtual-held in RAMnot placed on the hard drives, and the /bin hierarchy is necessary for basic system functionality
and, therefore, not one that you can place on a different partition.

55. When planning your backup strategy you need to consider how often you will perform a backup,
how much time the backup takes and what media you will use. What other factor must you
consider when planning your backup strategy? _________
what to backup
Choosing which files to backup is the first step in planning your backup strategy.
56. What utility can you use to automate rotation of logs?
Answer: logrotate
The logrotate command can be used to automate the rotation of various logs.
57. In order to display the last five commands you have entered using the history command, you
would type ___________ .
Answer: history 5
The history command displays the commands you have previously entered. By passing it an
argument of 5, only the last five commands will be displayed.
58. What command can you use to review boot messages?
Answer: dmesg
The dmesg command displays the system messages contained in the kernel ring buffer. By
using this command immediately after booting your computer, you will see the boot messages.
59. What is the minimum number of partitions you need to install Linux?
Answer: 2
Linux can be installed on two partitions, one as / which will contain all files and a swap partition.
60. What is the name and path of the main system log?
Answer: /var/log/messages
By default, the main system log is /var/log/messages.
61. Of the following technologies, which is considered a client-side script?
A) JavaScript
B) Java
C) ASP
D) C++
Answer: A - JavaScript is the only client-side script listed. Java and C++ are complete

programming languages. Active Server Pages are parsed on the server with the results being
sent to the client in HTML