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LINUX INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

1. Filesystem Basics

1. What is the command to create an empty file?

● touch filename
2. How do you create a new directory?
● mkdir directory_name
3. How do you list all files in a directory?
● ls
4. How do you list all files, including hidden ones?
● ls -a
5. How do you display the current working directory?
● pwd
6. How do you move or rename a file?
● mv source_file destination_file
7. How do you copy a file?
● cp source_file destination_file
What command is used to delete a file?
8.
● rm filename
9. How do you delete a directory and its contents?
● rm -r directory_name
10. How do you display the contents of a file?
● cat filename
11. How do you display the first 10 lines of a file?
● head filename
12. How do you display the last 10 lines of a file?
● tail filename
13. How do you check free disk space?
● df -h
14. How do you display disk usage of a directory?
● du -sh directory_name
15. How do you search for a file by name in a directory?
● find /path/to/directory -name filename
16. How do you compress a file using gzip?
● gzip filename
17. How do you decompress a gzip file?
● gunzip filename.gz
18. How do you archive multiple files using tar?
● tar -czvf archive.tar.gz files
19. How do you extract a tar.gz archive?
● tar -xzvf archive.tar.gz
20. How do you mount a filesystem?
● mount device_name mount_point
21. How do you unmount a filesystem?
● umount mount_point
22. How do you create a symbolic link?
● ln -s target_file link_name
23. How do you view file types in a directory?
● file filename
24. How do you remove an empty directory?
● rmdir directory_name
25. How do you check for file existence?
● test -f filename

2. File Permissions and Ownership

26. How do you change file permissions?

● chmod permissions filename

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27. How do you change file ownership?
● chown user:group filename
28. How do you view file permissions in a directory?
● ls -l
29. How do you recursively change permissions for a directory?
● chmod -R permissions directory_name
30. What does the chmod 777 command do?
● Grants read, write, and execute permissions to everyone
31. How do you view a file's access control list (ACL)?
●getfacl filename
32. How do you set a default ACL for a directory?
●setfacl -d -m u:user:permissions directory_name
33. How do you set permissions for a script to be executable?
●chmod +x script.sh
34. What is the significance of thesticky bit in Linux?
● It restricts file deletion in shared directories like/tmp.
35. How do you add the sticky bit to a directory?
● chmod +t directory_name

3. Process Management

36. How do you view running processes?

● ps -aux
37. How do you kill a process by PID?
● kill PID
38. How do you find the PID of a running process by name?
● pgrep process_name
39. How do you display processes in real-time?
● top or htop
40. How do you stop a process gracefully?
● kill -15 PID
41. How do you stop a process forcefully?
● kill -9 PID
42. How do you start a background process?
● command &
43. How do you bring a background job to the foreground?
● fg %job_id
44. How do you monitor resource usage by a process?
● pidstat

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45. How do you view system logs for a process?
● journalctl -u service_name
46. How do you create a custom alias for a command?
● alias alias_name='command'
47. How do you remove an alias?
● unalias alias_name
48. How do you run a command as another user?
● sudo -u username command
49. How do you list all environment variables?
● printenv or env
50. How do you export a variable in Linux?
● export VAR=value

4. Networking

51. How do you find the IP address of your system?

●ip addr or ifconfig
52. How do you check active network connections?
●ss -tuln or netstat -tuln
53. How do you ping a host to check connectivity?
●ping host
54. How do you test port connectivity?
●telnet hostname port
55. How do you display routing information?
●route
56. How do you check open ports on your system?
●lsof -i
57. How do you download files from the internet?
●wget URL
58. How do you transfer files between systems using SCP?
●scp source_file user@remote_host:/destination_path
59. How do you use SSH to connect to a remote server?
●ssh user@remote_host
60. How do you set up a static IP address?
/etc/network/interfaces)
● Edit the network configuration file (e.g.,

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5. User Management

61. How do you create a new user in Linux?

● adduser username
62. How do you delete a user?
● userdel username
63. How do you lock a user account?
● passwd -l username
64. How do you unlock a user account?
● passwd -u username
65. How do you switch to another user?
● su - username
66. How do you view currently logged-in users?
● who or w
67. How do you check user account information?
● id username
68. How do you list all users on the system?
● cat /etc/passwd
69. How do you create a group in Linux?
● groupadd group_name
70. How do you add a user to a group?
● usermod -aG group_name username
71. How do you change a user’s default shell?
● chsh -s /bin/bash username
72. How do you change a user’s home directory?
● usermod -d /new/home/dir username
73. How do you create a system user without a home directory?
● adduser --system --no-create-home username
74. How do you set or reset a user’s password?
● passwd username
75. How do you check group memberships of a user?
● groups username

6. Package Management

76. How do you install a package on Debian-based systems?

● apt install package_name
77. How do you update all packages on a Debian-based system?
● apt update && apt upgrade

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 78. How do you remove a package on Debian-based systems?
●apt remove package_name
79. How do you install a package on RHEL-based systems?
●yum install package_name or dnf install package_name
80. How do you remove a package on RHEL-based systems?
●yum remove package_name or dnf remove package_name
81. How do you search for a package in Debian repositories?
●apt search package_name
82. How do you list all installed packages?
●dpkg -l (Debian) or rpm -qa (RHEL)
83. How do you check which package a file belongs to?
●dpkg -S filename (Debian) or rpm -qf filename (RHEL)
84. How do you clean up cached packages on Debian-based systems?
●apt clean
85. How do you enable or disable a repository in RHEL-based systems?
●yum-config-manager --enable repo_name or --disable repo_name

7. System Monitoring and Performance

86. How do you check system uptime?

● uptime
87. How do you display memory usage?
● free -h
88. How do you monitor disk I/O in real-time?
● iostat
89. How do you check CPU usage?
● top or htop
90. How do you check running services?
● systemctl list-units --type=service
91. How do you enable a service to start on boot?
● systemctl enable service_name
92. How do you check system load averages?
● uptime or cat /proc/loadavg
93. How do you monitor network traffic in real-time?
● iftop or nload
94. How do you list hardware information?
● lshw
95. How do you check kernel version?
● uname -r

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 96. How do you check currently mounted filesystems?
● mount or df -h
97. How do you list active cron jobs?
● crontab -l
98. How do you check log files?
● tail -f /var/log/syslog or journalctl
99. How do you analyze disk usage by directories?
● du -h --max-depth=1

10. Advanced Networking

100. How do you configure a network interface?

●ip addr add IP_ADDRESS dev interface
101. How do you bring an interface up or down?
●ip link set interface up or ip link set interface down
102. How do you test DNS resolution?
●nslookup domain_name
103. How do you display ARP table entries?
●arp -a
104. How do you configure a firewall using iptables?
●iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport port -j ACCEPT
105. How do you save iptables rules?
●iptables-save > /etc/iptables/rules.v4
106. How do you check open ports on a system?
●ss -tuln
107. How do you trace the route to a host?
●traceroute hostname
108. How do you monitor packet flow?
●tcpdump
109. How do you edit the hosts file?
●nano /etc/hosts

11. Scripting and Automation

110. How do you create a simple shell script?

● #!/bin/bash
111. How do you make a script executable?
● chmod +x script_name
112. How do you run a script?
● ./script_name

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 113. How do you use variables in a shell script?
● variable=value and use with $variable
114. How do you accept input in a script?
● read variable_name
115. How do you pass arguments to a script?
● Use $1, $2, etc., for positional arguments
116. How do you write an if-else condition in a script?
●
bash if [ condition ]; then commands else commands fi
117. How do you write a for loop in a script?
●
bash for i in {1..5}; do echo $i done
118. How do you schedule a script using cron?
● crontab -e and add the schedule entry
119. How do you debug a script?
● bash -x script_name

12. Advanced Topics

120. What is SELinux?

● Security-Enhanced Linux for access control
121. How do you check SELinux status?
● sestatus
122. How do you change SELinux mode?
● setenforce 0 (permissive) or setenforce 1 (enforcing)
123. How do you view running containers in Docker?
● docker ps
124. How do you stop a running Docker container?
● docker stop container_id
125. How do you create an SSH key pair?
● ssh-keygen
126. How do you use rsync for file transfer?
● rsync -avz source destination
127. How do you check the default gateway?
● ip route
128. How do you monitor file changes in real-time?
● inotifywait
129. How do you create a virtual environment in Python?
● python3 -m venv env_name

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13. Disk Management

130. How do you check swap usage?

● swapon --show or free -h
131. How do you list disk partitions?
● lsblk
132. How do you format a disk to ext4?
● mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdX
133. How do you create a swap partition?
● mkswap /dev/sdX
134. How do you check disk usage?
● df -h
135. How do you check inodes usage?
● df -i
136. How do you mount a disk?
● mount /dev/sdX /mount_point
137. How do you unmount a disk?
● umount /mount_point
138. How do you resize a partition?
● Use resize2fs and fdisk
139. How do you check SMART status of a disk?
● smartctl -a /dev/sdX

14. Process Management

140. How do you list all running processes?

● ps aux
141. How do you kill a process by PID?
● kill PID
142. How do you kill a process by name?
● pkill process_name
143. How do you stop a process?
● kill -STOP PID
144. How do you continue a stopped process?
● kill -CONT PID
145. How do you view running processes in real-time?
● top or htop

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 146. How do you check process memory usage?
● ps aux --sort=-%mem
147. How do you check process CPU usage?
● ps aux --sort=-%cpu
148. How do you check process status?
● ps -o stat= -p PID
149. How do you find a process by name?
● pgrep process_name
150. How do you check the number of processes running?
● ps aux | wc -l

15. System Monitoring

151. How do you monitor CPU usage?

● top or htop
152. How do you check system load?
● uptime
153. How do you monitor disk space?
● df -h
154. How do you monitor memory usage?
● free -h
155. How do you monitor swap usage?
● swapon --show or free -h
156. How do you check network usage?
● ifstat
157. How do you monitor network interfaces?
● ip -s link
158. How do you monitor real-time log files?
● tail -f /var/log/syslog
159. How do you check system uptime?
● uptime
160. How do you check system resource utilization?
● vmstat

16. Cloud and Automation Tools

161. How do you install AWS CLI?

● pip install awscli

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 162. How do you configure AWS CLI?
●aws configure
163. How do you create an S3 bucket using CLI?
●aws s3 mb s3://bucket_name
164. How do you list running EC2 instances?
●aws ec2 describe-instances
165. How do you create an EC2 instance?
●aws ec2 run-instances --image-id ami_id --count 1
--instance-type t2.micro
166. How do you deploy an application using Ansible?
● Write a playbook and run ansible-playbook playbook.yml
167. How do you configure Ansible inventory?
● Edit/etc/ansible/hosts
168. How do you use Terraform to create infrastructure?
● Write a.tf file and run terraform apply
169. How do you start a Kubernetes cluster?
● Usekubeadm init
170. How do you install Docker on a system?
● Useapt-get install docker.io or yum install docker

17. Advanced File Handling

171. How do you copy a directory recursively?

●cp -r source_directory destination_directory
172. How do you move or rename a file?
●mv old_name new_name
173. How do you remove a file?
●rm filename
174. How do you remove a directory recursively?
●rm -r directory_name
175. How do you find files by name?
●find / -name "filename"
176. How do you search for text within files?
●grep "text" file_name
177. How do you replace text in files?
●sed -i 's/old_text/new_text/g' file_name
178. How do you concatenate two files?
●cat file1 file2 > new_file
179. How do you compress a file?
●tar -czf file_name.tar.gz directory_name

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 180. How do you decompress a file?
●tar -xzf file_name.tar.gz

18. Backup and Recovery

181. How do you create a backup of a directory?

●tar -cvf backup_name.tar.gz directory_name
182. How do you restore a backup?
●tar -xvf backup_name.tar.gz
183. How do you use rsync for incremental backups?
●rsync -avz source destination
184. How do you schedule backups with cron?
●crontab -e and add a backup command
185. How do you check backup logs?
● cat /var/log/backup.log
186. How do you create a full system backup withdd?
●dd if=/dev/sda of=backup.img
187. How do you restore a system fromdd backup?
●dd if=backup.img of=/dev/sda
188. rsnapshot?
How do you create an incremental backup with
● Configure/etc/rsnapshot.conf and run rsnapshot daily
189. How do you mount a backup disk?
●mount /dev/sdX /mount_point
190. How do you unmount a backup disk?
●umount /mount_point

19. Security and Permissions

191. How do you change file permissions in Linux?

● chmod permissions file_name
192. How do you change file ownership in Linux?
● chown user:group file_name
193. How do you create a new user in Linux?
● useradd username
194. How do you set a password for a user?
● passwd username
195. How do you delete a user in Linux?
● userdel username

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 196. How do you add a user to a group?
● usermod -aG group_name username
197. How do you list groups in Linux?
● cat /etc/group
198. How do you secure SSH access?
● Disable root login by setting PermitRootLogin no in
/etc/ssh/sshd_config
199. How do you configure SSH key-based authentication?
● Copy the public key to ~/.ssh/authorized_keys on the remote machine
200. How do you view system logs in Linux?
● journalctl or cat /var/log/syslog

Tips for Cracking the Interview

● Be practical: Demonstrate how to solve real-world issues.

● Explain clearly: Don’t just list commands; explain the reasoning behind them.
● Share scenarios: Mention situations where you applied these skills, like
troubleshooting, securing systems, or optimizing performance.