EX342 Red Hat Certified Specialist in Linux Diagnostics and Troubleshooting Practice Questions
Prepare for EX342 with more than an answer.
- Exam fee
- $500 USD
- Time limit
- 240 minutes
- Passing score
- 210 out of 300 (70%) (scale 0-300)
- Level
- Specialist
- Valid for
- 3 years (aligned with RHCE validity)
Domains covered on the exam 8
- Understand and Employ General Methods for Troubleshooting15%
- Diagnose and Troubleshoot System Startup Issues15%
- Diagnose and Troubleshoot File System Issues15%
- Resolve Package Management Issues10%
- Troubleshoot and Fix Network Connectivity Issues15%
- Diagnose Application Issues15%
- Identify and Fix Authentication Issues10%
- Gather Information to Aid Third Party Investigation of Issues5%
- 1
A server fails to boot after a kernel update, dropping into the emergency shell. The logs indicate that the system cannot find the logical volume containing the root filesystem. You suspect that the required LVM kernel modules are missing from the initramfs image. Which command can you use to inspect the contents of the initramfs image to verify this suspicion?
Show answer details
Correct answer: A
The
lsinitrdcommand lists the contents of an initramfs image. By piping the output to grep, you can verify if specific modules (like LVM drivers) are present. If they are missing, you would need to regenerate the initramfs usingdracut --force. - 2
You need to prevent the
nouveaudriver from loading on a system that requires proprietary NVIDIA drivers. You have created a blacklist file in/etc/modprobe.d/. What is the critical next step to ensure the module does not load during the next boot?Show answer details
Correct answer: A
Kernel modules are often loaded from the initramfs before the root filesystem is mounted. Even if you blacklist a module in
/etc/modprobe.d/, if the module exists inside the initramfs, it may still load. Regenerating the initramfs ensures the blacklist configuration is included in the boot image. - 3
An XFS filesystem on
/dev/vg_data/lv_datahas a corrupted log due to a power failure and cannot be mounted. Standard repair attempts withxfs_repairfail because of the dirty log. You decide to force the repair, acknowledging that recent metadata changes in the log will be lost. Which command performs this action?Show answer details
Correct answer: A
The
-Loption forxfs_repairforces the filesystem to zero out the log. This is a destructive operation regarding the log contents (uncommitted metadata changes are lost) but is often necessary to make the filesystem consistent enough to mount when the log is corrupted. - 4
A junior administrator accidentally deleted a Logical Volume named
lv_criticalfrom thevg_appVolume Group. The data has not been overwritten yet. You need to recover the logical volume configuration. Where should you look for the automatic metadata backup to restore the configuration usingvgcfgrestore?Show answer details
Correct answer: A
LVM automatically archives metadata configurations in
/etc/lvm/archive/before making changes. You can find the file corresponding to the state before the deletion and usevgcfgrestore -f /etc/lvm/archive/ vg_appto restore the volume group definition. - 5
A critical production server running Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 has experienced a sudden performance degradation. You need to collect comprehensive system configuration and diagnostic information to open a support case with Red Hat. You want to ensure that the collection includes all enabled plugins but excludes specific sensitive data located in
/var/tmp/. Which command should you execute?Show answer details
Correct answer: C
The
sos reportcommand (formerlysosreport) generates a diagnostic tarball. The--all-optionsflag enables all options for all loaded plugins, ensuring comprehensive data collection. The--forbidden-pathoption explicitly excludes specific directories or files from the collection to protect sensitive data or reduce size. - 6
You are configuring Performance Co-Pilot (PCP) on a fleet of web servers to collect historical performance metrics for retrospective analysis. You need to ensure that the
pmloggerservice collects metrics for the correct host and persists them across reboots. After installing thepcppackage, what is the correct sequence of actions to enable the primary logger?Show answer details
Correct answer: A
The
pmloggerservice is responsible for archiving performance metrics. The configuration for which hosts to log is defined in/etc/pcp/pmlogger/control. After configuring this file (or verifying the default localhost entry), the service must be enabled and started usingsystemctl enable --now pmlogger.
