Free Practice Questions for CompTIA XK0-005 Exam

The administrator should place the public keys for the server in the ~/.ssh/authorized_keys file. The SSH (Secure Shell) protocol is a method for establishing secure and encrypted connections between remote systems. The SSH protocol supports two types of authentication: password-based and key-based. Password-based authentication requires the user to enter the password of the remote system every time they connect. Key-based authentication requires the user to generate a pair of cryptographic keys: a public key and a private key. The public key is stored on the remote system, while the private key is kept on the local system. The public key and the private key are mathematically related, but not identical. The SSH protocol uses the keys to verify the identity of the user and establish a secure connection without requiring a password. The ~/.ssh/authorized_keys file is a file that contains the public keys of the users who are allowed to connect to the remote system using key-based authentication. The administrator should place the public keys for the server in this file, one per line, and set the appropriate permissions for the file. The administrator should also configure the SSH server to enable key-based authentication by editing the /etc/ssh/sshd_config file and setting the option PasswordAuthentication to no. The administrator should place the public keys for the server in the ~/.ssh/authorized_keys file. This is the correct answer to the question. The other options are incorrect because they are not the standard locations for the public keys for the server (~/.sshd/authkeys, ~/.ssh/keys, or ~/.ssh/keyauth). References: CompTIA Linux+ (XK0-005) Certification Study Guide, Chapter 17: Implementing Basic Security, page 513.

The configuration file shown in the image is written in YAML format, so the syntax formatter should support YAML to correct any issues with the file. YAML stands for YAML Ain’t Markup Language, and it is a human-readable data serialization language that uses indentation and colons to define key-value pairs. YAML supports various data types, such as scalars, sequences, mappings, anchors, aliases, and tags. The configuration file follows the rules and syntax of YAML, while the other options do not. Markdown is a lightweight markup language that uses plain text formatting to create rich text documents. XML is a markup language that uses tags to enclose elements and attributes. JSON is a data interchange format that uses curly braces to enclose objects and square brackets to enclose arrays. References: CompTIA Linux+ (XK0-005) Certification Study Guide, Chapter 21: Automating Tasks with Ansible, page 591.

The ip link show eth1 command can be used to check the link status of a network interface named eth1 in a Linux server. It will display information such as the MAC address, MTU, state, and flags of the interface. The ifconfig hw eth1 command is invalid, as hw is not a valid option for ifconfig. The netstat -r eth1 command would display the routing table for eth1, not the link status. The ss -ti eth1 command would display TCP information for sockets associated with eth1, not the link status. References: CompTIA Linux+ (XK0-005) Certification Study Guide, Chapter 13: Networking Fundamentals, page 436.

The command sed -i 's/auto/persistent/g' /etc/systemd/journald.conf && sed -i 'persistent/s/ˆ#//q' /etc/systemd/journald.conf will accomplish the task of guaranteeing the persistency of journal log files across system reboots. The sed command is a tool for editing text files on Linux systems. The -i option modifies the file in place. The s command substitutes one string for another. The g flag replaces all occurrences of the string. The && operator executes the second command only if the first command succeeds. The q command quits after the first match. The /etc/systemd/journald.conf file is a configuration file for the systemd-journald service, which is responsible for collecting and storing log messages. The command sed -i 's/auto/persistent/g' /etc/systemd/journald.conf will replace the word auto with the word persistent in the file. This will change the value of the Storage option, which controls where the journal log files are stored. The value auto means that the journal log files are stored in the volatile memory and are lost after reboot, while the value persistent means that the journal log files are stored in the persistent storage and are preserved across reboots. The command sed -i 'persistent/s/ˆ#//q' /etc/systemd/journald.conf will remove the # character at the beginning of the line that contains the word persistent. This will uncomment the Storage option and enable it. The command sed -i 's/auto/persistent/g' /etc/systemd/journald.conf && sed -i 'persistent/s/ˆ#//q' /etc/systemd/journald.conf will guarantee the persistency of journal log files across system reboots by changing and enabling the Storage option to persistent. This is the correct command to use to accomplish the task. The other options are incorrect because they either do not change the value of the Storage option (grep -i auto /etc/systemd/journald.conf && systemct1 restart systemd-journald.service or cat /etc/systemd/journald.conf | awk '(print $1,$3)') or do not enable the Storage option (journalctl --list-boots && systemct1 restart systemd-journald.service). References: CompTIA Linux+ (XK0-005) Certification Study Guide, Chapter 16: Managing Logging and Monitoring, page 489.

To troubleshoot a storage capacity issue on a server without a specific mount point or directory, two commands that would be most helpful are df and du. The df command displays information about disk space usage on all mounted filesystems, including their size, used space, available space, and percentage of usage. The du command displays disk space usage by files and directories in a given path, which can help identify large files or directories that may be taking up too much space. The other commands are incorrect because they either do not show disk space usage, or they are used for other purposes such as partitioning, formatting, checking, mounting, copying, or listing files. References: CompTIA Linux+ Study Guide, Fourth Edition, page 417-419.

The command vmstat will most likely be run next by the administrator to troubleshoot the system performance. The vmstat command is a tool for reporting virtual memory statistics on Linux systems. The command shows information about processes, memory, paging, block IO, interrupts, and CPU activity. The command can help the administrator identify the source of the performance issue, such as high CPU usage, low free memory, excessive swapping, or disk IO bottlenecks. The command can also be used with an interval and a count to display the statistics repeatedly over time and observe the changes. The command vmstat will provide useful information for diagnosing the system performance and finding the root cause of the issue. This is the most likely command to run next after the top command. The other options are incorrect because they either do not show the virtual memory statistics (strace or lsof) or do not provide more information than the top command (htop). References: CompTIA Linux+ (XK0-005) Certification Study Guide, Chapter 14: Managing Processes and Scheduling Tasks, page 425.

The administrator should modify the /etc/hosts file and change the db.example.com entry to 192.168.20.88 to address the issue. The /etc/hosts file is a file that maps hostnames to IP addresses on Linux systems. The file can be used to override the DNS resolution and provide a local lookup for hostnames. The dig output shows that the DNS returns the IP address 192.168.20.88 for the hostname db.example.com, which is the correct IP address of the system. The grep output shows that the /etc/hosts file contains an entry for db.example.com with the IP address 192.168.20.89, which is the wrong IP address of the system. This can cause a conflict and prevent the system from being accessed by the hostname. The administrator should modify the /etc/hosts file and change the db.example.com entry to 192.168.20.88, which is the correct IP address of the system. This will align the /etc/hosts file with the DNS and allow the system to be accessed by the hostname. The administrator should modify the /etc/hosts file and change the db.example.com entry to 192.168.20.88 to address the issue. This is the correct answer to the question. The other options are incorrect because they either do not modify the /etc/hosts file (modify the /etc/network file and change the db.example.com entry to 192.168.20.88 or modify the /etc/network file and change the db.example.com entry to 192.168.20.89) or do not change the IP address to the correct one (modify the /etc/hosts file and change the db.example.com entry to 192.168.20.89). References: CompTIA Linux+ (XK0-005) Certification Study Guide, Chapter 12: Managing Network Connections, page 378.

The slowness is caused by the CPU being overloaded. The iostat command shows that the CPU utilization is 100%, which means that there are more processes competing for CPU time than the CPU can handle. The other options are incorrect because:

The system is not running out of swap space, as shown by the iostat command, which shows that there is no swap activity (si and so columns are zero).

The memory is not exhausted, as shown by the free -m command, which shows that there is still available memory (avail column) and free buffer/cache memory (buff/cache column).

The processes are not paging, as shown by the vmstat command, which shows that there are no major page faults (majflt column) and no swap activity (si and so columns). References: CompTIA Linux+ Study Guide, Fourth Edition, page 417-419, 424-425.

The rpm -qf /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf command will identify the RPM package that installed the configuration file. This command will query the database of installed packages and display the name of the package that owns the specified file. The rpm -ql /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf command is invalid, as -ql is not a valid option for rpm. The rpm --query /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf command is incorrect, as --query requires a package name, not a file name. The rpm -q /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf command is incorrect, as -q requires a package name, not a file name. References: CompTIA Linux+ (XK0-005) Certification Study Guide, Chapter 19: Managing Packages and Software, page 560.

The mechanism that enables administrators to configure and enforce MFA on a Linux system is PAM. PAM stands for Pluggable Authentication Modules, which is a framework for managing authentication and authorization on Linux systems. PAM allows the administrator to define the rules and policies for accessing various system resources and services, such as login, sudo, ssh, or cron. PAM also supports different types of authentication methods, such as passwords, tokens, biometrics, or smart cards. PAM can be used to implement MFA, which stands for Multi-Factor Authentication, which is a security technique that requires the user to provide more than one piece of evidence to prove their identity. MFA can enhance the security of the system and prevent unauthorized access. PAM enables administrators to configure and enforce MFA on a Linux system. This is the correct answer to the question. The other options are incorrect because they either do not manage authentication and authorization on Linux systems (Kerberos or PKI) or do not support MFA (SELinux). References: CompTIA Linux+ (XK0-005) Certification Study Guide, Chapter 17: Implementing Basic Security, page 517.