Top 19 Essential Linux & Sysadmin Interview Questions with Answers
This article compiles 19 practical Linux, security, networking, and Python interview questions covering command‑line techniques, system monitoring, load‑balancing, HTTP protocols, common vulnerabilities, TCP handshakes, TIME_WAIT optimization, and code snippets to help candidates prepare for sysadmin roles.
Part 1: Linux Basics
Question 1: How to batch‑download 100 image files from http://down.xiaomi.com/img/1.png … http://down.xiaomi.com/img/100.png and find those larger than 500 KB?
Question 2: Sort the file
info.txt(format
aa,201etc.) by the numeric second column in descending order.
Question 3: Check if the Linux server is listening on port 80, obtain its PID, and terminate the process.
Question 4: Retrieve HTTP header information using
curlor
wget.
Question 5: Which statements about Linux user accounts are correct?
Question 6: Identify the incorrect statement about RAID configurations.
Question 7: List at least three common load‑balancing software and discuss their drawbacks.
Question 8: Explain the meanings and differences of
real,
user, and
systimes from
time sleep 2.
Question 9: Meaning of nginx rewrite flags
last,
break,
redirect,
permanent.
Question 10: Difference between cookies and sessions.
Question 11: Differences between HTTP/1.0 and HTTP/1.1, and main advantages of HTTP/2.
Part 2: Security
Question 12: Common web security issues (at least three) with their principles and impacts.
Question 13: Common DoS attack types, their principles, and mitigation methods.
Question 14: Steps a security manager should take after a server intrusion.
Part 3: Networking
Question 15: Describe the TCP three‑way handshake.
Question 16: Causes of many TIME_WAIT sockets and at least three optimization suggestions.
Part 4: Python
Question 17: Differences between
xrangeand
range.
Question 18: Quickly obtain common elements of two lists
Aand
Bin Python.
Question 19: Execute
echo "123"on 20 servers in parallel, limiting concurrency to 5, using Python or shell.
Efficient Ops
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