101-500 LPIC-1 Exam 101, Part 1 of 2, version 5.0 Free Practice Exam Questions (2025 Updated)

The command that displays the contents of the Kernel Ring Buffer on the command line is dmesg12. The dmesg command is a Linux utility that displays kernel-related messages retrieved from the kernel ring buffer12. The ring buffer stores information about hardware, device driver initialization, and messages from kernel modules that take place during system startup12. The dmesg command is invaluable when troubleshooting hardware-related errors, warnings, and for diagnosing device failure2.

The dmesg command can be used with various options to control the output format, filter the messages by facility or level, clear the ring buffer, or follow the new messages in real time123. For example, the following command displays the last 10 messages from the kernel ring buffer:

$ dmesg | tail -10

The following command displays the messages from the kernel ring buffer in a human-readable format with colored output:

$ dmesg -H --color

The following command displays the messages from the kernel ring buffer that have the facility kern and the level emerg:

$ dmesg -f kern -l emerg

The following command clears the ring buffer:

$ dmesg --clear

The following command keeps dmesg running and waiting for new messages:

$ dmesg -w

The USB device filesystem can be found under /proc/bus/usb/1. This is a virtual filesystem that provides information about the USB devices and buses connected to the system12. It contains files and directories that correspond to the USB host controllers, hubs, and devices12. For example, the following output shows the contents of /proc/bus/usb/ on a system with one USB host controller and two USB devices:

The directories 001 and 002 represent the USB buses, and each contain files that represent the USB devices on that bus. The file devices contains a summary of all the USB devices and their configurations. The file drivers contains a list of the USB drivers and the devices they are bound to12.

The /proc/bus/usb/ filesystem is deprecated and should not be used anymore3. It has been replaced by the /sys/bus/usb/ filesystem, which is a sysfs mount that provides more detailed and structured information about the USB devices and buses3 .

The shutdown command is used to bring the system down in a safe and controlled way. It can take various options and arguments, such as the time of shutdown, the message to broadcast to users, the halt or reboot mode, etc. The option -r instructs the shutdown command to reboot the system after shutting down. The argument now means to shut down immediately. Therefore, shutdown -r now will reboot the system without delay. The telinit command is used to change the run level of the system. It takes a single argument that specifies the new run level. The run level 6 is reserved for rebooting the system. Therefore, telinit 6 will also reboot the system. The other options are either incorrect or irrelevant. shutdown -r “rebooting” will also reboot the system, but with a delay of one minute and a message to the users. telinit 0 will halt the system, not reboot it. shutdown -k now “rebooting” will only send a warning message to the users, but not actually shut down or reboot the system. References: LPI Linux Essentials - 1.101.2, LPI Linux Administrator - 101.3

The program that is run after the BIOS completes its tasks is the bootloader12. The bootloader is a small program that loads the operating system into memory and executes it. The bootloader can be located in the Master Boot Record (MBR) of the first hard disk or the boot sector of a partition for BIOS systems, or in an .efi file on the EFI System Partition for UEFI systems12. The bootloader can also display a menu to allow the user to choose from different operating systems or kernel versions to boot12.

The other options in the question are not correct because:

B. The inetd program: This is a program that listens for incoming network connections and launches the appropriate service for them. It is not involved in the boot process3.

C. The init program: This is a program that is executed by the kernel as the first user-space process. It is responsible for starting and managing other processes and services. It is not run by the BIOS.

D. The kernel: This is the core of the operating system that controls everything in the system. It is loaded and executed by the bootloader, not by the BIOS.

The wall command is a command-line utility that displays messages to all logged-in users on the terminal12. The wall command takes the following basic syntax:

$ wall OPTION { file | message }

The OPTION can be one of the following:

-n or --nobanner: Suppress the banner (the header line with the hostname, date, and time) from the output. This option can only be used by the root user.

-v or --version: Display version information and exit.

-h or --help: Display help message and exit.

The file or message argument is the source of the message to be displayed. If a file is specified, the wall command will read the message from the file. If a message is specified, the wall command will read the message from the standard input. The message can be terminated by pressing Ctrl+D.

The other commands in the options are not valid or do not have the same functionality as the wall command:

bcast: There is no such command in Linux.

mesg: This command is used to control write access to the terminal. It does not send messages to other users.

print: This command is used to print files or data to a printer. It does not send messages to other users.

yell: There is no such command in Linux.

 Run levels are predefined modes of operation in the SysV init system that determine which processes and services are started or stopped. The default run level is the one that the system enters after booting. It is usually specified in the /etc/inittab file with a line like id:5:initdefault:. The run levels 0 and 6 should never be declared as the default run level because they are used to halt and reboot the system, respectively. If they are set as the default, the system will enter an endless loop of shutting down and restarting. The other run levels (1-5) have different meanings depending on the distribution, but they usually correspond to single-user mode, multi-user mode, network mode, graphical mode, etc. References: LPI Linux Essentials - 1.101.2, LPI Linux Administrator - 101.3

 The command df displays the current disk space usage for all mounted file systems. It shows the size, used space, available space, percentage of usage, and mount point of each file system. By default, the output is in 1K blocks, but it can be changed with options like -h (human-readable), -B (block size), -i (inodes), and -T (type). The command df is part of the 101.1 Determine and configure hardware settings topic of the LPI Linux Essentials certification program12. References:

Linux Essentials - Linux Professional Institute Certification Programs1

Exam 101 Objectives - Linux Professional Institute

This command redirects the output of ls to standard error, which is file descriptor 2 by default. The syntax of the command is:

ls >& file_descriptor

The ls command is a utility that lists the files and directories in the current working directory or a specified directory. The >& symbol is a redirection operator that redirects the standard output of a command to another file descriptor, which can be a file, a device, or another stream. The file_descriptor is the number of the file descriptor to which the output is redirected.

Therefore, the command ls >&2 will run the ls command and redirect its output to file descriptor 2, which is standard error. This means that the output of ls will not be displayed on the screen, but sent to the standard error stream, which can be used for error handling or logging purposes.

The other commands are incorrect for the following reasons:

A, ls >-1: This command will not redirect the output of ls to standard error, but it will cause an error. The > symbol is a redirection operator that redirects the standard output of a command to a file or device, overwriting any existing content. The -1 argument is not a valid file name or device name, and it will cause the shell to report an error and exit.

B, ls <

D, ls >>2: This command will not redirect the output of ls to standard error, but it will append the output of ls to a file named 2. The >> symbol is a redirection operator that redirects the standard output of a command to a file or device, appending to any existing content. The 2 argument is the name of the file to which the output is appended. If the file does not exist, it will be created. The command will not display anything on the screen, but write the output of ls to the file 2.

E, ls |error: This command will not redirect the output of ls to standard error, but it will pipe the output of ls to another command named error. The | symbol is a pipe operator that redirects the standard output of one command to the standard input of another command. The error argument is the name of the command that receives the output of ls as its input. However, there is no such command named error in the Linux system, and the shell will report an error and exit.

The first program the Linux kernel starts at boot time when using System V init is /sbin/init. System V init is a traditional init system that uses a series of shell scripts to initialize and manage the system services. The init program is the parent of all other processes and it is responsible for reading the /etc/inittab file and executing the appropriate scripts for each runlevel. The /sbin/init program is part of the 101.1 Determine and configure hardware settings topic of the LPI Linux Essentials certification program12. References:

Linux Essentials - Linux Professional Institute Certification Programs1

Exam 101 Objectives - Linux Professional Institute2

A guide to System V Init3

Linux Init Levels Explained: Init 0 - Init 64

Init Systems Unveiled — Understanding the Differences Between Systemd and SystemV5

 The signal that is sent by the kill command by default is SIGTERM(15). The kill command sends a signal to a process to terminate it. The signal can be specified by name or number as an option to the kill command. If no signal is specified, the default signal is SIGTERM(15), which means terminate. The process can catch this signal and perform any necessary cleanup before exiting. The SIGHUP(1) signal means hang up and is usually sent when the terminal or network connection is disconnected. The SIGQUIT(3) signal means quit and is usually sent when the user presses Ctrl-\ on the keyboard. The SIGKILL(9) signal means kill and is used to force the process to terminate immediately, without any chance to catch the signal or perform any cleanup. References: LPI Exam 101 Detailed Objectives, Topic 103: GNU and Unix Commands, Weight: 25, Objective 103.3: Perform basic file management, kill command, Signal List

The unexpand command converts spaces in a file to tab characters and prints the result to standard output. It can take an option -t to specify the number of spaces per tab, otherwise it uses the default value of 8. The unexpand command is the opposite of the expand command, which converts tabs to spaces. Both commands are useful for formatting text files according to different coding standards or preferences. References:

Unexpand - Convert Spaces to Tabs on Linux Command Line

Bash Tips: Convert Tabs To Spaces In a File

The former path of the data can be kept intact by creating a symbolic link from the old to the new path of the data or by mounting the new filesystem on the original path of the data. A symbolic link is a special file that points to another file or directory. It can be used to create a shortcut to the new location of the data without changing the applications that access it. Mounting the new filesystem on the original path of the data means that the data will appear as if it is still in the same location, but it is actually stored on a different device or partition. This can be done by editing the /etc/fstab file or using the mount command. References:

[LPI Linux Essentials - 1.3 Basic File Management]

[LPI Linux Essentials - 1.4 Finding Files]

[LPI Linux Essentials - 2.1 Using Devices, Linux Filesystems, Filesystem Hierarchy Standard]

[LPI Linux Essentials - 2.2 Mounting, Unmounting Filesystems]

[LPI Linux Essentials - 2.3 Disk Partitions]

The correct command to locate programs and their corresponding man pages and configuration files is whereis. The whereis command searches for the binary, source, and manual files for a given command name in a list of standard Linux directories. It can also accept a list of directories to search in by using the -B, -M, or -S options. The whereis command is useful for finding the location and documentation of a program. The other commands are not suitable for this task. The dirname command strips the last component from a file name and returns the directory name. The which command shows the full path of a command that is in the $PATH variable. The basename command strips the directory and suffix from a file name and returns the base name. The query command is not a standard Linux command. References:

[LPI Linux Essentials - 1.1 The Linux Community and a Career in Open Source]

[LPI Linux Essentials - 1.2 Finding Your Way on a Linux System]

[LPI Linux Essentials - 1.4 Finding Files]

whereis command in Linux with Examples - GeeksforGeeks

Whereis Command in Linux | Linuxize

Linux whereis Command Explained for Beginners (5 Examples) - HowtoForge

whereis command | Linux# - Geek University

whereis command in Linux - LinuxForDevices

A hard link is a directory entry that points to the same inode as another file. An inode is a data structure that stores the metadata and the location of the data blocks of a file. A hard link is not a separate file, but an additional name for an existing file. Therefore, the following statements are true for hard linked files:

The hard linked files have the same permissions and owner. Since the hard linked files point to the same inode, they share the same attributes, such as the file type, the file size, the access permissions, the owner, the group, and the timestamps. Any changes made to one hard link will affect the other hard links as well. For example, if you change the permissions of one hard link, the other hard links will have the same permissions. You can use the stat command to view the attributes of a file or a hard link.

The hard linked files share the same inode. This is the definition of a hard link. The inode number is a unique identifier for each file on a filesystem. The hard linked files have the same inode number, which means they point to the same data blocks on the disk. You can use the ls -i command to view the inode number of a file or a hard link.

The hard linked files must be on the same filesystem. A hard link cannot cross different filesystems or partitions, because each filesystem has its own inode table. A hard link can only point to an inode that exists on the same filesystem as the hard link. If you try to create a hard link to a file on a different filesystem, you will get an error message saying:

ln: failed to create hard link ‘link’ => ‘file’: Invalid cross-device link

The other statements are not true for hard linked files, because:

The output of stat will report hard instead of regular file. This is not true, because the stat command does not distinguish between a regular file and a hard link. The stat command will report the same file type for both the original file and the hard link, which is regular file. The only way to tell if a file is a hard link is to check the link count, which is the number of directory entries that point to the same inode. If the link count is more than one, it means there are hard links to the file. You can use the stat -c %h command to view the link count of a file or a hard link.

The hard linked files are indicated by a -> when listed with ls -l. This is not true, because the -> symbol is used to indicate a symbolic link, not a hard link. A symbolic link, also known as a soft link, is a special type of file that contains a path to another file or directory. A symbolic link does not point to the same inode as the target file, but to the name of the target file. A symbolic link has its own inode number, file type, permissions, and timestamps, which can be different from the target file. You can use the ls -l command to view the file type, permissions, and name of a file or a symbolic link. A symbolic link will have the file type l and the name will be followed by a -> symbol and the path to the target file. For example:

lrwxrwxrwx. 1 user user 9 Aug 29 15:10 link -> file

The system boot process is the sequence of steps that the system follows when it is powered on or restarted. The system boot process can be divided into four main components: BIOS, bootloader, kernel, and init system. The order in which these components are started is:

BIOS: BIOS stands for Basic Input/Output System, and it is the first component that runs when the system is powered on. BIOS is a firmware program that is stored in a ROM chip on the motherboard, and it performs some basic tasks, such as:

initializing the hardware components and peripherals

performing the power-on self-test (POST) to check the system integrity

selecting a boot device from the boot order list

loading and executing the bootloader program from the boot device

Bootloader: Bootloader is a small program that is responsible for loading and executing the kernel. Bootloader is usually stored in the first sector of the boot device, which can be a hard disk, a USB drive, or a CD-ROM. Bootloader can also display a menu that allows the user to choose from different kernel images or operating systems. Some common bootloaders for Linux systems are GRUB, LILO, and SYSLINUX.

Kernel: Kernel is the core of the operating system, and it manages the system resources, controls the hardware devices, and provides basic services to other programs. Kernel is a large binary file that is compressed and stored in the boot device, usually in the /boot directory. Kernel is loaded into memory and executed by the bootloader, and it performs some tasks, such as:

decompressing itself and relocating to a higher memory address

detecting and initializing the hardware devices and drivers

mounting the root filesystem and creating a temporary filesystem in RAM

starting the init system, which is the first user-space program

Init system: Init system is the program that initializes the user-space environment and spawns all other processes. Init system is always the first process that runs on the system, and it has the process ID (PID) of 1. Init system can also perform some tasks, such as:

reading the configuration files and scripts that define the system services and runlevels

starting and stopping the system services and daemons

managing the system logins and terminals

running a graphical user interface or a command-line interface

Some common init systems for Linux systems are SysVinit, systemd, and Upstart.

 The command that replaces each occurrence of ‘bob’ in the file letter with ‘Bob’ and writes the result to the file newletter is sed ‘s/bob/Bob/g’ letter > newletter. This command uses the following options and syntax:

s: Specifies the substitution operation.

/: Separates the pattern and the replacement strings.

bob: The pattern to be searched and replaced.

Bob: The replacement string.

g: The global flag that indicates all occurrences of the pattern in each line should be replaced, not just the first one.

letter: The name of the input file.

: Redirects the output to a file.

newletter: The name of the output file.

The output of this command will be a new file called newletter that contains the same text as letter, except that every ‘bob’ is replaced by ‘Bob’. For example, if the file letter contains the following text:

Dear bob, I hope this letter finds you well. I am writing to inform you that your subscription to our magazine has expired. If you wish to renew it, please send us a check for $50 by the end of this month. Otherwise, we will have to cancel your subscription and remove you from our mailing list. Thank you for your cooperation and support. Sincerely, Alice

The file newletter will contain the following text:

Dear Bob, I hope this letter finds you well. I am writing to inform you that your subscription to our magazine has expired. If you wish to renew it, please send us a check for $50 by the end of this month. Otherwise, we will have to cancel your subscription and remove you from our mailing list. Thank you for your cooperation and support. Sincerely, Alice

The other commands are incorrect for the following reasons:

A. sed ‘/bob/Bob’ letter > newletter: This command is missing the s option and the second / delimiter, and will produce an error message.

B. sed s/bob/Bob/ letter < newletter: This command is using the wrong redirection operator (< instead of >), and will try to read the input from newletter instead of letter, and write the output to the standard output instead of newletter.

C. sed’s/bob/Bob’ letter > newletter: This command is missing a space between sed and the first ', and will produce an error message.

E. sed ‘s/bob, Bob/’ letter > newletter: This command is using a comma (,) instead of a slash (/) as a delimiter, and will produce an error message.

The mkdir command is used in a Linux environment to create a new directory. The mkdir command takes one or more arguments that specify the name and path of the directory to be created. For example, mkdir foo will create a directory named foo in the current working directory, while mkdir /home/bar will create a directory named bar in the /home directory. The mkdir command can also create multiple directories at once by using the -p option, which creates any missing parent directories along the path. For example, mkdir -p /tmp/a/b/c will create the directories /tmp, /tmp/a, /tmp/a/b and /tmp/a/b/c if they do not exist already. References:

LPIC-1 Exam 101 Objectives, Topic 103: GNU and Unix Commands, 103.3 Perform basic file management

LPIC-1 Linux Administrator 101-500 Exam FAQ, LPIC-1 Exam 101 Objectives, GNU and Unix Commands (Total Weight: 25)