305-300 LPIC-3: Virtualization and Containerization - Exam 305, version 3.0 Free Practice Exam Questions (2025 Updated)

Containerd is an industry-standard container runtime that uses Runc (a low-level container runtime) by default, but can be configured to use others as well1. Containerd manages the complete container lifecycle of its host system, from image transfer and storage to containerexecution and supervision1. It supports the standards established by the Open Container Initiative (OCI)1. Containerd does not require the Docker engine and Docker CLI to be installed, as it can be used independently or with other container platforms2. Containerd is not a text file format, nor does it run in each Docker container or provide DHCP client functionality. Containerd is not the initial process run at the start of any Docker container, as that is the role of the container runtime, such as Runc3. References: 1 (search for “containerd”), 2 (search for “Containerd is an open source”), 3 (search for “It uses rune to start containers”).

The purpose of the packer inspect subcommand is to display an overview of the configuration contained in a Packer template1. A Packer template is a file that defines the various components a Packer build requires, such as variables, sources, provisioners, and post-processors2. The packer inspect subcommand can help you quickly learn about a template without having to dive into the HCL (HashiCorp Configuration Language) itself1. The subcommand will tell you things like what variables a template accepts, the sources it defines, the provisioners it defines and the order they’ll run, and more1.

The other options are not correct because:

A) Retrieve files from an existing Packer image. This is not the purpose of the packer inspect subcommand. To retrieve files from an existing Packer image, you need to use the packer scp subcommand, which copies files from a running instance of a Packer image to your local machine2.

B) Execute commands within a running instance of a Packer image. This is not the purpose of the packer inspect subcommand. To execute commands within a running instance of a Packer image, you need to use the packer ssh subcommand, which connects to a running instance of a Packer image via SSH and runs the specified command2.

C) List the artifacts created during the build process of a Packer image. This is not the purpose of the packer inspect subcommand. To list the artifacts created during the build process of a Packer image, you need to use the packer build subcommand with the -machine-readable flag, which outputs the build information in a machine-friendly format that includes the artifact details2.

D) Show usage statistics of a Packer image. This is not the purpose of the packer inspect subcommand. To show usage statistics of a Packer image, you need to use the packer console subcommand with the -stat flag, which launches an interactive console that allows you to inspect and modify variables, sources, and functions, and displays the usage statistics of the current session2. References: 1: packer inspect - Commands | Packer | HashiCorp Developer 2: Commands | Packer | HashiCorp Developer

A hypervisor is a software that creates and runs virtual machines (VMs) by separating the operating system and resources from the physical hardware. One of the main tasks of a hypervisor is to map the resources of VMs to the resources of the host system, such as CPU, memory, disk, and network. This allows the hypervisor to allocate and manage the resources among multiple VMs and ensure that they run efficiently and independently123. Another important task of a hypervisor is to isolate the VMs and prevent unauthorized access to resources of other VMs. This ensures the security and privacy of the VMs and their data, as well as the stability and performance of the host system. The hypervisor can use various techniques to isolate the VMs, such as virtual LANs, firewalls, encryption, and access control145.

The other tasks listed are not part of a hypervisor’s responsibility, but rather of the guest operating system or the application running inside the VM. A hypervisor does not create filesystems during the installation of new VMs, as this is done by the installer of the guest operating system6. A hypervisor does not provide host-wide unique PIDs to the processes running inside the VMs, as this is done by the kernel of the guest operating system7. A hypervisor does not manage authentication to network services running inside a VM, as this is done by the network service itself or by a directory service such as LDAP or Active Directory8. References: 1 (search for “What is a hypervisor?”), 2 (search for “How does a hypervisor work?”), 3 (search for “The hypervisor gives each virtual machine the resources that have been allocated”), 4 (search for “Benefits ofhypervisors”), 5 (search for “Isolate the virtual machines and prevent unauthorized access”), 6 (search for “Create filesystems during the installation of new virtual machine quest operating systems”), 7 (search for “Provide host-wide unique PIDs to the processes running inside the virtual machines”), 8 (search for “Manage authentication to network services running inside a virtual machine”).

The lxc-attach command allows the user to start a new process within a running LXC container12. It takes the name of the container as an argument and optionally a command to execute inside the container. If no command is specified, it creates a new shell inside the container1. For example, to list all the files in the home directory of a container named myContainer, one can use:

lxc-attach -n myContainer – ls -lh /home

References:

1: Executing a command inside a running LXC - Unix & Linux Stack Exchange

QEMU can provide some network services in a user network, which is a mode of networking that does not require any administrator privilege to run. The user network uses the SLIRP TCP/IP emulator to create a virtual NAT’ted subnet, with a DHCP server started by QEMU that gives out IP addresses to the guest machines and puts the host on 10.0.2.21. QEMU can also provide a TFTP server in the user network, which can be used to boot the guest machines from a network image. The TFTP server can be configured with the -tftp option2. QEMU does not provide BGP, CIFS, or AppleTalk services in the user network. BGP is a routing protocol that is used to exchange routing information between autonomous systems on the Internet3. CIFS is a file-sharing protocol that is used to access files and printers on a network4. AppleTalk is a deprecated network protocol suite that was used by Apple devices5. These services require more advanced networking features than the user network can offer, such as bridging, routing, or tunneling.

References:

Documentation/Networking - QEMU

QEMU/Networking - Wikibooks, open books for an open world

Border Gateway Protocol - Wikipedia

Common Internet File System - Wikipedia

AppleTalk - Wikipedia

The purpose of the kubelet service in Kubernetes is to run containers on the worker nodes according to the Kubernetes configuration. The kubelet is an agent or program that runs on each node and communicates with the Kubernetes control plane. It receives a set of PodSpecs that describe the desired state of the pods that should be running on the node, and ensures that the containers described in those PodSpecs are running and healthy. The kubelet also reports the status of the node and the pods back to the control plane. The kubelet does not manage containers that were not created by Kubernetes. References:

Kubernetes Docs - kubelet

Learn Steps - What is kubelet and what it does: Basics on Kubernetes

The unshare command is used to run a process in a new Linux namespace12. It takes one or more flags to specify which namespaces to create or unshare from the parent process1. For example, to run a shell in a new mount, network, and PID namespace, one can use:

unshare -mnp /bin/bash

References:

1: unshare(1) - Linux manual page - man7.org

2: A gentle introduction to namespaces in Linux - Packagecloud

Libvirt supports creating and managing various types of virtual networks that can be used to connect virtual machines to each other or to the external network. One of the common types of virtual networks is the NAT-based network, which uses network address translation (NAT) to allow virtual machines to access the outside world through the host’s network interface. By default, libvirt creates a NAT-based network called ‘default’ when it is installed and started. This network appears as a standard Linux bridge device on the host system, named virbr0. The bridge device has an IP address of 192.168.122.1/24 and acts as a gateway and a DHCP server for the virtual machines connected to it. The bridge device also has iptables rules to forward and masquerade the traffic from and to the virtual machines. The virtual machines connected to the ‘default’ network have their own IP addresses in the 192.168.122.0/24 range and their own MAC addresses generated by libvirt. The virtual machines can communicate with each other, with the host, and with the external network through the bridge device and the NAT mechanism12.

The other statements in the question are false regarding networking with libvirt. Libvirt’s network functionality is not limited to connecting virtual machines to a physical network interface of the host system. Libvirt can also create isolated networks that do not have any connection to the outside world, or routed networks that use static routes to connect virtual machines to the external network without NAT3. Libvirt does not assign the same MAC address to all virtual machines and isolate their network interfaces at the link layer. Libvirt assigns a unique MAC address to each virtual machine and allows them to communicate with each other at the network layer4. Libvirt does not require a dedicated network interface that may not be used by the host system. Libvirt can share the host’s network interface with the virtual machines using NAT or bridging, or it can pass a physical network interface to a virtual machine exclusively using PCI passthrough5. Libvirt does not support exactly one virtual network and connect all virtual machines to it. Libvirt supports creating and managing multiple virtual networks with different names and configurations, and connecting virtual machines to different networks according to their needs6. References:

libvirt: Virtual Networking

libvirt: NAT forwarding (aka “virtual networks”)

libvirt: Routed network

libvirt: MAC address

libvirt: PCI passthrough of host network devices

[libvirt: Network XML format]

 Nested page table extensions, such as Intel Extended Page Table (EPT) or AMD Rapid Virtualization Indexing (RVI), are hardware features that facilitate the virtualization of memory. They allow the CPU to perform the translation of guest virtual addresses to host physical addresses in a single step, without the need for software-managed shadow page tables. This reduces the overhead and complexity of memory management for virtual machines, and improves their performance and isolation. Nested page table extensions do not directly affect the virtualization of other hardware components, such as network interfaces, host bus adapters, hard disks, or IO cache.

References:

Second Level Address Translation - Wikipedia

c - What is use of extended page table? - Stack Overflow

Hypervisor From Scratch – Part 4: Address Translation Using Extended …

The correct way to share data between several virtual machines running on the same Linux-based host system is by using a network file system or file transfer protocol. A network file system (NFS) is a distributed file system protocol that allows a user on a client computer to access files over a network in a manner similar to how local storage is accessed1. A file transfer protocol (FTP) is a standard network protocol used for the transfer of computer files between a client and server on a computer network2. Both methods allow data to be shared between virtual machines regardless of their underlying file systems or virtualization technologies. The other options are incorrect because they either do not work or are not feasible. Option A is wrong because each virtual machine has its own file system that is not directly accessible by other virtual machines. Option B is wrong because there is no such device as /dev/virt-disks/remote/ that can be used to mount other virtual machines’ file systems. Option C is wrong because a ramdisk is a volatile storage device that is not suitable for sharing data between virtual machines. Option E is wrong because attaching the same virtual hard disk to multiple virtual machines can cause data corruption and conflicts, and EXT4 does not have any sharing extensions that can prevent this. References:https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/1012706

https://bing.com/search?q=data+sharing+between+virtual+machines

The output of xl list shows the state of the domains. The domain with ID 6, Ubuntu, has a state of “b—”. This means that the domain is blocked, which means it is idle or waiting for I/O.

https://xenbits.xen.org/docs/unstable/man/xl.1.html

LXC implements system containers, which are a type of operating-system-level virtualization. System containers allow running multiple isolated Linux systems on a single Linux control host, using a single Linux kernel. System containers share the same kernel with the host and each other, but have their own file system, libraries, andprocesses. System containers are different from application containers, which are designed to run a single application or service in an isolated environment. Application containers are usually smaller and more portable than system containers, but also more dependent on the host kernel and libraries. Hardware containers, CPU emulation, and paravirtualization are not related to LXC, as they are different kinds of virtualization methods that involve hardware abstraction, instruction translation, or modification of the guest operating system. References:

1: LXC - Wikipedia

2: Linux Virtualization : Linux Containers (lxc) - GeeksforGeeks

3: Features - Proxmox Virtual Environment

Resource management for full virtualization is the process of allocating and controlling the physical resources of the host system to the virtual machines running on it. The hypervisor is the software layer that performs this task, by providing each virtual machine with a virtual hardware of a defined capacity that limits the resources of the virtual machine. For example, the hypervisor can specify how many virtual CPUs, how much memory, and how much disk space each virtual machine can use. The hypervisor can also enforce resource isolation and prioritization among the virtual machines, to ensure that they do not interfere with each other or consume more resources than they are allowed to. The hypervisor cannot provide fine-grained limits to internal elements of the guest operating system, such as the number of processes, because the hypervisor does not have access to the internal state of the guest operating system. The guest operating system is responsible for managing its own resources within the virtual hardware provided by the hypervisor. For example, the guest operating system can create an arbitrary amount of network sockets, as long as it does not exceed the network bandwidth allocated by the hypervisor. Full virtualization can pose limits to virtual machines, and does not always assign the host system’s resources in a first-come-first-serve manner. The hypervisor can use various resource management techniques, such as reservation, limit, share, weight, and quota, to allocate and control the resources of the virtual machines. The hypervisor can also use resource scheduling algorithms, such as round-robin, fair-share, or priority-based, to distribute the resources among the virtual machines according to their needs and preferences. All processes created within the virtual machines are not transparently and equally scheduled in the host system for CPU and I/O usage. The hypervisor can use different scheduling policies, such as proportional-share, co-scheduling, or gang scheduling, to schedule the virtual CPUs of the virtual machines on the physical CPUs of the host system. The hypervisor can alsouse different I/O scheduling algorithms, such as deadline, anticipatory, or completely fair queuing, to schedule the I/O requests of the virtual machines on the physical I/O devices of the host system. The hypervisor can also use different resource accounting and monitoring mechanisms, such as cgroups, perf, or sar, to measure and report the resource consumption and performance of the virtual machines. References:

Oracle VM VirtualBox: Features Overview

Resource Management as an Enabling Technology for Virtualization - Oracle

Introduction to virtualization and resource management in IaaS | Cloud Native Computing Foundation

 LXC and Docker are both container technologies that use Linux kernel features to create isolated environments for running applications. The main mechanisms that they use are:

Linux Capabilities: These are a set of privileges that can be assigned to processes to limit their access to certain system resources or operations. For example, a process with the CAP_NET_ADMIN capability can perform network administration tasks, such as creating or deleting network interfaces. Linux capabilities allow containers to run with reduced privileges, enhancing their security and isolation.

Kernel Namespaces: These are a way of creating separate views of the system resources for different processes. For example, a process in a mount namespace can have a different file system layout than the host or other namespaces. Kernel namespaces allow containers to have their own network interfaces, process IDs, user IDs, and other resources, without interfering with the host or other containers.

Control Groups: These are a way of grouping processes and applying resource limits and accounting to them. For example, a control group can limit the amount of CPU, memory, disk I/O, or network bandwidth that a process or a group of processes can use. Control groups allow containers to have a fair share of the system resources and prevent them from exhausting the host resources.

POSIX ACLs and file system permissions are not mechanisms used by LXC and Docker to create containers. They are methods of controlling the access to files and directories on a file system, which can be applied to any process, not just containers.

References:

LXC vs Docker: Which Container Platform Is Right for You?

LXC vs Docker: Why Docker is Better in 2023 | UpGuard

What is the Difference Between LXC, LXD and Docker Containers

lxc - Which container implementation docker is using - Unix & Linux Stack Exchange

 The correct command to move the libvirt domain web1 from the current host system to the host system host2 is virsh migrate web1 qemu+ssh://host2/system. This command uses the virsh migrate command, which initiates the live migration of a domain to another host1. The first argument is the name of the domain to migrate, which in this case is web1. The second argument is the destination URI, which specifies the connection to the remote host and the hypervisor to use2. In this case, the destination URI is qemu+ssh://host2/system, which means to use the QEMU driver and connect to host2 via SSH, and use the system instance of libvirtd3. The other options are incorrect because they either use invalid commands or arguments, such as node-update, pool-add, patch, or cp, or they do not specify the destination URI correctly. References:

https://balamuruhans.github.io/2019/01/09/kvm-migration-with-libvirt.html

http://libvirt.org/migration.html

 Packer is a tool that automates the creation of identical machine images for multiple platforms from a single source configuration. Packer works by creating an instance based on a source image, which is a pre-existing image that serves as a starting point. Packer then connects to the instance through a network connection, such as SSH or WinRM, and runs various commands and scripts to install and configure software within the instance. Packer then shuts down the instance and creates a new system image from it, which can be used to launch new instances. Packer supports many platforms, such as AWS, Azure, VMware, Docker, and others. Packer does not install any software or run any daemon within the target image, nor does it periodically connect to the running instances to re-apply the template. Packer also does not modify the source image directly, but creates a new image from the modified instance. References:

Packer by HashiCorp

HashiCorp Packer - Build Automated Machine Images

Introduction | Packer | HashiCorp Developer

Xen supports two types of guest systems: paravirtualized guests (PV) and fully virtualized guests (HVM).

Paravirtualized guests (PV) are guests that have been modified to run on the Xen hypervisor. They use a special kernel that communicates with the hypervisor through hypercalls, and use paravirtualized drivers for I/O devices. PV guests can run faster and more efficiently than HVM guests, but they require the guest operating system to be ported to Xen and to support the Xen ABI12.

Fully virtualized guests (HVM) are guests that run unmodified operating systems on the Xen hypervisor. They use hardware virtualization extensions, such as Intel VT-x or AMD-V, to create a virtual platform for the guest. HVM guests can run any operating system that supports the hardware architecture, but they incur more overhead and performance penalties than PV guests. HVM guests can also use paravirtualized drivers for I/O devices to improve their performance12.

The other options are not correct. Xen does not support foreign architecture guests (FA), emulated guests, or container virtualized guests.

Foreign architecture guests (FA) are guests that run on a different hardware architecture than the host. For example, running an ARM guest on an x86 host. Xen does not support this type of virtualization, as it would require emulation or binary translation, which are very complex and slow techniques3.

Emulated guests are guests that run on a software emulator that mimics the hardware of the host or another platform. For example, running a Windows guest on a QEMU emulator. Xen does not support this type of virtualization, as it relies on the emulator to provide the virtual platform, not the hypervisor. Xen can use QEMU to emulate some devices for HVM guests, but not the entire platform14.

Container virtualized guests are guests that run on a shared kernel with the host and other guests, using namespaces and cgroups to isolate them. For example, running a Linux guest on a Docker container. Xen does not support this type of virtualization, as it requires the guest operating system to be compatible with the host kernel, and does not provide the same level of isolation and security as hypervisor-based virtualization56.

References:

Xen Project Software Overview - Xen

Xen ARM with Virtualization Extensions - Xen

Xen Project Beginners Guide - Xen

QEMU - Xen

Docker overview | Docker Documentation

What is a Container? | App Containerization | VMware