Senior Linux Systems Administrator Interview Questions

38 senior linux systems administrator interview questions shared by candidates

Why are you looking? What is the importance of cd? What are built-in commands? What is forking? How does a process fork? What is the difference between hardware and software RAID? Hint: They use mdadm so if you use other types of RAID, they wouldn't appreciate it. What are the types of RAID? Hint: review on the basics of RAID0, RAID1, RAID0+1, RAID1+0 and be ready to give examples of what applications can be used for each type of RAID.
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Senior Linux Systems Administrator

Interviewed at Medical Science & Computing

4.1
Jun 20, 2017

Why are you looking? What is the importance of cd? What are built-in commands? What is forking? How does a process fork? What is the difference between hardware and software RAID? Hint: They use mdadm so if you use other types of RAID, they wouldn't appreciate it. What are the types of RAID? Hint: review on the basics of RAID0, RAID1, RAID0+1, RAID1+0 and be ready to give examples of what applications can be used for each type of RAID.

Being that I've not been a heavy *nix user or system administrator in a long time, some common commands were to be explained, two of which I was not familiar with. My test involved script writing, and even with a xunit testing framework, shell scripting errors can crop up and be difficult to diagnose. So, I was not a strong enough technical candidate for their previous search. Note, they are currently searching again as of today March 4th, 2015
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Senior Linux Systems Administrator

Interviewed at Socialserve

3.5
Mar 4, 2015

Being that I've not been a heavy *nix user or system administrator in a long time, some common commands were to be explained, two of which I was not familiar with. My test involved script writing, and even with a xunit testing framework, shell scripting errors can crop up and be difficult to diagnose. So, I was not a strong enough technical candidate for their previous search. Note, they are currently searching again as of today March 4th, 2015

I was asked why I wanted to work for NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab. I answered because I thought it was a cool place with many interesting projects/missions. Who wouldn't want to work at NASA. Space exploration is fascinating.
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Senior Linux Systems Administrator

Interviewed at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

3.9
Jan 12, 2015

I was asked why I wanted to work for NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab. I answered because I thought it was a cool place with many interesting projects/missions. Who wouldn't want to work at NASA. Space exploration is fascinating.

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