Peter Grace on 14 Feb 2004 20:48:02 -0000


[Date Prev] [Date Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]

Re: [PLUG] Interview Questions: System Admin


-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Is there an awesome admin job waiting for me if I can answer the
questions? :)  I admit, a couple of them I'm a little stumped on:

~      - Name at least two types of server process that can be an open
~        mail relay but are not SMTP server processes.

SOCKS?  Squid maybe, if you were REALLY good at configuring it?
netcat and some scripting magic?  Hell when you get right down to it,
anyone could write/install a program on the box that could be a method
of forwarding tcp traffic in the upper port ranges, and the sysadmin
would be none the wiser unless they looked regularly at open/listening
ports and noticed a lot of traffic popping up as of late..

Then again, the admin in question should have some sort of firewall in
place to stop such evildoers before they start....

What answers would you be looking for in that question?

I actually like these questions, but I also think that they're more
for a beginner..  If I was going to be hiring a new IT
partner-in-crime, I'd definitely want them to be able to answer these
questions before I'd feel comfortable giving them sudo/root on any of
my boxen...  Only because you want someone familiar enough with the
territory to not follow the "Hey, rm -rf /" answer when (s)he asks for
help on IRC.

Ok, back to lurking.. :P

Pete

|
| Sysadmin Quiz TCP/IP Networking - In an IP network, what is the
| function of a subnet mask? - Suppose you are assigned the CIDR
| netblock 130.78.25.64/28. - How many IP addresses are useable for
| hosts? - List them. - Are there any IP addresses that are not
| useable for hosts? - If so, list them with the reason that that
| specific address is not useable for hosts. - The default gateway
| address on a subnet is changing; the old address is 192.168.0.254,
| and the new address is 192.168.0.1. What changes would you need to
| make on a computer running as a DHCP server on that subnet? (The
| DHCP server is not acting as the gateway for this network, and the
| system acting as the gateway is not receiving its IP address from
| the DHCP server. Assume whatever operating system and DHCP server
| software you're familiar with, though answers for a POSIX operating
| system and ISC dhcpd are preferred.) - ping(1) reports "Request
| timed out" when trying to check connectivity to a host, but you're
| able to access other services running on the same system. Give at
| least one possible explanation for this. - What should be found in
| the /etc/hosts file? (If your answer is specific to any particular
| OS, please state that. More specific answers are preferred to more
| general ones.) - Sketch a brief history of the usage of this file
| in the Unix operating system(s). - What is found in a DNS zone
| file? (Assume BIND running on a POSIX operating system.) - What is
| the purpose of an MX record? - What data is permissable in a
| standards-compliant MX record? (Also accepted: what
| standards-non-compliant data is frequently placed in MX records?) -
| What data is transferred in a DNS zone transfer? - In what
| circumstances would you permit systems outside of your
| local/corporate network to perform DNS zone transfers? - In what
| circumstances would you not? E-Mail - Explain in what ways each of
| the IMAP, POP3, and SMTP protocols are used. - Give at least two
| differences between IMAP and POP3. - Explain at least one way that
| SMTP is used that does not involve a mail user agent. (Bonus points
| for creative answers.) - What is an open mail relay? - How would
| you test an SMTP server to see if it is an open mail relay? - Name
| at least two types of server process that can be an open mail relay
| but are not SMTP server processes. - What are the basic commands to
| send a message to an SMTP server? (Hint: Begin with HELO.) OS-level
| Tools - What options to (GNU) tar(1) would you use to decompress
| and extract everything  from  an  archive  named  files.tar.gz into
| the  current directory? - How would you move a user's home
| directory from one mounted disk partition to another, preserving
| all file metadata, with minimal interruption to the user? - Can you
| do this with zero interruption to the user? - What command would
| you use to check available disk space on all currently-mounted disk
| partitions? - What command(s), with what options, would you use to
| discover which directory under a given disk partition was using the
| most space? - Why is there an /etc/shadow (or similar,
| differently-named) file? What is in it, and how is it different
| from /etc/passwd?
|

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.3 (MingW32)

iD8DBQFALoLy1bytwQSw7hoRAizuAKD50FoLyp+ZwFrrBrMdtx43RQtSWwCfTL3d
8V+7bDvuVl7vecRbFJgsiyU=
=/u76
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


___________________________________________________________________________ Philadelphia Linux Users Group -- http://www.phillylinux.org Announcements - http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-announce General Discussion -- http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug