Chapter 4 Review Questions

1.) Describe the effect of using a hyphen when executing the su command.

The hyphen tells causes the command to execute login scripts, and puts you in the login directory of the user you are switching to.

2.) A user's primary group can be a User Private Group. True or False? Explain.

True. If that is the only group that the user is assigned to then those are the only permissions that user is able to have.

3.) The /etc/passwd file does not contain which of the following fields:

The file privileges for the user.

4.) Explain the meaning of this line in the /etc/group file: webmasters:x:710:rthomas,cyang

Webmasters is the name of the group, the "x" designates the password, 710 is the GID(Group Id Number), and rthomas, and cyang are the members of the group.

5.) To create or change a password on any user account, the following is used:

The passwd command

6.) What does the fourth field in /etc/passwd contain?

It contains the GID.

7.) Why should you not use a standard text editor to add users to /etc/passwd?

In case there is more than one system administrator working on the file across the network, and in case of typing errors.

8.) If you enter a new password for a user account that can be easily guessed, the message BAD PASSWORD appears and the password is:

Only updated if you are logged in as a regular user.

9.) A mounted file system is on that:

Allows any user to run programs located on it.

10.) The Shadow Password Suite enhances Linux security by:

Hiding encrypted passwords in a file that only root can read.

11.) The df utility provides information about which of the following:

File system capacity, device name, and percentage used status.

12.) If you attempt to unmount a mounted file system receive an error message, the most likely cause is:

One or more users are working in a directory of the file system.

13.) Describe the difference between an alias and a symbolic link.

An alias is an executable script, and a symbolic link is a file that points to another file or directory.

14.) Which command is used to create a symbolic link?

ln

15.) The command chmod 744 report.doc grants ________ execute permission to the report.doc file.

User (The file's owner)

16.) The owner and group assigned to a file are shown by which of the following:

ls -l

17.) Execute a permission on a file is required to:

Start that file as a program

18.) The tar command creates archive files that compressed by the ______ command.

gzip

19.) The tar utility differs from the cpio utility in that:

cpio always reads and writes to STDIN, and STDOUT, and tar uses command-line parameters.

20.) Describe why the find command is option used with tar or cpio for backups.

The find command searches the directory that is listed for an exact match to the parameters that you have given.

21.) The _______ option causes the tar command to extract files from an archive file or device.

x

22.) Describe how the newgrp command relates to the second field of each record in the /etc/group file.

If the person using the command knows a groups password they are able to temporarily assume that groups permissions. The second field in the /etc/group file is the groups password.

23.) The output of the id command includes:

The effective UID, the effective GID, and a list of groups of which the effective UID user is a member.

24.) If the far left column in the output of the ls -l command shows the character "s" you would know the object on that line was a:

Socket

25.) Which utility typically provides the highest compression ration (makes the smallest compressed file from a given data file)?

bzip2