7 ms·

I have been unable to think of one for Linux system administrators. :-(

ambiate 13y ago
Ask about disaster recovery, backups, penetration testing, what to do if a database/webserver breach occurs, or any form of generic networking/routing.
- bob_george33 13y ago
  Not sysadmin specifically, but when I was working as a computer technician, questions we would ask to scope out the skills of people were along the lines of: Q: "Something you have no experience with has broken and won't do a basic function, how will you go about fixing it?" A: Research, ask someone else etc. Q: "X is missing their password for a system we have no admin rights on. How are you going to fix this?" A: Recovery Tools. Format device and set it up again. Use JS/Developer tools to get it in plain text from the browser.
octo_t 13y ago
I've found 'list 10 two-letter linux commands and their use' They don't actually have to think of 10, but their answer can show what they've actually had to do on a *nix system. Its also lets you prod them with questions like 'how might I get disk usage' or if they mention dd, ask them how they use it, what its good for etc.
- icebraining 13y ago
  I was surprised I could actually think of 10. Using both dc and bc seems like cheating, though ;)
  - octo_t 13y ago
    To be honest, a reason I like it is that if they free-think and say 'what about sed, oh of course thats three characters', shows what they know. Also whether shell-built ins count too.
    - icebraining 13y ago
      I'd grant bonus points for remembering the standard text editor. Or dismiss everyone who didn't!
hacknat 13y ago
Here's a couple: Grep a current running process. Grep x file and copy it. You'd be surprised how many "Sys Admins" I've interviewed who can't do basic things.
EvanAnderson 13y ago
I've been a contract sysadmin for a long time. In a former "life" part of my work was doing phone screens and job interviews for contract sysadmin candidates. If a candidate's answer to a nonspecific troubleshooting scenario didn't begin with (or contain very close to the beginning of the answer) "look at the logs" I'd bump them. Anybody whose problem-solving methodology doesn't including gathering pertinent data early in the process isn't somebody I want "solving" problems for me.
darkrho 13y ago
Years ago I've been asked: There is a file named "-foo", how do you delete it?
aaronem 13y ago
I've seen a good one -- actually got asked it in a phone screen I did last year: "How would you recursively delete all files with extension 'mp3' in a given directory tree?" The (simplest) correct answer (I know) is find /path/to/wherever -name "*.mp3" -exec rm -fv {} \; Maybe that's more of a pons asinorum, I suppose, but then isn't a pons asinorum precisely what a fizzbuzz question is meant to be?
- icebraining 13y ago
  The simplest would be find /path/to/wherever -name "*.mp3" -delete This works at least in GNU find and FreeBSD.
  - aaronem 13y ago
    At which point I'd argue that using -exec with an appropriate command is simpler, in the general case, than using one of find(1)'s many, many, many twiddly little command-line arguments. Granted, -exec spawns a process per file, but processor cycles are cheaper than brain cycles, &c., &c.
- presidentender 13y ago
  Can't we cd /path/to/wherever rm -rf *.mp3 ?
  - aaronem 13y ago
    You have stumbled squarely into the tripwire implicit in that question; "rm -rf *.mp3" ignores directories whose names don't end in ".mp3", and deletes those whose do.
  - code_duck 13y ago
    It's supposed to be recursive. That would only delete the files in the current directory, not subdirectories as well.
    - presidentender 13y ago
snorkel 13y ago
"You need shell access to a remote system using ssh. What file would email to the admin to grant you access using ssh?" You'd be surprised of how many supposed Linux admins have no idea how to setup ssh logins, which says a lot about the depth of their experience.
- hnriot 13y ago
  I'd make this a requirement of developers too, some basic unix skills goes a long way as a developer.
Ologn 13y ago
The best question I have is "Describe the power on of a RHEL x86 system in as much detail as possible from beginning to end, each step of what happens". It is open ended but can tell you a lot. You can get very fine grained, down to the hardware signals which take place before FFFF0000 is executed.
raverbashing 13y ago
1 - How to connect to a server using SSH without a password 2 - How would you check if $DATABASE is running and how would you start it if it wasn't. Bonus points: how do you make it start automatically at next reboot 3 - Show me the processes using the most CPU
- sov 13y ago
  Is 1. really that trivial? If I recall there's some really weird convention about usernames across both platforms (assuming *nix) having to be identical, in addition to fiddling around with the RSA keys.

Ask about disaster recovery, backups, penetration testing, what to do if a database/webserver breach occurs, or any form of generic networking/routing.

bob_george33 13y ago
Not sysadmin specifically, but when I was working as a computer technician, questions we would ask to scope out the skills of people were along the lines of: Q: "Something you have no experience with has broken and won't do a basic function, how will you go about fixing it?" A: Research, ask someone else etc. Q: "X is missing their password for a system we have no admin rights on. How are you going to fix this?" A: Recovery Tools. Format device and set it up again. Use JS/Developer tools to get it in plain text from the browser.

octo_t 13y ago

I've found 'list 10 two-letter linux commands and their use' They don't actually have to think of 10, but their answer can show what they've actually had to do on a *nix system. Its also lets you prod them with questions like 'how might I get disk usage' or if they mention dd, ask them how they use it, what its good for etc.

icebraining 13y ago
I was surprised I could actually think of 10. Using both dc and bc seems like cheating, though ;)
- octo_t 13y ago
  To be honest, a reason I like it is that if they free-think and say 'what about sed, oh of course thats three characters', shows what they know. Also whether shell-built ins count too.
  - icebraining 13y ago
    I'd grant bonus points for remembering the standard text editor. Or dismiss everyone who didn't!

hacknat 13y ago

Here's a couple: Grep a current running process. Grep x file and copy it. You'd be surprised how many "Sys Admins" I've interviewed who can't do basic things.

EvanAnderson 13y ago

I've been a contract sysadmin for a long time. In a former "life" part of my work was doing phone screens and job interviews for contract sysadmin candidates. If a candidate's answer to a nonspecific troubleshooting scenario didn't begin with (or contain very close to the beginning of the answer) "look at the logs" I'd bump them. Anybody whose problem-solving methodology doesn't including gathering pertinent data early in the process isn't somebody I want "solving" problems for me.

darkrho 13y ago

Years ago I've been asked: There is a file named "-foo", how do you delete it?

aaronem 13y ago

I've seen a good one -- actually got asked it in a phone screen I did last year: "How would you recursively delete all files with extension 'mp3' in a given directory tree?" The (simplest) correct answer (I know) is find /path/to/wherever -name "*.mp3" -exec rm -fv {} \; Maybe that's more of a pons asinorum, I suppose, but then isn't a pons asinorum precisely what a fizzbuzz question is meant to be?

icebraining 13y ago
The simplest would be find /path/to/wherever -name "*.mp3" -delete This works at least in GNU find and FreeBSD.
- aaronem 13y ago
  At which point I'd argue that using -exec with an appropriate command is simpler, in the general case, than using one of find(1)'s many, many, many twiddly little command-line arguments. Granted, -exec spawns a process per file, but processor cycles are cheaper than brain cycles, &c., &c.
presidentender 13y ago
Can't we cd /path/to/wherever rm -rf *.mp3 ?
- aaronem 13y ago
  You have stumbled squarely into the tripwire implicit in that question; "rm -rf *.mp3" ignores directories whose names don't end in ".mp3", and deletes those whose do.
- code_duck 13y ago
  It's supposed to be recursive. That would only delete the files in the current directory, not subdirectories as well.
  - presidentender 13y ago

snorkel 13y ago

"You need shell access to a remote system using ssh. What file would email to the admin to grant you access using ssh?" You'd be surprised of how many supposed Linux admins have no idea how to setup ssh logins, which says a lot about the depth of their experience.

hnriot 13y ago
I'd make this a requirement of developers too, some basic unix skills goes a long way as a developer.

Ologn 13y ago

The best question I have is "Describe the power on of a RHEL x86 system in as much detail as possible from beginning to end, each step of what happens". It is open ended but can tell you a lot. You can get very fine grained, down to the hardware signals which take place before FFFF0000 is executed.

raverbashing 13y ago

1 - How to connect to a server using SSH without a password 2 - How would you check if $DATABASE is running and how would you start it if it wasn't. Bonus points: how do you make it start automatically at next reboot 3 - Show me the processes using the most CPU

sov 13y ago
Is 1. really that trivial? If I recall there's some really weird convention about usernames across both platforms (assuming *nix) having to be identical, in addition to fiddling around with the RSA keys.