10 Useful 'Interview Questions and Answers' On Linux Shell Scripting

7/1/2017 10 Useful 'Interview Questions and Answers' on Linux Shell Scripting
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
Shell Scripting Series
Interview Question and
Answer Series
Adding to the shell scripting

posts here, in this article we
will be going through
questions related to Linux
Shell from interview point of
view.
1. How will you abort a

shell script before it is
successfully executed?
Linux System Administrator Bundle

Answer : We need to use ‘exit’
with 7-Courses (96% off)
command to ful l the above
described situation. A ‘exit’

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command when forced to
 Ending In: 3 days
output any value other than 0
(zero), the script will throw an

Computer Hacker Professional
error and will abort. The value 0
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(zero) under Unix environment
shell scripting represents

Add to Cart - $59
successful execution. Hence
 Ending In: 4 days
putting ‘exit -1’, without quotes
before script termination will
abort the script. LINUX EBOOKS
Introducing Learn Linux In One Week and Go

For example, create a from Zero to Hero
following shell script as RedHat RHCE/RHCSA Certi cation Preparation
Guide
‘anything.sh‘. Linux Foundations LFCS/LFCE Certi cation

Guide
Post x Mail Server Setup Guide for Linux
#!/bin/bash
echo "Hello" Ansible Setup Guide for Linux
exit -1
Django Setup Guide for Linux
echo "bye"
Awk Getting Started Guide for Beginners
Citrix XenServer Setup Guide for Linux
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Never Miss Any Linux Tutorials,

Save the le and execute it. Guides, Tips and Free eBooks
Join Our Community Of 150,000+ Linux Lovers
# sh anything.sh and get a weekly newsletter in your inbox
Hello
exit.sh: 3: exit: Illegal number: -1 YES! SIGN ME UP
From the above script, it is

clear that the execution
went well before exit -1
command.
2. How to remove the

headers from a le using
command in Linux?
Answer : A ‘sed’ command
comes to rescue here, when we

need to delete certain lines of a
le.
Here it the exact command

to remove headers from a
le (or rst line of a le).
# sed '1 d' file.txt
The only problem with

above command is that, it
outputs the le on standard
output without the rst line.
In order to save the output
to le, we need to use
redirect operator which will
redirects the output to a le.
# sed '1 d' file.txt > new_file.txt
Well the built in switch ‘-i‘ for

sed command, can perform
this operation without a
redirect operator.
# sed -i '1 d' file.txt
3. How will you check the

length of a line from a text
le?
Answer : Again ‘sed’ command

is used to nd or check the
length of a line from a text le.
A ‘sed –n ‘n p’ le.txt‘,
where ‘n‘ represents the line
number and ‘p‘ print out the
pattern space (to the

standard output). This
command is usually only
used in conjunction with the
-n command-line option. So,
how to get the length count?
Obviously! we need to
pipeline the output with ‘wc‘
command.
# sed –n 'n p' file.txt | wc –c
To get the length of line

number ‘5’ in the text le
‘tecmint.txt‘, we need to run.
# sed -n '5 p' tecmint.txt | wc -c
4. Is it possible to view all

the non-printable
characters from a text le
on Linux System? How will
you achieve this?
Answer : Yes! it is very much
possible to view all the non-

printable characters in Linux. In
order to achieve the above said

scenario, we need to take the
help of editor ‘vi’.
How to show non-printable

characters in ‘vi‘ editor?
Open vi editor.
Go to command mode
of vi editor by pressing
[esc] followed by ‘:’.
The nal step is to type
execute [set list]
command, from
command interface of
‘vi’ editor.
Note: This way we can see

all the non-printable
characters from a text le
including ctrl+m (^M).
5. You are a Team-Leader

of a group of staffs
working for a company xyz.
The company ask you to
create a directory ‘dir_xyz’,
such that any member of
the group can create a le
or access a le under it,
but no one can delete the
le, except the one created
it. what will you do?
Answer : An interesting scenario

to work upon. Well in the above
said scenario we need to

implement the below steps
which is as easy as cake walk.
# mkdir dir_xyz
# chmod g+wx dir_xyz
# chmod +t dir_xyz
The rst line of command

create a directory (dir_xyz).
The second line of
command above allow
group (g) to have
permission to ‘write‘ and
‘execute‘ and the last line of
the above command – The
‘+t‘ in the end of the
permissions is called the
‘sticky bit‘. It replaces the ‘x‘
and indicates that in this
directory, les can only be
deleted by their owners, the
owner of the directory or the
root superuser.
6. Can you tell me the

various stages of a Linux
process, it passes through?
Answer : A Linux process
normally goes through four

major stages in its processing
life.
Here are the 4 stages of

Linux process.
Waiting: Linux Process

waiting for a resource.
Running : A Linux
process is currently
being executed.
Stopped : A Linux
Process is stopped
after successful
execution or after
receiving kill signal.
Zombie : A Process is
said to be ‘Zombie’ if it
has stopped but still
active in process table.
7. What is the use of cut

command in Linux?
Answer : A ‘cut’ is a very useful
Linux command which proves to

be helpful when we need to cut
certain speci c part of a le and

print it on standard output, for
better manipulation when the

eld of the le and le itself is
too heavy.
For example, extract rst 10

columns of a text le
‘txt_tecmint‘.
# cut -c1-10 txt_tecmint
To extract 2nd, 5th and 7th

column of the same text le.
# cut -d;-f2 -f5 -f7 txt_tecmint
8. What is the difference

between commands ‘cmp’
and ‘diff’?
Answer : The command ‘cmp’
and ‘diff’ means to obtain the

same thing but with different
mindset.
The ‘diff‘ command reports

the changes one should
make so that both the les
look the same. Whereas
‘cmp‘ command compares
the two les byte-by-byte
and reports the rst
mismatch.
9. Is it possible to
substitute ‘ls’ command
with ‘echo’ command?
Answer : Yes! the ‘ls’ command
can be substituted by ‘echo’

command. The command ‘ls’
lists the content of le. From the

point of view of replacement of
above command we can use
‘echo *’, obviously without

quotes. The output of both the
commands are same.
10. You might have heard

about inodes. can you
describe inode brie y?
Answer : A ‘inode’ is a ‘data-
structure’, which is used for le
identi cation on Linux. Each le

on an Unix System has a
separate ‘inode’ and an ‘Unique’

inode Number.
That’s all for now. We will be

coming up with another
interesting and
knowledgeable Interview
questions, in the next
article. Till then Stay tuned
and connected to
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20 RESPONSES
 Comments 5  Pingbacks 0
zen  April 25, 2016 at 8:59 am

isn’t command ls used to list les in a
directory?
Reply
Zool  August 20, 2016 at 2:49 pm

It meant to say “less” rather
than “ls”. As it is, yeah. It’s
wrong.
Reply
Warron French
 February 20, 2017 at 7:36 am
The way the question was
asked wasn’t very clearly stated
to accomplish the use of the
command ls and echo to
answer it in the a rmative and
explain.
The question should have been,

“Is it possible to list the le and
directory names of a given
‘parent directory’ using a
command other than ‘ls?'”
Yes, the use of “echo *” will
perform the equivalent of a
plain “ls.”
Reply
jagan  March 8, 2016 at 7:40 pm

Hi,
I need to execute a script on remote as

a sudo user or root user from my local
VM. It is not password less login. we
need to pass password thorugh
command line.
#!/bin/bash
sshpass -p “xxxx” ssh -o
StrictHostKeyChecking=no
user@abc.com <<EOF
echo "password" | 'sudo su -'
sh script.sh
EOF
Note : there is no sshpass in remote

server and we cannot install it for
security reason.
I am able to login to remote user as user

but i can't login as a sudo user , Please
help me how to achieve this. i have seen
many quires but none one helped me
-Thanks
Jagan
Reply
Ravi Saive
  March 9, 2016 at 10:49 am
@Jagan,
In CentOS, there isn’t any sudo

user by default and the all the
programs run with root
privileges as root user, if you
want to run enable sudo for
user, you shoud use visudo
command to enable it as
shown:
# visudo
And add this entry to enable
sudo privileges to your user.
yourusername ALL=(ALL) ALL
Reply
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7/1/2017 10 Useful 'Interview Questions and Answers' on Linux Shell Scripting

 BEGINNER'S GUIDE FOR LINUX 

Learn vi/vim as a Full Text Editor 

 Download Your Free eBooks NOW - 10 Free

How to Add Linux Host to Nagios Monitoring

We have lots of tutorials on

and Interview Questions for 

Adding to the shell scripting

1. How will you abort a

Linux System Administrator Bundle

described situation. A ‘exit’

(zero), the script will throw an

shell scripting represents

abort the script. LINUX EBOOKS

Introducing Learn Linux In One Week and Go

‘anything.sh‘. Linux Foundations LFCS/LFCE Certi cation

Never Miss Any Linux Tutorials,

From the above script, it is

2. How to remove the

Answer : A ‘sed’ command

comes to rescue here, when we

Here it the exact command

# sed '1 d' file.txt

The only problem with

# sed '1 d' file.txt > new_file.txt

Well the built in switch ‘-i‘ for

# sed -i '1 d' file.txt

3. How will you check the

Answer : Again ‘sed’ command

pattern space (to the

# sed –n 'n p' file.txt | wc –c

To get the length of line

# sed -n '5 p' tecmint.txt | wc -c

4. Is it possible to view all

Answer : Yes! it is very much

possible to view all the non-

order to achieve the above said

help of editor ‘vi’.

How to show non-printable

Note: This way we can see

5. You are a Team-Leader

Answer : An interesting scenario

said scenario we need to

which is as easy as cake walk.

The rst line of command

6. Can you tell me the

Answer : A Linux process

normally goes through four

Here are the 4 stages of

Waiting: Linux Process

7. What is the use of cut

Answer : A ‘cut’ is a very useful

Linux command which proves to

certain speci c part of a le and

better manipulation when the

For example, extract rst 10

# cut -c1-10 txt_tecmint

To extract 2nd, 5th and 7th

# cut -d;-f2 -f5 -f7 txt_tecmint

8. What is the difference

Answer : The command ‘cmp’

and ‘diff’ means to obtain the

The ‘diff‘ command reports