rhcsa practice exam Advanced Practice Exam: Hard Questions 2025

You are troubleshooting a host where an application intermittently fails with "Too many open files" errors. The vendor requires a per-service open file limit of 65535 for a systemd-managed service named appd, without changing limits for other services or for interactive shells. Which approach best meets the requirement and persists across reboots?

A system fails to boot after an administrator edited /etc/fstab to mount a new ext4 filesystem at /data. In emergency mode, you discover the block device name used in fstab changed after adding a new disk, and the mount is now failing. You must make the system boot reliably even if device enumeration changes. What is the best fix?

You need to locate all files under /var/log larger than 50 MiB that were modified in the last 3 days, then archive them preserving permissions and ACLs into /root/logbundle.tar. The filesystem contains filenames with spaces and newlines. Which command is the safest and most correct?

A server uses LVM with a volume group vg0. You must create a new logical volume for /srv that can be expanded online later, and you want the filesystem to grow without downtime. The requirement is to use XFS. Which sequence is correct and aligns with best practices?

A host has a critical service that must automatically start at boot, but must never be restarted automatically if it crashes (the vendor wants crash state preserved for forensic analysis). The service is managed by systemd. Which change best meets the requirement?

You are asked to implement a script /usr/local/sbin/purge-old that deletes files older than N days from a directory provided by the user. It must: (1) refuse to operate if the directory argument is empty or not absolute, (2) avoid deleting through symlinks, and (3) be safe with special characters in filenames. Which implementation is best?

A system uses SELinux in enforcing mode. A custom web application writes uploads to /srv/app/uploads. The directory has correct UNIX permissions, but uploads fail with AVC denials. You must apply a persistent fix following SELinux best practices without disabling SELinux. Which action is most appropriate?

You need to modify the GRUB boot entry once to boot into a systemd target suitable for troubleshooting (single-user style) without permanently changing default boot behavior. Which method is best?

A new disk /dev/sdc is added. You must create a GPT partition that will be used as LVM physical volume, ensuring it starts at a 1 MiB boundary for alignment, and then add it to an existing volume group vgdata. Which option correctly completes the task with minimal assumptions?

You must ensure a package repository is available only on-demand to reduce exposure. The repository should remain configured but disabled by default; admins can enable it for a single transaction without editing repo files. Which solution is best?