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25- Linux Shell Interview Questions for Intermediate Level with Answers

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28 views7 pages

25- Linux Shell Interview Questions for Intermediate Level with Answers

Uploaded by

abhikumbhar1908
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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25+ Linux Shell Interview Questions for Intermediate Level with Answers

1. What are the different types of shells available in Linux? How do you switch between
them?

Answer:

​ Types of Shells: Bash, Zsh, Ksh, Tcsh, Fish, etc.


​ Switching: Use the shell's name to switch:

zsh # Switch to Zsh

2. How do you pass arguments to a shell script?

Answer:
Arguments are passed via the command line and accessed using $1, $2, etc.
Example:

./script.sh arg1 arg2

echo $1 # Prints arg1

3. Explain the difference between source and ./ when running a script.

Answer:

​ source: Runs the script in the current shell session. Changes affect the parent shell.
​ ./: Executes the script in a new subshell, isolating changes.

4. How do you redirect both stdout and stderr to the same file?

Answer:
Use 2>&1 or &>:

command > output.log 2>&1


5. What is a Here Document (Heredoc) in Linux?

Answer:
A Heredoc redirects a block of text into a command:

cat << EOF

This is a heredoc example.

EOF

6. How do you compare strings in a shell script?

Answer:
Use conditional statements:

if [ "$string1" = "$string2" ]; then

echo "Strings are equal"

fi

7. How do you create and use an alias persistently?

Answer:

​ Temporary Alias:

alias ll="ls -la"

​ Persistent Alias: Add to ~/.bashrc or ~/.bash_profile:

echo 'alias ll="ls -la"' >> ~/.bashrc


8. How do you find the size of a directory?

Answer:
Use the du command:

du -sh /path/to/directory

9. What is the difference between kill and killall commands?

Answer:

​ kill: Terminates a process using its PID.


​ killall: Terminates all processes by name.

10. How do you write a simple for loop in a shell script?

Answer:

for i in {1..5}; do

echo "Iteration $i"

done

11. What is the significance of set -e in shell scripts?

Answer:
set -e causes the script to exit immediately if a command fails.

12. How do you check if a file exists in a shell script?

Answer:
Use the -e option:
if [ -e file.txt ]; then

echo "File exists"

fi

13. Explain the difference between crontab and at commands.

Answer:

​ crontab: Schedules recurring tasks.


​ at: Schedules a one-time task.

14. How do you find all files larger than 10MB in a directory?

Answer:
Use the find command:

find /path -size +10M

15. What is the difference between $* and "$@" in a shell script?

Answer:

​ $*: Treats all arguments as a single word.


​ "$@": Preserves argument boundaries as separate words.

16. How do you schedule a cron job to run every 15 minutes?

Answer:
Add this to crontab:

*/15 * * * * /path/to/script.sh
17. How do you create a function in a shell script?

Answer:

my_function() {

echo "This is a function"

my_function

18. How do you extract a specific column from a file?

Answer:
Use the awk command:

awk '{print $2}' file.txt # Extracts the 2nd column

19. How do you find the number of lines in a file?

Answer:
Use the wc -l command:

wc -l file.txt

20. How do you append output to an existing file?

Answer:
Use the >> operator:

echo "New content" >> file.txt


21. What is the difference between exec and fork?

Answer:

​ exec: Replaces the current process with a new one.


​ fork: Creates a new process.

22. How do you debug a shell script?

Answer:
Use set -x to enable debugging:

set -x

23. How do you handle signals in a shell script?

Answer:
Use the trap command:

trap "echo Signal received" SIGINT

24. How do you compress multiple files into a .tar.gz file?

Answer:

tar -czvf archive.tar.gz file1 file2

25. How do you extract only specific files from a .tar archive?

Answer:

tar -xvf archive.tar file1 file2

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