Upwork/oDesk System Programming Test Answers

1. Which of the following system calls can be used to send a message via a connected socket?
 Answers: • send --- or --- • sendto ---- or ---- • sendmsg --- or ----- • write

 2. Which of the following methods can be used as a communication mechanism between two unrelated processes?
 Answers: • A pipe using the pipe system call. --- or ---- • A named pipe using the mknod system call. --- or ---- • Named sockets.
 

 3. Which of the following are true of Unix system calls?
 Answers: • The routine "malloc" which is used for allocating memory is a system call. --- or --- • A new file can be created using the "open" system call.

 4. Which of the following Linux commands can be used to identify the processes consuming maximum resources (CPU, Memory)?
 Answers: • ps --- or ---- • top

 5. Which of the following signals are used by the Unix shell to implement job control?
 Answers: • SIGSTOP --- or --- • SIGCONT

 6. Which of the following environment variables specifies the shared library search path?
 Answers: • SHLIB_PATH --- or ---- • LD_LIBRARY_PATH

 7. Which of the following statements are true?
 Answers: • "wc -l" can be used to count the number of lines in the input. --- or ---- • "find . -name '*.txt' -exec rm {} \;" removes all ".txt" files in the current directory hierarchy.

 8. Which of the following utilities would you use on a standard Linux system to debug a running application?
 Answers: • gdb. --- or ---- • strace.

 9. Which of the following can be used to inspect the system call arguments of a Linux process?
 Answers: • strace ---- or ---- • gdb

 10. Which of the following methods can be used to allocate and use memory on a Unix system?
 Answers: • malloc --- or ---- • calloc

 11. Which of the following utilities is used to generate a core file of a process on Linux?
 Answers: • gdb --- or --- • strace

 12. Which of the following can be used to debug the process "123" and program "test" on a Linux system?
 Answers: • gdb test 123 --- or --- • strace -f -p 123

 13. If a process has locked a System V Semaphore and receives a SIGKILL signal, which of the following is true?
 Answers: • The process terminates without releasing the semaphore. --- or - • The semaphore is released if the process had specified SEM_UNDO during creation.

 14. Which of the following gdb commands can be used to obtain the stack
 trace of all the threads of a multi threaded program running on Linux?
 Answers: • thread apply all bt

 15. Which of the following utilities is used to search out regular expressions in the input?
 Answers: • grep

 16. What does the command "mknod temp p" do?
 Answers: • It creates a named pipe.

 17. Threads created via pthread_create need to first set up shared memory
 using shmop before they can share data.
 Answers: • False

 18. What does the "open" system call return to the caller?
 Answers: • An integer greater than or equal to 0 on success and -1 on error.

 19. What is the effect of a process executing an unlink system call while another process has opened the same file?
 Answers: • The unlink system call will fail.

 20. Which of the following signals cannot be ignored by a process?
 Answers: • SIGKILL

 21. Ignoring the setup cost for each of the System V IPC mechanisms, which of the following is the most efficient?
 Answers: • System V, Shared Memory

 22. What command is used to list the shared libraries used by an executable?
 Answers: • ldd

 23. What does the following command do to the process with pid 12345?
 "kill -9 12345".
 Answers: • It sends the KILL signal causing the process to be killed.

 24. Which of the following system calls is the most memory efficient method of reading a file?
 Answers: • mmap

 25. Which of the following commands generates a listing of the system calls being executed by a program on Solaris?
 Answers: • truss

 26. What is the effect of issuing a "$c" command at the adb prompt during a debugging session on a Solaris 9 system?
 Answers: • It generates a listing of the stack trace.

 27. Which of the following sequences prints all the second column fields of an input file "values.txt"?
 Answers: • awk '{print $2}' values.txt

 28. Which of the following system calls increases the process priority?
 Answers: • nice

 29. Which of the following is true of Unix system calls?
 Answers: • System calls are executed in the kernel context.

 30. If a process is hung in the kernel context, sending it a SIGKILL will _____.
 Answers: • be delivered when the process switches back to the user context.

 31. The library routine printf does not use any system calls.
 Answers: • False.

 32. Which of the following gcc compiler options turns on optimization?
 Answers: • O

 33. Which of the following options of the compiler is turned on to generate additional debug information (like the source code) for debugging an application?
 Answers: • g

 34. Which of the following options specifies a non standard library path during linking?
 Answers: • -L

 35. Which of the following shell operators redirects the standard input of the command being executed?
 Answers: • <

 36. Which library routine is used to translate the numeric system call error code to a human readable text error message?
 Answers: • error

 37. Which of the following IPC message operations is performed to setup communication between arbitrary processes?
 Answers: • msgget

 38. What is the effect of executing the following system call on the file "test.txt"?
 open("test.txt", O_TRUNC)
 Answers: • If test.txt exists, the file is truncated to 0 bytes before returning.

 39. How does a programmer distinguish a child from its parent process following a fork system call?
 Answers: • The system call returns 0 to the child and the pid of the child to the parent.

 40. Which of the following libraries provides the POSIX thread implementation on Solaris?
 Answers: • libpthread

 41. Which of the following IPC shared memory sequences is correct?
 Answers: • shmget, shmat, shmdt

 42. How is the value of the shell environment variable IFS changed to comma (',')?
 Answers: • IFS=','; export IFS

 43. Which of the compiler options generates an assembler output file?
 Answers: • -S

 44. What does the '-pg' option of the Unix compiler do?
 Answers: • It turns on the profiling of the executable code.

 45. Shared libraries increase an application's disk size?
 Answers: • False.

 46. Which of the following redirects the standard error output of a command to the log file "error.log"?
 Answers: • "2>error.log"

 47. What are the typical system calls the Unix shell invokes when it
 has to execute a new command?
 Answers: • open, fork, exec.

 48. Which system call is used to send a signal to another process?
 Answers: • kill

 49. Which of the following shell commands is useful in single stepping through a shell script?
 Answers: • trap

 50. Which of the following commands can be used to generate a listing of all the shared libraries that an executable needs?
 Answers: • ldd

 51. What is the default file descriptor used for the error outputs of a process?
 Answers: • 2

 52. Which of the following commands can be used on a Linux system to kill process 8977 and all its children?
 Answers: • kill -term 8977

 53. Which of the following commands can be used on a Linux system to configure a network interface (card)?
 Answers: • ifconfig

 54. Which of the following commands can be used to list all the active TCP connections only on a Linux system?
 Answers: • netstat -t

 55. Which of the following ksh trap sequences causes the function 'handler' to be executed when the script exits?
 Answers: • trap handler EXIT

 56. How many bytes of a file of size 1023 will be read by the following piece of code?

 char buf[256];

 <snip>
 while (read(fd, buf, 256)) {
 /* Take some action */
 }
 <snip>
 Answers: • 1023

 57. What is the effect of setting the "sticky" bit on an application's executable image?
 Answers: • It causes the system to grant the application owner's privileges to other users if they try to run the application.

 58. A C program "domath.c" utilizes the math library. Which of
 the following commands correctly creates the corresponding executable
 "domath"?
 Answers: • cc -o domath domath.c -lm

 59. Which of the following sequences creates a socket based connection for communication?
 Answers: • socket, connect, listen, accept

 60. What does the open system call return upon success?
 Answers: • A positive integer which is the file descriptor.

 61. If a process executes the following C code on a Linux system, what is the outcome?

 <snip>
 char *cp = 0, c = *cp;
 <snip>
 Answers: • The process is killed with a SIGSEGV.

 62. On Linux, the pthread_create interface does not use the fork system call to create threads.
 Answers: • True.

 63. Which of the following shell parameters contains the return value of the previously executed shell command?
 Answers: • $?

 64. Which of the following calls is used to initiate a socket connection to a target address?
 Answers: • connect

 65. Which of the following gcc options can be used to generate a position independent code on a Linux system?
 Answers: • -pic

 66. Which of the following commands can be used to list all the active TCP connections on a Linux system?
 Answers: • netstat -t

 67. What is the network byte order in Unix?
 Answers: • Big Endian

 68. Which of the following segments within the process address space are unique to each thread?
 Answers: • stack.

 69. How do threads created using pthread library share data between themselves efficiently?
 Answers: • They don't need any special mechanism as they share the data segment.

 70. By convention, which of the following signals causes a daemon to reload its configuration?
 Answers: • SIGHUP

 71. Which of the following block sizes results in the best read/write performance for an IO intensive application?
 Answers: • 8192

 72. What is the name of the standard linker on Unix?
 Answers: • ld

 73. Which of the following is employed by the operating system to speed up file IO on a Solaris system.
 Answers: • Buffer Cache

 74. How is the stack trace of all the threads in a multi threaded Linux application obtained?
 Answers: • "thread apply all backtrace" at the gdb prompt.

 75. Which of the following creates an IPC message channel?
 Answers: • id = msgget(key, 0700|IPC_CREAT);

 76. Which of the following system calls can be used to get the metadata of a file?
 Answers: • stat

 77. Which of the following commands can be used to create a static (archive) library?
 Answers: • ar

 78. Which of the following system calls is specific to debugging?
 Answers: • ptrace

 79. Which of the following commands can be used to compile a C file called "test.c" into an executable called "test"?
 Answers: • cc -o test test.c

 80. Which of the following IO mechanisms allows greater performance to concurrent IO-intensive applications?
 Answers: • Memory Mapped IO

 81. What is the outcome of attempting an ioctl system call on a block device file?
 Answers: • The system returns ENXIO.

 82. Which of the following system calls can be used to create device special files?
 Answers: • mknod

 83. If a process is terminated due to a SEGFAULT on a Solaris 9 system, what is the name of the core file that is created?
 Answers: • core

 84. Which of the following socket system calls creates a Unix Domain Socket connection?
 Answers: • socket(PF_UNIX, SOCK_STREAM, protocol)

 85. Which of the following system calls creates a named socket?
 Answers: • socket

 86. Which of the following shell operators is used to send the standard output of the first command to the standard input of the second command?
 Answers: • |

 87. Which of the following C headers needs to be included for socket programming?
 Answers: • <sys/socket.h>

 88. Where are the DNS and search domains specified?
 Answers: • /etc/resolv.conf

 89. A process opens a file and forgets to close the file descriptor when it
 exits. What is the result?
 Answers: • The OS garbage collector recovers the descriptor.

 90. If a write system call fails and if errno is set to EFAULT, what does it signify?
 Answers: • The write buffer is not legal.

 91. Which of the following commands can be used to install the native software package SOFTpkg on a Solaris system?
 Answers: • pkgadd -d . SOFTpkg