Red Hat RHCSA (EX200) Practice Test

RHCSA EX200 practice test: what's covered

• RHEL 9
• Users/Permissions
• systemd
• Storage/LVM
• SELinux
• firewalld
• Containers

Free RHCSA EX200 sample questions

1. You run a command and need BOTH its standard output and its error messages saved to the same file results.log, overwriting it. Which redirection is correct?

   • A. command > results.log 2> results.log
   • B. command &> results.log
   • C. command 2>&1 > results.log
   • D. command | results.log
   Show answer

   Correct: B. `&> file` (bash) redirects both stdout and stderr to the file. The trap (option B-style `2>&1 > file`) sends stderr to the ORIGINAL stdout BEFORE stdout is redirected, so errors still hit the terminal — order matters; the correct ordered form is `> file 2>&1`. `> file 2> file` lets the two streams clobber each other. A pipe to a filename is meaningless.

2. You must find every line in /etc/passwd for users whose login shell is exactly /bin/bash (the field at the end of the line). Which command is the best fit?

   • A. grep '/bin/bash' /etc/passwd
   • B. grep '/bin/bash$' /etc/passwd
   • C. grep -v bash /etc/passwd
   • D. grep '^/bin/bash' /etc/passwd
   Show answer

   Correct: B. The shell is the LAST field, so anchoring with `$` matches it at end of line. Plain `grep /bin/bash` would also match a comment or path elsewhere on the line; `-v` inverts (wrong users); `^/bin/bash` anchors to the START of the line, which never matches because the line starts with the username.

3. You need to create a gzip-compressed archive of /etc named etc-backup.tar.gz. Which single command does this correctly?

   • A. tar -czf etc-backup.tar.gz /etc
   • B. tar -xzf etc-backup.tar.gz /etc
   • C. gzip /etc > etc-backup.tar.gz
   • D. tar -cf etc-backup.tar.gz /etc --gzip=off
   Show answer

   Correct: A. `-c` create, `-z` gzip, `-f` filename. `-x` extracts (the classic mix-up). `gzip` cannot recurse a directory tree and produces no tar container. `--gzip=off` disables compression and is not valid syntax for this task.

4. You want to copy a file to a remote host over SSH while preserving the secure channel. Which command transfers local report.txt to /tmp on host server1 as user sysadmin?

   • A. scp report.txt sysadmin@server1:/tmp
   • B. ssh report.txt sysadmin@server1:/tmp
   • C. cp report.txt sysadmin@server1:/tmp
   • D. scp sysadmin@server1:/tmp report.txt
   Show answer

   Correct: A. `scp <source> <user>@<host>:<dest>` copies over SSH. `ssh` runs commands, it is not a copy tool. `cp` is local-only. The last option has source and destination reversed (it would try to pull from the remote).

5. A script must reference the third positional argument passed to it. Inside the script, which variable holds it?

   • A. $#
   • B. $3
   • C. ${arg3}
   • D. $@[3]
   Show answer

   Correct: B. Positional parameters are `$1`, `$2`, `$3` … `$#` is the COUNT of arguments (the common confusion). `${arg3}` is just an undefined named variable, and `$@[3]` is not valid bash array syntax.

Last updated: 2026-10-19

RHCSA EX200 practice test FAQ