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Systems Administrator Interview Questions

When you interview for a systems administrator position, interviewers will likely ask you questions that allow them to learn how you multitask and deal with problems. Expect to give specific examples about how you dealt with certain situations, and highlight your communication, troubleshooting, and technical skills.

Top Systems Administrator Interview Questions & How To Answer

Question 1

Question #1: If your company's website is down, how do you resolve the issue?

How to answer
How to answer: This open-ended question allows you to discuss your technical skills. Discuss how you identify the problem, troubleshoot the situation, and figure out why it happened. Your ability to stay calm and focused while you investigate the issue is also important.
Question 2

Question #2: How do you prioritize your tasks?

How to answer
How to answer: As a systems administrator, you're constantly monitoring the company's computer systems' performance and providing technical support to employees. Highlight your organizational skills and ability to multitask. Give specific examples of how different tasks require more attention than others.
Question 3

Question #3: Talk about a time when you initially failed to solve a system issue.

How to answer
How to answer: As a system administrator, it's vital to be able to overcome your inability to fix a problem and troubleshoot it. Focus on how you found a strategy that works instead of trying out different fixes until you solved the issue. Mention if the issue reached your professional limitations and you needed to use your communication skills to consult with others for assistance.

6,695 systems administrator interview questions shared by candidates

A client has a Red Hat Linux-based firewall that is multihomed, and is connected to both the internal (eth0 192.168.0.1/24) and external (eth1 69.25.33.245/24) networks. They would like you to configure this firewall to act as the default Internet gateway. 1. What utilities would you use to accomplish this? Please list the commands and their parameters that you would execute. 2. What environment/kernel changes would be needed to make this work? What tools would you use to make the changes? What commands would you execute for the changes?  3. Once it’s working, how do you ensure that the configuration will persist a reboot? Please list the tools that you would use, commands that you would execute, or files that you would change, as applicable.
avatar

Remote Linux Systems Administrator

Interviewed at Pythian

4.1★
Sep 16, 2015

A client has a Red Hat Linux-based firewall that is multihomed, and is connected to both the internal (eth0 192.168.0.1/24) and external (eth1 69.25.33.245/24) networks. They would like you to configure this firewall to act as the default Internet gateway. 1. What utilities would you use to accomplish this? Please list the commands and their parameters that you would execute. 2. What environment/kernel changes would be needed to make this work? What tools would you use to make the changes? What commands would you execute for the changes?  3. Once it’s working, how do you ensure that the configuration will persist a reboot? Please list the tools that you would use, commands that you would execute, or files that you would change, as applicable.

Current setup: A server is running Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 with a single public network interface, provisioned with one IP (10.0.0.1/24) for the server, and two virtual IPs (10.1.0.4 and 10.1.0.5) for services running on the server. The additional IP addresses are routed with a /32 prefix through the primary IP address. Desired setup: Two virtual machines are running on the server, with each one using one of the virtual IPs. The hosting provider will not route traffic on the virtual IPs to anything other than the physical server, so a workaround will need to be implemented to allow traffic to the virtual machines. The virtual IP addresses must be configured directly on the virtual machines to assist with some application limitations. Requirements: 1.What virtualization product would you recommend to use for this implementation? Provide justification based on the following factors: - Technical strengths over other virtualization solutions, - Cost (monetary, such as license costs, and labour, (such as installation, maintenance, support, etc.) Please add anything else you feel is worth mentioning.  2. Provide an overview of the technical details of the implementation. Include the type of network setup to use in the virtual environment, so that the result produces the desired setup. Please include any other technical points you think are important.
avatar

Remote Linux Systems Administrator

Interviewed at Pythian

4.1★
Sep 16, 2015

Current setup: A server is running Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 with a single public network interface, provisioned with one IP (10.0.0.1/24) for the server, and two virtual IPs (10.1.0.4 and 10.1.0.5) for services running on the server. The additional IP addresses are routed with a /32 prefix through the primary IP address. Desired setup: Two virtual machines are running on the server, with each one using one of the virtual IPs. The hosting provider will not route traffic on the virtual IPs to anything other than the physical server, so a workaround will need to be implemented to allow traffic to the virtual machines. The virtual IP addresses must be configured directly on the virtual machines to assist with some application limitations. Requirements: 1.What virtualization product would you recommend to use for this implementation? Provide justification based on the following factors: - Technical strengths over other virtualization solutions, - Cost (monetary, such as license costs, and labour, (such as installation, maintenance, support, etc.) Please add anything else you feel is worth mentioning.  2. Provide an overview of the technical details of the implementation. Include the type of network setup to use in the virtual environment, so that the result produces the desired setup. Please include any other technical points you think are important.

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