_________Original Lamer
Calling All Linux Experts
If I could ever so kindly ask the Linux world for some help.
I have applied for a job that is in a heavy Linux environment and I have been sent a questionnaire about my knowledge. I know my way around pretty good and just want double check my answers. Some of the questions and a gim-me, some take some thinking and some are just down right hard. Any and all help will be greatly appreciated.
Here are the questions:
1. Give an example of set of shell commands that will give you the number of files in a directory
2. How do you tell what process has a TCP port open in Linux
3. On a Red Hat Linux Variant how do you control whether a service starts when the system boots
4. How do you tell the amount of free disk space left on a volume
5. Give an example of a set of shell commands to tell how many times “bob” has logged on to the system this month
6. Give an example of a recursively copying a directory from one location to another.
…
(more of the same)
…
20. Given a radius server at 10.0.0.2 and a shared key of ‘abc123’ show the IOS commands necessary to authenticate switch users against the radius server, while still allowing the use of local username / password pairs
THANKS FOR THE HELP!!!!!!!!!!
_________End lamer post
A number of responses appeared in roughly the following vein, telling the original poster to do his homework.
_________Reply #1
Location: Melbourne, Australia
How about you supply the answers so we "experts" can tell you if they are correct or not, because I for one will not be taking the risk of aiding and abetting someone to get a job they may not be qualified for by potentially helping them cheat (and possibly prevent someone that is qualified from succeeding).
If you don't answer then those others on this forum who may not be as cynical as me may have learned a valuable lesson themselves.....
_________End Reply #1
_________Reply #2
Location: NorCal
Perhaps if you don't know the answers to these questions or you're not confident enough in your knowledge of linux systems to know your answers are right, the job is not for you.
_________End Reply #2______
The really interesting response comes from the potential employer who submitted the questions to the recruit:
_________Employer reply
For those who have commented, it is indeed an entry level network administration position with some Linux skills required as most of our network management tools run on Linux. I would also like to say thank you for the very sensible comments you all have made about the call for answers. And "bradcarr" while you haven't broken the rules of my questionnaire you have definitely broken the spirit of the exercise. I did indeed say you could use any resource available to you, but didn't it cross your mind that this might be the wrong thing to do? I want to see the "real world" ability of a potential employee, not what they can recite in an interview but what they can come up with using their normal information sources to solve a problem or research a subject.
This has shown me that you won't take the initiative to research a problem, even when it might land you a job. I "googled" most of these questions before making the list and most of them are very easily discovered. It didn't seem to me that I was asking too much for people to use mailing lists, forums, IRC whatever to compile the answers themselves. I actually expected to see some questions show up on forums but I didn't expect someone to paste the entire thing and expect the forum users to do all the work that would qualify you for an interview. I think at this point you could save us all some time and not turn the answers back in, I already have the information I need on your answers.
As far as the rest of you, if there are any of you reading this thread that live in the Nashville area that want a network administration job with some Linux work feel free to shoot me your resume at paul.tinsley (at) lightningsource.com. Oh, while you are at it, go ahead and send me the answers to the questions
_________end Employer reply
The lessons are apparent:
__When you post to XANSYS, or anywhere on the Internet, you're not as anonymous as you might think. Use your head and don't show the world that you're not above begging strangers to do your work for you. You never know who might be listening in. Not only did this guy lost the chance for a job, everyone on Ubuntu and likely a lot of their friends knows about the lamer who announced for all and sundry that he was looking to dig someone else's potatoes.
__Do your homework. If you think you need help, the first thing to do is try to help yourself. Try not to look like a complete dork.
__If you don't have the skills for a job, don't try to fake it. Better an honest job search than getting sacked for incompetence and having to explain why during your next interview.
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