305-300 Sample Questions Answers

The virt-diff command-line tool can be used to list the differences between files in two virtual machines or disk images. The output shows the changes to a virtual machine’s disk images after it has been running. The command can also be used to show the difference between overlays1. To specify two guests, you have to use the -a or -d option for the first guest, and the -A or -D option for the second guest. For example: virt-diff -a old.img -A new.img1. Therefore, the correct command to list all differences between the disk images vm1-snap.img and vm1.img is: virt-diff -a vm1-snap.img -A vm1.img. The other commands are not related to finding differences between disk images. virt-delta is a tool to create delta disks from two disk images2. virt-cp-in is a tool to copy files and directories into a virtual machine disk image3. virt-cmp is a tool to compare two files or directories in a virtual machine disk image4. virt-history is a tool to show the history of a virtual machine disk image5. References:

• 21.13. virt-diff: Listing the Differences between Virtual Machine Files …
• 21.14. virt-delta: Creating Delta Disks from Two Disk Images …
• 21.6. virt-cp-in: Copying Files and Directories into a Virtual Machine Disk Image …
• 21.7. virt-cmp: Comparing Two Files or Directories in a Virtual Machine Disk Image …
• 21.8. virt-history: Showing the History of a Virtual Machine Disk Image …

Xen supports two types of guest systems: paravirtualized guests (PV) and fully virtualized guests (HVM).

• Paravirtualized guests (PV) are guests that have been modified to run on the Xen hypervisor. They use a special kernel that communicates with the hypervisor through hypercalls, and use paravirtualized drivers for I/O devices. PV guests can run faster and more efficiently than HVM guests, but they require the guest operating system to be ported to Xen and to support the Xen ABI12.
• Fully virtualized guests (HVM) are guests that run unmodified operating systems on the Xen hypervisor. They use hardware virtualization extensions, such as Intel VT-x or AMD-V, to create a virtual platform for the guest. HVM guests can run any operating system that supports the hardware architecture, but they incur more overhead and performance penalties than PV guests. HVM guests can also use paravirtualized drivers for I/O devices to improve their performance12.

The other options are not correct. Xen does not support foreign architecture guests (FA), emulated guests, or container virtualized guests.

• Foreign architecture guests (FA) are guests that run on a different hardware architecture than the host. For example, running an ARM guest on an x86 host. Xen does not support this type of virtualization, as it would require emulation or binary translation, which are very complex and slow techniques3.
• Emulated guests are guests that run on a software emulator that mimics the hardware of the host or another platform. For example, running a Windows guest on a QEMU emulator. Xen does not support this type of virtualization, as it relies on the emulator to provide the virtual platform, not the hypervisor. Xen can use QEMU to emulate some devices for HVM guests, but not the entire platform14.
• Container virtualized guests are guests that run on a shared kernel with the host and other guests, using namespaces and cgroups to isolate them. For example, running a Linux guest on a Docker container. Xen does not support this type of virtualization, as it requires the guest operating system to be compatible with the host kernel, and does not provide the same level of isolation and security as hypervisor-based virtualization56.

References:

• Xen Project Software Overview - Xen
• Xen ARM with Virtualization Extensions - Xen
• Xen Project Beginners Guide - Xen
• QEMU - Xen
• Docker overview | Docker Documentation
• What is a Container? | App Containerization | VMware

The option dom0_mem is used to set the initial and maximum memory size of the Domain-0, which is the privileged domain that starts first and manages the unprivileged domains (DomU) in Xen. The option dom0_mem must be specified in the bootloader configuration, such as GRUB or GRUB2, when Xen is booted. This ensures that the Domain-0 kernel can allocate memory for storing memory metadata and network related parameters based on the boot time amount of memory. If the option dom0_mem is not specified in the bootloader configuration, the Domain-0 will use all the available memory on the host system by default, which may cause performance and security issues. References:

• Managing Xen Dom0′s CPU and Memory
• Xen Project Best Practices
• Dom0 Memory — Where It Has Not Gone

 The command virsh list is used to list all running domains (VMs) on the current host. The command virsh list --all can be used to list both active and inactive domains. The other options are not valid virsh commands. The command virsh list is a basic command that lists all running domains (VMs). You can also list all configured VMs by adding the --all option. This is useful if you want to see all VMs configured in the target hypervisor that you can use on subsequent commands1. References:

• 1: 8 Linux virsh subcommands for managing VMs on the command line | Enable Sysadmin.

The CPU architecture of a QEMU virtual machine is independent of the host system’s architecture. QEMU can emulate many CPU architectures, including x86, ARM, Alpha, and SPARC, regardless of the host system’s architecture1. This allows QEMU to run guest operating systems that are not compatible with the host system’s hardware. Therefore, option A is correct. QEMU virtual machines support multiple virtual CPUs in order to run SMP systems. QEMU uses the concept of virtual CPUs (vCPUs) to map the virtual machines to physical CPUs. Each vCPU is a thread that runs on a physical CPU core. QEMU allows the user to specify the number of vCPUs and the CPU model for each virtual machine. QEMU can run SMP systems with multiple vCPUs, as well as single-processor systems with one vCPU2. Therefore, option E is also correct. The other options are incorrect because they do not describe the CPU of a QEMU virtual machine. Option B is wrong because QEMU virtual machines can have more than one CPU with more than one core. Option C is wrong because QEMU does not require a dedicated physical CPU core for each virtual machine. QEMU can share the physical CPU cores among multiple virtual machines, depending on the load and the scheduling policy. Option D is wrong because QEMU does not use the term CPU, but vCPU, to refer to the virtual machines’ processors. References:

• QEMU vs VirtualBox: What’s the difference? - LinuxConfig.org
• QEMU / KVM CPU model configuration — QEMU documentation
• Introduction — QEMU documentation
• Qemu/KVM Virtual Machines - Proxmox Virtual Environment

A hypervisor is a software that creates and runs virtual machines (VMs) by separating the operating system and resources from the physical hardware. One of the main tasks of a hypervisor is to map the resources of VMs to the resources of the host system, such as CPU, memory, disk, and network. This allows the hypervisor to allocate and manage the resources among multiple VMs and ensure that they run efficiently and independently123. Another important task of a hypervisor is to isolate the VMs and prevent unauthorized access to resources of other VMs. This ensures the security and privacy of the VMs and their data, as well as the stability and performance of the host system. The hypervisor can use various techniques to isolate the VMs, such as virtual LANs, firewalls, encryption, and access control145.

The other tasks listed are not part of a hypervisor’s responsibility, but rather of the guest operating system or the application running inside the VM. A hypervisor does not create filesystems during the installation of new VMs, as this is done by the installer of the guest operating system6. A hypervisor does not provide host-wide unique PIDs to the processes running inside the VMs, as this is done by the kernel of the guest operating system7. A hypervisor does not manage authentication to network services running inside a VM, as this is done by the network service itself or by a directory service such as LDAP or Active Directory8. References: 1 (search for “What is a hypervisor?”), 2 (search for “How does a hypervisor work?”), 3 (search for “The hypervisor gives each virtual machine the resources that have been allocated”), 4 (search for “Benefits ofhypervisors”), 5 (search for “Isolate the virtual machines and prevent unauthorized access”), 6 (search for “Create filesystems during the installation of new virtual machine quest operating systems”), 7 (search for “Provide host-wide unique PIDs to the processes running inside the virtual machines”), 8 (search for “Manage authentication to network services running inside a virtual machine”).

 Vagrant is a tool that allows users to create and configure lightweight, reproducible, and portable development environments. Vagrant supports multiple providers, which are the backends that Vagrant uses to create and manage the virtual machines. By default, VirtualBox is the default provider for Vagrant. VirtualBox is still the most accessible platform to use Vagrant: it is free, cross-platform, and has been supported by Vagrant for years. With VirtualBox as the default provider, it provides the lowest friction for new users to get started with Vagrant. However, users can also use other providers, such as VMware, Hyper-V, Docker, or LXC, depending on their preferences and needs. To use another provider, users must install it as a Vagrant plugin and specify it when running Vagrant commands. Users can also change the default provider by setting the VAGRANT_DEFAULT_PROVIDER environmental variable. References:

• Default Provider - Providers | Vagrant | HashiCorp Developer1
• Providers | Vagrant | HashiCorp Developer2
• How To Set Default Vagrant Provider to Virtualbox3

The file procs in a cgroup directory contains the list of processes belonging to this cgroup. Each line in the file shows the PID of a process that is a member of the cgroup. A process can be moved to a cgroup by writing its PID into the cgroup’s procs file. For example, to move the process with PID 24982 to the cgroup cg1, the following command can be used: echo 24982 > /sys/fs/cgroup/cg1/procs1. The file procs is different from the file tasks, which lists the threads belonging to the cgroup. The file procs can be used to move all threads in a thread group at once, while the file tasks can be used to move individual threads2. References:

• Creating and organizing cgroups · cgroup2 - GitHub Pages
• Control Groups — The Linux Kernel documentation

The correct command to boot a QEMU virtual machine using hardware virtualization extensions is qemu -accel kvm -drive file-debian.img -cdrom debian.iso -m 1024 -boot d. This command uses the -accel option to specify the hardware accelerator to use, which in this case is kvm. KVM is a full virtualization solution for Linux on x86 hardware containing virtualization extensions (Intel VT or AMD-V)1. The -drive option specifies the disk image file to use, which in this case is debian.img. The -cdrom option specifies the ISO image file to use as a CD-ROM, which in this case is debian.iso. The -m option specifies the amount of memory to allocate to the virtualmachine, which in this case is 1024 MB. The -boot option specifies the boot order, which in this case is d, meaning to boot from the CD-ROM first. References:

https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-us/red_hat_enterprise_linux/7/html/virtualization_deployment_and_administration_guide/sect-troubleshooting-enabling_intel_vt_x_and_amd_v_virtualization_hardware_extensions_in_bios

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Virtualization

The correct way to share data between several virtual machines running on the same Linux-based host system is by using a network file system or file transfer protocol. A network file system (NFS) is a distributed file system protocol that allows a user on a client computer to access files over a network in a manner similar to how local storage is accessed1. A file transfer protocol (FTP) is a standard network protocol used for the transfer of computer files between a client and server on a computer network2. Both methods allow data to be shared between virtual machines regardless of their underlying file systems or virtualization technologies. The other options are incorrect because they either do not work or are not feasible. Option A is wrong because each virtual machine has its own file system that is not directly accessible by other virtual machines. Option B is wrong because there is no such device as /dev/virt-disks/remote/ that can be used to mount other virtual machines’ file systems. Option C is wrong because a ramdisk is a volatile storage device that is not suitable for sharing data between virtual machines. Option E is wrong because attaching the same virtual hard disk to multiple virtual machines can cause data corruption and conflicts, and EXT4 does not have any sharing extensions that can prevent this. References:https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/1012706

https://bing.com/search?q=data+sharing+between+virtual+machines

The purpose of the kubelet service in Kubernetes is to run containers on the worker nodes according to the Kubernetes configuration. The kubelet is an agent or program that runs on each node and communicates with the Kubernetes control plane. It receives a set of PodSpecs that describe the desired state of the pods that should be running on the node, and ensures that the containers described in those PodSpecs are running and healthy. The kubelet also reports the status of the node and the pods back to the control plane. The kubelet does not manage containers that were not created by Kubernetes. References:

• Kubernetes Docs - kubelet
• Learn Steps - What is kubelet and what it does: Basics on Kubernetes

The command lxc-attach is used to execute a command in a running LXC container. It allows the user to start a process inside the container and attach to its standard input, output, and error streams1. For example, the command lxc-attach -n mycontainer -- ls -lh /home will list all the files and directories in the /home directory of the container named mycontainer1. The other options are not valid LXC commands. The command lxc-batch does not exist. The command lxc-run is an alias for lxc-start, which is used to start a container, not to execute a command in it2. The command lxc-enter is also an alias for lxc-attach, but it is deprecated and should not be used3. The command lxc-eval is also not a valid LXC command. References:

• 1: Executing a command inside a running LXC - Unix & Linux Stack Exchange.
• 2: lxc-start: start a container. - SysTutorials.
• 3: lxc-attach: start a process inside a running container. - SysTutorials.

The ENTRYPOINT instruction in a Dockerfile specifies the default command to run when a container is started from the image. The ENTRYPOINT instruction can be written in two forms: exec form and shell form. The exec form uses a JSON array to specify the command and its arguments, such as [ “executable”, “param1”, “param2” ]. The shell form uses a single string to specify the command and its arguments, such as “executable param1 param2”. The shell form is converted to the exec form by adding /bin/sh -c to the beginning of the command. Therefore, the following statements in a Dockerfile are equivalent and will lead to a container that outputs hello world:

ENTRYPOINT [ “echo hello world” ] ENTRYPOINT [ “/bin/sh”, “-c”, “echo hello world” ] ENTRYPOINT “echo hello world” ENTRYPOINT [ “echo”, “hello”, “world” ] ENTRYPOINT [ “/bin/sh”, “-c”, “echo”, “hello”, “world” ] ENTRYPOINT “echo hello world”

The other statements in the question are invalid or incorrect. The statement A. ENTRYPOINT “echo Hello World” is invalid because it uses double quotes to enclose the entire command, which is not allowed in the shell form. The statement D. ENTRYPOINT echo Hello World is incorrect because it does not use quotes to enclose the command, which is required in the shell form. The statement E. ENTRYPOINT “echo”, “Hello”, “World” is invalid because it uses double quotes to separate the command and its arguments, which is not allowed in the exec form. References:

• Dockerfile reference | Docker Docs
• Using the Dockerfile ENTRYPOINT and CMD Instructions - ATA Learning
• Difference Between run, cmd and entrypoint in a Dockerfile

LXD supports the following network interface types in an LXD container configuration1:

• macvlan: Creates a virtual interface on the host with a unique MAC address and attaches it to an existing physical interface. This allows the container to have direct access to the physical network, but prevents communication with the host and other containers on the same host2.
• bridged: Connects the container to an existing bridge interface on the host. This allows the container to communicate with the host and other containers on the same bridge, as well as the external network if the bridge is connected to a physical interface3.
• physical: Passes an existing physical interface on the host to the container. This allows the container to have exclusive access to the physical network, but removes the interface from the host4.

The other network interface types, ipsec and wifi, are not valid in an LXD container configuration. Ipsec is a protocol for secure communication over IP networks, not a network interface type. Wifi is a wireless technology for connecting devices to a network, not a network interface type. References:

• About networking - Canonical LXD documentation
• Macvlan network - Canonical LXD documentation
• Bridge network - Canonical LXD documentation
• Physical network - Canonical LXD documentation

 cloud-init uses the /var/lib/cloud/ directory to store status information and configuration information retrieved from external sources, such as the cloud platform’smetadata service or user data files. The directory contains subdirectories for different types of data, such as instance, data, handlers, scripts, and sem. The instance subdirectory contains information specific to the current instance, such as the instance ID, the user data, and the cloud-init configuration. The data subdirectory contains information about the data sources that cloud-init detected and used. The handlers subdirectory contains information about the handlers that cloud-init executed. The scripts subdirectory contains scripts that cloud-init runs at different stages of the boot process, such as per-instance, per-boot, per-once, and vendor. The sem subdirectory contains semaphore files that cloud-init uses to track the execution status of different modules and stages. References:

• Configuring and managing cloud-init for RHEL 8 - Red Hat Customer Portal
• vsphere - what is the linux file location where the cloud-init user …