Free Practice Questions for LPIC-2 201-450

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Key Facts: LPIC-2 201-450 Exam

Exam Questions

LPI

500/800

Passing Score (scaled)

LPI

90 min

Exam Duration

LPI

$200

Exam Fee (USD)

LPI Marketplace

LPIC-1

Prerequisite

Required for LPIC-2 award

5 years

Validity

Recertification required

LPIC-2 Exam 201-450 has 60 questions in 90 minutes with a 500-of-800 scaled passing score. Active LPIC-1 is required. Topic weights: Capacity Planning (8), Linux Kernel (9), System Startup (9), Filesystem and Devices (9), Advanced Storage Device Administration (8), Networking Configuration (11), and System Maintenance (6). Scenario-style items dominate: forecasting resource bottlenecks with sar/vmstat/iostat, building a custom kernel with make menuconfig, repairing GRUB2 from rescue media, configuring mdadm RAID-5, growing an LVM logical volume, troubleshooting routing with ip/ss/tcpdump. Exam fee $200 USD. Combined with 202-450 to earn LPIC-2, valid 5 years.

Sample LPIC-2 201-450 Practice Questions

Try these sample questions to review concepts for the LPIC-2 201-450 exam. Each question includes a detailed explanation. Start the interactive quiz above for the full 100+ question experience with AI tutoring.

1An administrator notices a server is paging heavily during peak hours. Which sar option shows the historical paging activity?

A.sar -B

B.sar -W

C.sar -r

D.sar -P

Explanation: sar -B reports paging statistics (pgpgin/s, pgpgout/s, fault/s, majflt/s, pgfree/s, pgscank/s, pgscand/s, pgsteal/s, %vmeff). sar -W reports swapping (pswpin/s, pswpout/s). sar -r reports memory utilization. sar -P reports per-CPU stats. sar reads /var/log/sa/saDD files written by sysstat.

2A web server is showing high CPU iowait. Which iostat option displays per-device disk utilization including %util and await?

A.iostat -x

B.iostat -k

C.iostat -m

D.iostat -d 1

Explanation: iostat -x shows extended statistics: r/s, w/s, rkB/s, wkB/s, avgrq-sz, avgqu-sz, await, svctm, %util — the full picture for diagnosing storage bottlenecks. -k and -m change units (KB/MB). -d 1 reports per-device every 1 second but without extended fields.

3Which vmstat column shows the number of processes blocked waiting for I/O?

A.b

B.r

C.wa

D.id

Explanation: vmstat column 'b' is the count of processes in uninterruptible sleep (blocked waiting for I/O). 'r' is the run queue length (CPU-runnable). 'wa' under cpu% is the percentage of CPU time spent waiting on I/O. 'id' is the idle CPU percent.

4Which top keystroke sorts the process list by memory usage (RSS) in descending order?

A.M (Shift+m)

B.P (Shift+p)

C.T (Shift+t)

D.N (Shift+n)

Explanation: In top, capital M sorts by %MEM. P sorts by %CPU (also the default). T sorts by accumulated CPU time. N sorts by PID. Press 'h' for help. Use 'V' to toggle forest (process tree) view.

5An admin wants to record system performance data on a continuing schedule. Which package provides sar, iostat, and the cron-driven sa1/sa2 collection?

A.sysstat

B.procps

C.psmisc

D.util-linux

Explanation: The sysstat package provides sar, iostat, mpstat, pidstat, sadf, plus the sa1 and sa2 cron helpers. /etc/cron.d/sysstat and the /etc/sysconfig/sysstat (RHEL) or /etc/default/sysstat (Debian) control collection frequency. procps gives ps/top/free; psmisc gives killall/pstree.

6Which mpstat option shows per-CPU utilization breaking down user, system, iowait, and idle?

A.mpstat -P ALL

B.mpstat -A

C.Both A and B (different focuses)

D.mpstat -V

Explanation: mpstat -P ALL prints stats for every CPU. mpstat -A includes interrupt counts as well. -P ALL 1 5 prints per-CPU stats every second, 5 times. -V prints version. Useful for spotting one hot CPU among many idle cores.

7Which command shows the current Linux kernel version and release of the running system?

A.uname -r

B.uname -a

C.Both A and B include the release

D.kernel-version

Explanation: uname -r prints just the kernel release (e.g., '5.15.0-89-generic'). uname -a prints kernel, hostname, release, version, machine, OS. /proc/version contains the same info plus the gcc version used to build it. 'kernel-version' is not a real command.

8An administrator wants to compile a custom kernel from /usr/src/linux. After running 'make menuconfig' to configure, which command builds the kernel image and modules?

A.make all (or just 'make')

B.make bzImage

C.make modules

D.make all is shorthand for bzImage + modules

Explanation: 'make all' (the default target) compiles the kernel image AND all modules. 'make bzImage' builds only the bootable image, 'make modules' builds only loadable modules. 'make modules_install' (as root) installs to /lib/modules/<ver>/. 'make install' copies vmlinuz and runs depmod.

9Which file holds the kernel configuration used to build the running kernel?

A./proc/config.gz (if CONFIG_IKCONFIG is set)

B./boot/config-$(uname -r)

C.Both A and B can hold the config

D./etc/kernel.conf

Explanation: /proc/config.gz is the live config built into the kernel (only present if compiled with CONFIG_IKCONFIG and CONFIG_IKCONFIG_PROC). /boot/config-<version> is shipped by most distributions when installing kernel packages. Both contain identical content. /etc/kernel.conf is not standard.

10Which command displays detailed information about a single kernel module, including its parameters?

A.modinfo <module>

B.modprobe -i <module>

C.lsmod | grep <module>

D.modlist <module>

Explanation: modinfo shows the .modinfo section: filename, license, description, author, depends, alias, parameters with descriptions and types. lsmod just lists loaded modules and ref counts. modprobe -i is not the right flag. modlist is not real.

About the LPIC-2 201-450 Exam

Exam 201-450 is the first of two exams for the LPIC-2 Linux Engineer certification. Requires active LPIC-1. It validates advanced administration skills: capacity planning, kernel components and compilation, system startup with systemd/SysV/GRUB2, filesystem and device management, RAID/LVM/iSCSI storage, advanced networking, and system maintenance.

Exam sponsor: Linux Professional Institute (Pearson VUE / OnVUE online proctored). The requirements and fees below concern the certification or admission exam, separate from our free practice resources.

Questions

60 questions

Time Limit

90 minutes

Passing Score

500 / 800 (scaled)

Exam / Certification Fees

$200

Exam sponsor website

Reported exam pass rate: Not publicly disclosed. LPI does not publish first-attempt pass rates Exam sponsor website

Fees, eligibility, and exam policies can change. Confirm them with the exam sponsor before applying or paying.

Official sources

Our practice resources: topics covered

We aim to reflect publicly available exam outlines and topic information in our study resources. Coverage, format, and difficulty may differ from the actual exam, and we cannot guarantee that every detail is accurate or current. Confirm exam requirements, fees, and policies with the official exam sponsor.

18%

Networking Configuration (Topic 205)

Weight 11/60 — largest topic. Basic networking configuration (ip, ifconfig, route, arp, /etc/network/interfaces, /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts, NetworkManager, nmcli); advanced network configuration (routing tables, policy routing with ip rule, bonding, bridging, VLANs with vconfig/ip link, network namespaces); troubleshooting network issues (ip, ss, netstat, lsof, ping/ping6, nc, tcpdump, nmap, mtr, traceroute, /var/log).

15%

Linux Kernel (Topic 201)

Weight 9/60. Kernel components (uname -r, /boot/vmlinuz-*, /boot/initrd-*, /lib/modules, /proc/version, mainline vs longterm); compiling a Linux kernel (make menuconfig/oldconfig/defconfig, .config, make all, make modules_install, make install, dkms); kernel runtime management and troubleshooting (lsmod, modinfo, modprobe, insmod, rmmod, depmod, /etc/modprobe.d/*.conf, /etc/modules-load.d/, dmesg, /proc/sys, sysctl, /etc/sysctl.conf, /etc/sysctl.d/, udev — udevadm).

15%

System Startup (Topic 202)

Weight 9/60. Customising the SysVinit system startup (/etc/inittab, /etc/init.d, runlevels 0-6, telinit, chkconfig, update-rc.d); System recovery (recovery shell, init=/bin/bash, single user mode, systemctl rescue/emergency, fsck, GRUB rescue, chroot from live media); alternate bootloaders (GRUB Legacy, GRUB 2 — /etc/default/grub, /boot/grub/grub.cfg, grub-mkconfig, grub-install, awareness of SYSLINUX, ISOLINUX, PXELINUX, U-Boot).

15%

Filesystem and Devices (Topic 203)

Weight 9/60. Operating the Linux filesystem (mount, umount, /etc/fstab, /etc/mtab, /proc/mounts, sync, swapon, swapoff, mkswap); maintaining a Linux filesystem (fsck — e2fsck, xfs_repair, btrfs check; tune2fs, dumpe2fs, debugfs, mkfs.ext2/3/4, mkfs.xfs, mkfs.btrfs, xfs_info); creating and configuring filesystem options (autofs, /etc/auto.master, /etc/auto.misc, encrypted filesystems via cryptsetup/LUKS, /etc/crypttab).

13%

Capacity Planning (Topic 200)

Weight 8/60. Measure and troubleshoot resource usage (top, htop, iotop, atop, vmstat, free, uptime, sar, iostat, ps, pstree, w, lsof, mpstat); predict future resource needs (collectd, /var/log/sa/, capacity trends, RRDtool basics, Nagios/Munin/Cacti awareness, monitoring methodology).

13%

Advanced Storage Device Administration (Topic 204)

Weight 8/60. Configuring RAID (mdadm — --create, --assemble, --detail, --fail, --remove, --add; /proc/mdstat, /etc/mdadm/mdadm.conf, RAID levels 0/1/5/6/10); adjusting storage device access (hdparm, sdparm, fdisk, parted, gdisk, iSCSI initiator — iscsiadm, /etc/iscsi/, multipath); Logical Volume Manager (pvcreate, pvdisplay, vgcreate, vgextend, vgreduce, lvcreate, lvextend, lvreduce, lvremove, lvdisplay, snapshots with lvcreate -s, thin pools).

10%

System Maintenance (Topic 206)

Weight 6/60. Make and install programs from source (./configure, make, make install, tar -xzf, gzip/bzip2/xz, gcc basics, dependency management, /usr/local hierarchy); backup operations (rsync, dd, cpio, tar, dump/restore, awareness of Amanda, Bacula, BackupPC, snapshot-based backups via LVM); notify users on system-related issues (/etc/issue, /etc/issue.net, /etc/motd, wall, shutdown -k for warnings).

Preparing for the LPIC-2 201-450 Exam

What You Need to Know

Passing score: 500 / 800 (scaled)
Exam length: 60 questions
Time limit: 90 minutes
Exam / certification fees: $200 Official sources

Using Our Practice Resources

Work through all 100 available questions
Review every answer and explanation
Track weak areas and revisit them
Use our AI tutor for tough concepts

LPIC-2 201-450: Suggested Study Strategy

1Build a real RAID-5 from three loop devices on a VM: mdadm --create /dev/md0 --level=5 --raid-devices=3 ... — practice fail/remove/add

2Practice the LVM stack end-to-end: pvcreate → vgcreate → lvcreate → mkfs → mount → lvextend → resize2fs/xfs_growfs

3Compile a kernel from source on a VM at least once: make menuconfig, make -j, make modules_install, make install, update-grub

4Memorize sar/vmstat/iostat output columns — %user %system %iowait %idle, swap si/so, tps await %util

5Drill GRUB2 rescue: ls (hd0,gpt2)/, set root, set prefix, insmod normal, normal — these recovery commands matter on the exam

6Network namespaces: ip netns add/del/exec, ip link set veth pair, mounting /proc and /sys inside a netns

7Know systemd vs SysV equivalents: systemctl start vs service/init.d, systemctl enable vs chkconfig/update-rc.d, systemctl isolate vs telinit

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the LPIC-2 201-450 exam?

Exam 201-450 is Part 1 of 2 for the LPIC-2 Linux Engineer certification. It validates advanced Linux administration: capacity planning, kernel internals and compiling, system startup, filesystem/storage administration including RAID/LVM, networking configuration, and system maintenance. You must hold an active LPIC-1 to be awarded LPIC-2.

Do I need LPIC-1 to take Exam 201?

You can sit the 201-450 exam without LPIC-1, and your pass result is recorded. However, the LPIC-2 credential is only awarded once you hold an active LPIC-1 and have passed both 201-450 and 202-450. Most candidates earn LPIC-1 first.

How is Exam 201-450 structured?

60 questions in 90 minutes, mix of multiple-choice and fill-in-the-blank. Scaled scoring 200-800 with 500 to pass. Fill-ins demand exact command names, paths, and option flags — e.g., 'mdadm --create', '/etc/fstab', '-l raid5'.

What are the largest topics on 201-450?

Networking Configuration (weight 11), then Linux Kernel, System Startup, and Filesystem and Devices (each 9). Capacity Planning and Advanced Storage Administration are 8 each, and System Maintenance is 6. Total weight 60 across 60 questions.

How much does Exam 201-450 cost?

$200 USD per attempt at standard pricing. LPI offers reduced regional pricing of $165 or $132 in some regions. Each attempt requires its own voucher; the fee does not include retakes.

Where can I take Exam 201-450?

Pearson VUE testing centers worldwide, or via LPI OnVUE online proctored from your home or office. OnVUE requires a webcam, microphone, government-issued photo ID, and a clean uninterrupted environment.

How long is LPIC-2 valid?

LPIC-2 is valid for 5 years from the date you pass the second exam. To maintain it, retake the current versions of both LPIC-2 exams or pass an LPIC-3 exam (300, 303, 305, or 306) before expiration.

Free Practice Questions for LPIC-2 201-450

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