010-160 Cheat Sheet 2026

The 30 highest-yield 010-160 facts, distilled from real exam questions. Print it, save it as a PDF, or study it here — free, no sign-up.

1. What is the purpose of the `/etc/hostname` file on a Linux system? → It stores the system's hostname
2. Which command finds files that were accessed more than 7 days ago? → find . -atime +7
3. If you are in /home/user/docs and type 'cd ../..', where will you end up? → /home
4. What does `ls -lh` display differently than `ls -l`? → It shows file sizes in human-readable units (KB, MB)
5. A file has permissions -rwxr-x---. Which class has no access at all? → Others
6. Which command would you use to see the password aging information for a user? → chage -l username
7. Which command finds all files with the .conf extension under /etc? → find /etc -name '*.conf'
8. Which command would display detailed information about a package using APT? → apt-cache show
9. What is the purpose of running 'apt-get update'? → Refreshes the local package index from repositories
10. What does a UID range of 1-999 (or 1-500 on older systems) typically represent? → System/service accounts
11. What is the primary purpose of a user's primary group in Linux? → To set the default group ownership for files and directories the user creates.
12. What is the purpose of swap space in a Linux system? → Act as virtual memory when RAM is full
13. What is a dependency in the context of Linux package management? → A package required by another package to function correctly
14. In bash, what does the double bracket [[ ... ]] provide compared to single bracket [ ... ]? → Double brackets support pattern matching and avoid word-splitting issues
15. What signal number is used with `kill` to forcefully terminate a process that cannot be ignored? → 9
16. What does `cat file1 file2 > output.txt` do? → Concatenates file1 and file2 and writes the result to output.txt
17. Which directory stores downloaded .deb package files on a Debian-based system? → /var/cache/apt/archives/
18. What does the `clear` command do in the terminal? → Clears the terminal screen display
19. Which command is used to view the contents of a text file one screen at a time? → less
20. What class of IPv4 address range is reserved for private networks and not routable on the public internet (e.g., 192.168.x.x)? → Private (RFC 1918)
21. What does `unzip -l archive.zip` do? → Lists the contents of archive.zip without extracting
22. Which license requires that patent rights held by contributors be granted to all users of the software? → Apache License 2.0
23. Which tar option extracts files to a specific directory instead of the current one? → -C /path/to/dir
24. After navigating from `/usr/share` to `/etc/systemd`, which command will take you back to `/usr/share`? → cd -
25. Which command would you use to find out what type of shell you are currently running? → echo $SHELL
26. What is the default umask value for a regular user on most Linux systems? → 0022
27. Which command shows failed login attempts on a Linux system? → lastb
28. Under which circumstance does the GNU Affero GPL (AGPL) require source code disclosure that the regular GPL does not? → When the software is run as a network service accessible to users
29. How do you make a script file executable so it can be run as `./myscript.sh`? → chmod +x myscript.sh
30. What does 'public domain' mean in the context of software? → Software for which the copyright has expired or been waived, allowing unrestricted use