Getting Caught on the Ubuntu Forums

I was sifting through the Ubuntu forums trying to get some help for my Hardy Heron problems and I come upon this post. Someone, better known as bradcarr posts a message asking for help/confirmation of Linux questions he had. These twenty questions came from a questionnaire he got when he applied for a job. Reading those questions, I knew that was too advanced for me. I could only answer one question and that wasn’t even a Linux oriented question.

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.
7. How do you modify the IP and Net mask of a system running a Red Hat Variant of Linux
8. Give an example of a set of shell commands that will give you the number of “httpd” processes running on a Linux box.
9. On CentOS or Fedora based system using the package management application, how do you tell what package provided the file “libnss_ldap.so”
10. What is the difference between VTP client, server, and transparent
11. What is the maximum length of CAT6
12. How does one set up a layer two link to share VLANs
13. How does one implement redundant links at Layer 2
14. What is the difference between a hub, switch, and a router
a. What are the security advantages of switch vs. hub
15. Show an example of using telnet to learn the headers of an http server.
16. In what OSI layer does PPP exist
17. What’s the difference between TCP and UDP
18. Given a DNS server that has just started (with an empty cache) and host contacting this DNS server (using it’s OS setting) to learn an address for google.com, list the steps the DNS server will take to learn it with IP addresses (each step will have multiple possible IP addresses – you need choose only one per step).
19. Why are layer 2 loops bad, and what protocol was designed to prevent them
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

Bradcarr asks for help on some of these questions and confirmation on his answers. Too bad he didn’t leave his answers in the post, ’cause no one helped him out. It turns out that he applied for a job as a network engineer and apparently these are very basic questions.

I go to the second page and well…what do we have here? A member, ptinsley, writes down,

“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@lightningsource.com. Oh, while you are at it, go ahead and send me the answers to the questions.”

Oooh dam, looks like ptinsley was bradcarr’s potential employer and he found out about his post. Looks like he fancies the Ubuntu forums on a regular basis or someone tipped him off.

Its pretty smart for bradcarr to come on the Ubuntu forums and ask for these questions. Maybe not in the manner he posted, but I would definitely come to these forums for help if I were in his position. I mean ptinsley did say to use any resources available to him. The way the excercise was supposed to be was to see how resourceful bradcarr is. But I guess the way Bradcarr asked on the forums was…a little across the line into cheating or using immoral methods? Then again, he was allowed to use any resource he could use. All I know is, bradcarr won’t be getting the job.