Initial Practical Diagnostic

Purpose: measure current basic Linux ability before Module 1. This is an assessment, not a lesson.

Suggested timebox: 30–45 minutes. Accuracy and verification matter more than speed.

Rules

• Work on lab-cli-rhel-46 as a non-root user unless a task genuinely requires otherwise.
• You may use documentation installed on the RHEL system.
• Do not use web search, AI assistance, or a copied solution.
• Do not install packages or change system-wide configuration.
• If a required utility is not installed, capture the exact result and continue; do not install it for this assessment.
• Do not delete or overwrite unrelated files.
• This diagnostic needs no Proxmox snapshot and no additional infrastructure.
• If access to lab-cli-rhel-47 is unavailable, record that fact and complete the rest; do not reconfigure SSH or the firewall yet.

Scenario

Operations has asked you to build and transfer a small status bundle. Meet the requirements below without being given commands.

Part A — Workspace and files

1. Connect to lab-cli-rhel-46 remotely with SSH.
2. Under your home directory, create rhcsa-diagnostic with these subdirectories:
3. source
4. reports
5. archive
6. In source, create and edit systems.txt so it contains exactly these five lines:

server1:production:online
server2:development:offline
server3:production:offline
client1:testing:online
client2:production:online

1. Make a copy of this file in archive named systems.original.
2. Move the original source/systems.txt to source/inventory.txt.
3. Create an empty file named source/ready.flag without opening an editor.

Part B — Redirection and text analysis

1. From source/inventory.txt, create reports/production.txt containing only records whose environment field is exactly production.
2. Create reports/offline.txt containing only records whose final field is exactly offline.
3. Create reports/count.txt containing only the number of records whose final field is online.
4. Run one deliberately invalid pathname listing. Save its error message in reports/error.txt without placing that error on the terminal and without mixing it into another report.
5. Add a line containing your current login name to the end of reports/count.txt; do not replace the existing count.

Part C — Links and permissions

1. In rhcsa-diagnostic, create:
   • a symbolic link named latest-report that resolves to reports/production.txt
   • a hard link named inventory.hard to source/inventory.txt
2. Set permissions so that:
   • source/inventory.txt is readable and writable by its owner, readable by its group, and inaccessible to others
   • reports is fully accessible by its owner, traversable and readable by its group, and inaccessible to others

Part D — Archives and documentation

1. Create archive/reports.tar.gz containing the reports directory and its contents.
2. Create a bzip2-compressed tar archive named archive/source.tar.bz2 containing the source directory and its contents.
3. Validate both archives by listing their contents without extracting over your working files.
4. Use only locally installed documentation to determine which option makes a human-readable long listing display an indicator after directory names. Record:
   • the command whose documentation you consulted
   • the option you found
   • which local documentation source you used in reports/documentation.txt.

Part E — Remote transfer

1. Transfer archive/reports.tar.gz to your home directory on lab-cli-rhel-47 using a secure transfer method.
2. Log in to lab-cli-rhel-47 and verify that the transferred archive exists, is recognized as gzip-compressed data, and can have its contents listed.

Do not configure a service, open a firewall port, or create an SSH key merely to finish this part. If normal SSH access is unavailable, report the exact symptom as evidence.

What to submit here

Reply with:

1. The commands you used, in order. Shell history is acceptable after removing unrelated or sensitive entries.
2. Final verification output showing:
3. the directory structure
4. permissions and both link targets/types
5. the contents of all report text files
6. the member listing of both archives
7. the remote archive verification, or the exact SSH failure
8. A short note identifying any step where you used local documentation or were uncertain.

Do not include passwords, private keys, subscription data, or tokens.

Grading policy

The result will be graded for correctness, safety, command choice, verification quality, and independent execution. Mistakes receive hints before a full solution. Ratings and the Module 1 pace will then be recorded in progress.md and session_log.md.