Boot Process Flashcards
7 cards from real Linux practice questions. Tap to flip, then mark Knew It or Still Learning — missed cards come back until you master them.
Read the first 7 Boot Process flashcards as text
Which kernel parameter would you add to a GRUB2 boot entry to boot Linux into emergency mode?
Answer: systemd.unit=emergency.target
Passing systemd.unit=emergency.target on the kernel command line tells systemd to boot into emergency.target.
What does UEFI Secure Boot verify during the boot process?
Answer: That bootloader and kernel are signed with trusted cryptographic keys
Secure Boot uses cryptographic signatures to verify that the bootloader and kernel haven't been tampered with.
Which file does the kernel read to determine the location of the initial RAM disk image?
Answer: The bootloader passes it as a kernel parameter (initrd=)
The bootloader (e.g., GRUB2) passes the initrd/initramfs path to the kernel via the initrd= boot parameter.
In a system using SysVinit, which script is executed first after the kernel mounts the root filesystem?
Answer: /sbin/init
/sbin/init is PID 1 and the first process executed by the kernel after root filesystem mount in SysVinit systems.
What is the role of the MBR (Master Boot Record) in legacy BIOS booting?
Answer: It contains the first-stage bootloader and partition table
The MBR is the first 512 bytes of the disk, containing the first-stage bootloader code and the partition table.
Which command regenerates the GRUB2 configuration file on a Red Hat/CentOS system?
Answer: grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg
grub2-mkconfig generates grub.cfg from /etc/default/grub and scripts in /etc/grub.d/.
At which stage of boot does the Linux kernel decompress itself?
Answer: Immediately after the bootloader transfers control to it
The kernel image is typically compressed; it decompresses itself into RAM as the very first action after receiving control from the bootloader.