DevOps interview questions and answers for 2022

The following three steps can help resolve merge conflicts in Git:

• Understand the problem: The merge conflict can arise due to different problems, for example, same line edit on the same file, deleting some files, or files with the same file names. You can understand what caused the conflict by checking the git status.
• The next step is to mark and clean up the conflict. For this, open the file with mergetool. Git will mark the conflict portion as ‘<<<<<HEAD’ and ‘>>>>>[other/branch/name]’
• Now run commit again, and merge the present branch with the master branch.

In DevOps interview questions involving steps, please ensure to include all steps in your answer. The more details you provide in such a DevOps interview question, the better your chances of moving ahead through the interview process.

This type of DevOps interview question warrants a detailed answer. Below are some advantages of Forking workflow over other Git workflows.

There is a fundamental difference between Forking workflow and other Git workflows. Unlike other Git workflows that have a single central code repository on the server-side, in Forking workflow, every developer gets their own server-side repositories. The Forking workflow finds use in public open-source projects.

This leads to the main advantage of Forking workflow - integration of individual contributions without the need for all users pushing to a central repository for clean project history. Only the project maintainer pushes to the central repository, while the individual developers can use their personal server-side repositories.

Once the developers complete their local commits and are ready to publish, they push their commits to their respective public repositories. After that, they send a pull request to the central repository. This notifies the project maintainer to integrate the update with the central repository.

Yes, one can take the Jenkins jobs directory from the old server and copy it to the new one. To move a job from one Jenkins installation to another, one can simply copy the required job directory. Another method is to create a clone of an existing job directory in a different name. One more way is to rename an existing job by renaming the existing directory. However, in this method, one needs to change any other job calling the renamed job.

Automation testing is a process that automates the manual testing process. Different testing tools allow developers to generate test scripts that can be executed continually without the need for human intervention.

In continuous testing, the automated tests are executed as part of the DevOps software delivery pipeline. Each build is continuously tested so that the development stays ahead of the problems and prevents them from moving on to the next software delivery lifecycle stage. This process speeds up the workflow of the developer. This is because the developer does not need to make the project again and re-run all the tests once he/she makes any changes.

The above type of DevOps interview question only asks for a definition of the processes and not a differentiation between the processes. However, if you want you can also differentiate between the two processes.

Mentioned below are some of the technical challenges with Selenium:

• It only works with web-based applications
• It does not work with bitmap comparison
• While commercial tools such as HP UFT have vendor support, Selenium does not
• Selenium does not have an object repository, thus storing and maintaining objects is complex

For a DevOps interview question asking about technical challenges of a tool or component, apart from highlighting the challenges, you can also recount your experience with such challenges and how you overcame them. Giving a personal experience for such a DevOps interview question shows that you haven’t simply mugged up answers.

While this is a rather simple DevOps interview question, knowing the answer to such questions shows that you are serious about your work.

Puppet manifests are programs written in the native Puppet language and saved with the .pp extension. As such, any Puppet program that is built to create or manage a target host machine is referred to as a manifest. These manifests are made of Puppet code. The configuration details of Puppet nodes and Puppet agents are contained in the Puppet Master.

As an open-source tool that is used for automation, Ansible is divided into two server types - nodes and controlling machines. The installation of Ansible happens on the controlling machine and this machine, along with, SSH helps manage the nodes. The controlling machine has inventories that specify the node’s location. As a tool, Ansible does not have an agent and that precludes the need for any mandatory installations on the nodes. Therefore, when Ansible manages the nodes, no background programs need to be executed. Ansible Playbooks help Ansible manage multiple nodes from one system with an SSH connection. This is because Playbooks exist in the YAML format and can perform many tasks at once.

In a DevOps interview question as the above, include all the details. Moreover, in such a DevOps interview question, you must expect follow up questions, such as, “Have you used Ansible? Take us through any interesting or weird experience you had while using it.”

In Linux/Unix- based systems, Sudo is a program that allows certain users to use certain system commands at the root level of the system. Sudo stands for “super user do”, where the superuser refers to the root user.

SSH is the abbreviation of “Secure Shell”. The purpose of designing the SSH protocol was to provide a secure protocol when connecting with unsecure remote computers. SSH uses a client-server paradigm, where the communication between the client and server happens over a secure channel. There are three layers of the SSH protocol:

• Transport layer: This layer ensures that the communication between the client and the server is secure. It monitors the encryption and decryption of data, as well as protects the connection’s integrity. Data caching and compression are also its functions.
• Authentication layer: This layer is responsible for conducting client authentication.
• Connection layer: This layer comes into play after authentication and manages the communication channels.

Communication channels created by SSH use public-key cryptography for client authentication. Once the secure connection is in place, the exchange of information through SSH happens in a safe and encrypted way irrespective of the network infrastructure being used. With SSH, tunneling, forwarding TCP, and transferring files can be done securely.

The purpose of the Nagios Log server is to simplify the search for log data. Thus, it is best suited for tasks such as alert set-up, notifications for potential threats, log data querying, and quick system auditing. Using Nagios Log server can place all log data at a single location with high availability.