IBM AIX Interview Preparation Guide
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AIX job preparation guide for freshers and experienced candidates. Number of IBM AIX frequently asked questions(FAQs) asked in many interviews

116 AIX Questions and Answers:

1 :: What is an interactive shell?

An interactive shell generally reads from, and writes to, a user's terminal: input and output are connected to a terminal. Bash interactive behavior is started when the bash command is called upon without non-option arguments, except when the option is a string to read from or when the shell is invoked to read from standard input, which allows for positional parameters to be set.

2 :: What is AIX file system?

• AIX uses a hierarchical file tree that consists of directories, subdirectories and files.
• The top level directory is called the root (/) directory that has many subdirectories.
• The file tree is mounted during the system startup.

3 :: Write the logging in and Out commands in AIX?

• To login in:
Login id: <username>
Password: <the password does not appear>
• To log out:
$ <ctrl+d> (or)
$ <exit> (or)
$ logout

• AIX is designed as a multiuser system, a level of security is implemented to control access. Each user of the system has a user name and associated password (optional).
• If the user ID requires a password, the system will prompt for the password in a similar manner. While the user is typing a password, it does not appear on the screen.
• To terminate the session the user may either enter the exit or logout command, or press the key combination <Ctrl-d> (holding down the Ctrl key while pressing the d key.) logout only works if you are in your login shell.

4 :: Write the password change command?

• $ passwd
$ <user id> old password:
$ <user id> new password:
$ Enter the new password again:

• The passwd command is used to change the user password.
• The system will start the passwd process which will prompt the user for their old password first. To prevent users being locked out of the system the new password is entered twice.

5 :: Write the command format in AIX format?

• $ command option(s) argument(s)
• Mail –f newmail
• The command or process name should come first.
• The options should follow the command name, separated by a space, and preceded by a minus sign (-). Multiple options may be grouped immediately after a single minus sign or separated by spaces and each preceded by a minus sign.

6 :: Give the brief about AIX?

• AIX is the IBM product.
• It is the multi user Operating System.
• AIX control these hardware devices and to share them between multiple users, for this purpose it uses the AIX Kernel System.
• AIX OS servers are the IBM servers used in all over the world.
• Kernel is loaded during the system startup.
• Kernel is the heart of the AIX OS.
• Kernel controls the various processes and tasks.

7 :: Explain the login process to the AIX system?

• AIX is a multi-user system
• When the user login he needs to provide the user name and password for authentication purposes.
• After the successful login, AIX starts the SHELL program.

8 :: Explain the SHELL program?

• As the user login to the AIX server, the AIX starts the SHELL program.
• The SHELL is a command interpreter.
• It takes the inputs from the users and executes it.
• SHELL is not only the command interpreter it also provide great flexibility to the user.
• SHELL not only read and execute the commands it also read the files written in the form of programs and executes them, these shell program files are known as SHELL scripts. The extension of SHELL script is .sh.

9 :: Name the various SHELL types?

• sh or Bourne Shell
• bash or Bourne Again shell
• csh or C shell
• tcsh or Turbo C shell
• ksh or the Korn shell

10 :: Explain the advantages of Bourne Again Shell or bash?

• Bash is the GNU shell
• Bash is an sh-compatible shell that incorporates useful features from the Korn shell (ksh) and C shell (csh).


• It is intended to conform to the IEEE POSIX P1003.2/ISO 9945.2 Shell and Tools standard.
• It offers functional improvements over sh for both programming and interactive uses.
• Interactive usage includes command line editing, unlimited size command history, job control, shell functions and aliases, indexed arrays of unlimited size, and integer arithmetic in any base from two to sixty-four. Bash can run most sh scripts without modification.