From one unix flavor to a specific url, describe ping in detail.?

This is a question that I used to use in interviews. The idea was to see just how deep a candidate could get. I would use this:


"given: a unix flavor of your choice, network connectivity using DNS for resolution, describe what would happen if you typed ping www.netscape.com" Given, all ports are open and network connectivity is fine. Difficulty: I'm looking for detail from what happens when you type to the kernel, to the process to the network, etc until you get the reply and how/why that reply hits your screen. If you can't get that deep on somethings, no problem - go as deep as you can on what you have knowledge in.

From one unix flavor to a specific url, describe ping in detail.?
Im not real interested in answering it but...





Here is one of my favorite questions to use in interviews.


"Go to the commands directory, list the commands, and tell me what they do". Being able to do that for over 20% of the commands is doing pretty good (dont respond until you have tried it since you wold probably be surprised at all the commands there that you have never used)





The funniest story is that we required people applying for Unix SysAdmin to provide resumes in ascii attached to an email. It was freaking amazing how many really impressive resumes failed that first test. We had people call us and beg us to let them fax their resume because it was "specially formated" but when we got it there was nothing there that needed it. They just didnt know how.