A company uses Chef to manage its cloud servers. The compliance team requires that any change to the Chef cookbooks be reviewed and approved before being applied to production. The development team wants to ensure that only tested cookbooks are deployed. Which practice should they implement?

Store cookbooks in Git, use pull requests for review, and have CI run tests before merging to the main branch

Use a CI pipeline that automatically uploads cookbooks to the Chef server on every commit to any branch

Use a version control system but allow developers to push directly to the main branch if they have tested locally

Store cookbooks in a shared folder and have the senior developer manually copy them to the Chef server after testing

A company uses Puppet to manage its Linux servers. They suspect that some servers have drifted from the desired state because of manual changes made by administrators. They want to identify which servers are out of compliance and what specific changes were made. Which approach should they use?

Use a third-party tool like Tripwire to detect file changes, but do not integrate it with Puppet.

Manually inspect each server's configuration files and compare them to the Puppet manifests.

Run 'puppet agent --test' on each server to see if it applies changes.

Use Puppet's reporting and inventory features to compare the current state of each server against the desired state.

A team manages configuration files for multiple environments (dev, staging, prod) in a single Git repository. They want to ensure that changes to production configuration are reviewed and approved before being applied, while development changes can be merged quickly. They also want to maintain a clear history of changes. Which Git branching strategy best meets these requirements?

Use a single branch with a CI/CD pipeline that auto-deploys to production on every commit.

Use a single branch where all developers commit directly, and rely on code review after merging.

Use a separate repository for production configuration, with no version control for development.

Use separate branches for each environment, with pull requests required for merging into the production branch.

A team uses Terraform to manage AWS infrastructure. They want to ensure that changes to the Terraform code are reviewed and that the state file is protected. Which practice should they follow?

Allow all developers to push directly to the main branch

Store Terraform code in Git, use pull requests for review, and store the state file in a remote backend with encryption

Store the state file in the same Git repository as the code

Use a local state file and back it up manually

A startup is building a new microservices environment. They want to define the entire infrastructure (networks, VMs, load balancers) and the software configuration (packages, services, firewall rules) in code so that the environment can be reproduced exactly. They also want to automatically correct any drift from the defined state. Which approach best achieves this?

Use Ansible for both infrastructure and software configuration, since it can provision and configure.

Use a single imperative script that provisions infrastructure and configures software in sequence.

Use Terraform for both infrastructure and software configuration, since it can manage all resources.

Use Terraform to provision infrastructure and a declarative configuration management tool like Puppet to enforce software configuration.

GIAC Cloud Security Automation

Domain 1Objective 4

Utilizing Configuration Management GCSA Practice Questions (Page 7)

Part of the DevOps and Cloud Infrastructure domain, which makes up ~24% of our current practice bank. GIAC (SANS) does not publish an official question count, but from its 120-minute exam (~50–80 total, ~12–19 in this domain), expect 3–5 from this objective — we provide 45 practice questions to prepare you well beyond it. (estimate)

45questions here

9free pages

8concepts

Questions 31–35

31application · medium
A company uses Chef to manage its cloud servers. The compliance team requires that any change to the Chef cookbooks be reviewed and approved before being applied to production. The development team wants to ensure that only tested cookbooks are deployed. Which practice should they implement?
Select an answer first
32application · medium
A company uses Puppet to manage its Linux servers. They suspect that some servers have drifted from the desired state because of manual changes made by administrators. They want to identify which servers are out of compliance and what specific changes were made. Which approach should they use?
Select an answer first
33application · medium
A team manages configuration files for multiple environments (dev, staging, prod) in a single Git repository. They want to ensure that changes to production configuration are reviewed and approved before being applied, while development changes can be merged quickly. They also want to maintain a clear history of changes. Which Git branching strategy best meets these requirements?
Select an answer first
34application · medium
A team uses Terraform to manage AWS infrastructure. They want to ensure that changes to the Terraform code are reviewed and that the state file is protected. Which practice should they follow?
Select an answer first
35application · medium
A startup is building a new microservices environment. They want to define the entire infrastructure (networks, VMs, load balancers) and the software configuration (packages, services, firewall rules) in code so that the environment can be reproduced exactly. They also want to automatically correct any drift from the defined state. Which approach best achieves this?
Select an answer first

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Utilizing Configuration Management GCSA Practice Questions (Page 7)

Questions 31–35

A company uses Chef to manage its cloud servers. The compliance team requires that any change to the Chef cookbooks be reviewed and approved before being applied to production. The development team wants to ensure that only tested cookbooks are deployed. Which practice should they implement?

A company uses Puppet to manage its Linux servers. They suspect that some servers have drifted from the desired state because of manual changes made by administrators. They want to identify which servers are out of compliance and what specific changes were made. Which approach should they use?

A team uses Terraform to manage AWS infrastructure. They want to ensure that changes to the Terraform code are reviewed and that the state file is protected. Which practice should they follow?

Keep studying — DevOps and Cloud Infrastructure