Linux Scavenger Hunt: Admin Edition

[TudorRaduta]

Finding the Needle in the Haystack

Welcome back! Let’s start the week with a real-world Linux skill that separates casual users from confident admins.

Today’s focus is the find command. Powerful, precise, and absolutely essential when the system gets messy.

The Mission

Go beyond file names. Track files by ownership, size, permissions, and time. This is how real admins hunt problems in production systems.

️ Your Map

Use man find before guessing. Search inside it for TESTS and ACTIONS to unlock the real power.

Your Challenge

Scenario: A user named alex created chaos on the server. Your task is to investigate and clean up using precise find commands.

1. Ownership Hunt
   Find all files in /var/tmp that are owned by user alex.
2. Size Hunt
   Find all files on the entire system that are larger than 50MB. Also, silence permission errors so the output stays clean.
3. Permission Hunt
   Find all files inside /home that have the SetUID bit set.
4. Time Hunt
   Find all files in /var/log modified in the last 60 minutes.

Bonus Challenge
In a single command, find all files owned by alex in /var/tmp and delete them immediately using -exec.

Your mission: post the exact commands you would run.

Go hunt. Let’s see who really knows their find.

[Chetan_Tiwary_]

All 5 questions are blockbusters !! If you can answer all 5 - you are the real linux world Ethan Hunt!

[Ad_astra]

I think I'm more likely to be Luther Stickell or Benji Dunn!   

[Ad_astra]

Assuming we're not logged in as root, so we'll prefix all commands with sudo.

Specify type -f on all commands to exclude directories; files only!

1) sudo find /var/tmp -type f -user alex 

2) sudo find / -type f -size +50M 2>/dev/null

3) sudo find /home -type f -perm -4000

4) sudo find /var/log -type f -mmin -60

Bonus: sudo find /var/tmp -type f -user alex -exec rm -f {} +