| 1 | What is Kestrel, and how does its role in ASP.NET Core hosting differ from a traditional web server like IIS? ASP.NET Core › Hosting Models: Kestrel, IIS & Reverse Proxies | ASP.NET Core | Hosting Models: Kestrel, IIS & Reverse Proxies | Beginner |
| 2 | How does hosting an ASP.NET Core application in a Docker container change considerations around Kestrel configuration and reverse proxying compared to traditional VM or bare-metal hosting? ASP.NET Core › Hosting Models: Kestrel, IIS & Reverse Proxies | ASP.NET Core | Hosting Models: Kestrel, IIS & Reverse Proxies | Intermediate |
| 3 | What is the difference between Kestrel's ListenAnyIP and Listen methods for binding to network addresses? ASP.NET Core › Hosting Models: Kestrel, IIS & Reverse Proxies | ASP.NET Core | Hosting Models: Kestrel, IIS & Reverse Proxies | Beginner |
| 4 | What is the difference between the in-process and out-of-process hosting models when running an ASP.NET Core application under IIS? ASP.NET Core › Hosting Models: Kestrel, IIS & Reverse Proxies | ASP.NET Core | Hosting Models: Kestrel, IIS & Reverse Proxies | Intermediate |
| 5 | How do you configure Kestrel to listen on multiple endpoints (different ports, or both HTTP and HTTPS simultaneously)? ASP.NET Core › Hosting Models: Kestrel, IIS & Reverse Proxies | ASP.NET Core | Hosting Models: Kestrel, IIS & Reverse Proxies | Intermediate |
| 6 | What is the ASP.NET Core Module (ANCM), and what specific role does it play when hosting under IIS? ASP.NET Core › Hosting Models: Kestrel, IIS & Reverse Proxies | ASP.NET Core | Hosting Models: Kestrel, IIS & Reverse Proxies | Intermediate |
| 7 | How do you configure request timeout behavior differently at the Kestrel level versus the reverse proxy level, and why might they need to be coordinated? ASP.NET Core › Hosting Models: Kestrel, IIS & Reverse Proxies | ASP.NET Core | Hosting Models: Kestrel, IIS & Reverse Proxies | Intermediate |
| 8 | How would you configure Kestrel to be production-ready when running standalone (without IIS or another reverse proxy in front of it), and what risks does this expose you to? ASP.NET Core › Hosting Models: Kestrel, IIS & Reverse Proxies | ASP.NET Core | Hosting Models: Kestrel, IIS & Reverse Proxies | Advanced |
| 9 | How would you diagnose and resolve a scenario where an application works correctly when run directly with Kestrel locally but returns 502 Bad Gateway errors when deployed behind IIS or nginx in production? ASP.NET Core › Hosting Models: Kestrel, IIS & Reverse Proxies | ASP.NET Core | Hosting Models: Kestrel, IIS & Reverse Proxies | Advanced |
| 10 | How would you configure Kestrel's connection limits and thread pool behavior to handle high-concurrency production traffic without exhausting server resources? ASP.NET Core › Hosting Models: Kestrel, IIS & Reverse Proxies | ASP.NET Core | Hosting Models: Kestrel, IIS & Reverse Proxies | Advanced |
| 11 | How would you implement graceful shutdown handling in Kestrel/ASP.NET Core to ensure in-flight requests complete before a container or process terminates during a deployment or scale-down event? ASP.NET Core › Hosting Models: Kestrel, IIS & Reverse Proxies | ASP.NET Core | Hosting Models: Kestrel, IIS & Reverse Proxies | Advanced |
| 12 | How does ASP.NET Core determine the original client IP address and scheme (HTTP/HTTPS) when running behind a reverse proxy that terminates TLS and forwards requests, given the app only sees the proxy's connection? ASP.NET Core › Hosting Models: Kestrel, IIS & Reverse Proxies | ASP.NET Core | Hosting Models: Kestrel, IIS & Reverse Proxies | Intermediate |
| 13 | What role does a reverse proxy play in TLS/SSL termination, and why is this pattern common in production deployments? ASP.NET Core › Hosting Models: Kestrel, IIS & Reverse Proxies | ASP.NET Core | Hosting Models: Kestrel, IIS & Reverse Proxies | Intermediate |
| 14 | What is YARP (Yet Another Reverse Proxy), and how does it compare to nginx or IIS as a reverse proxy option for ASP.NET Core applications? ASP.NET Core › Hosting Models: Kestrel, IIS & Reverse Proxies | ASP.NET Core | Hosting Models: Kestrel, IIS & Reverse Proxies | Advanced |
| 15 | How would you configure and validate that HTTP/2 (or HTTP/3) is actually being used end-to-end through a reverse proxy, rather than silently downgrading to HTTP/1.1? ASP.NET Core › Hosting Models: Kestrel, IIS & Reverse Proxies | ASP.NET Core | Hosting Models: Kestrel, IIS & Reverse Proxies | Advanced |
| 16 | How do you configure IIS or a reverse proxy like nginx to allow large file uploads, given they may impose their own separate size limits beyond Kestrel's? ASP.NET Core › File Uploads & Streaming Large Files | ASP.NET Core | File Uploads & Streaming Large Files | Intermediate |
| 17 | What TLS protocol versions and cipher suites should a modern ASP.NET Core application support, and how do you configure Kestrel to enforce a minimum acceptable TLS version? ASP.NET Core › HTTPS, Certificates & Transport Security | ASP.NET Core | HTTPS, Certificates & Transport Security | Intermediate |
| 18 | How would you configure Kestrel to use a specific X.509 certificate for HTTPS, and what are the different ways to supply that certificate (file-based, certificate store, Azure Key Vault)? ASP.NET Core › HTTPS, Certificates & Transport Security | ASP.NET Core | HTTPS, Certificates & Transport Security | Advanced |
| 19 | How would you implement Server Name Indication (SNI)-based certificate selection in Kestrel, serving different TLS certificates for different hostnames on the same IP/port? ASP.NET Core › HTTPS, Certificates & Transport Security | ASP.NET Core | HTTPS, Certificates & Transport Security | Advanced |
| 20 | What is a BackgroundService in ASP.NET Core, and how do you register one to run alongside a web application? ASP.NET Core › Background Tasks & Hosted Services | ASP.NET Core | Background Tasks & Hosted Services | Beginner |
| 21 | How does ASP.NET Core's configuration system layer multiple sources together, and what is the default provider precedence? ASP.NET Core › Configuration & Options Pattern | ASP.NET Core | Configuration & Options Pattern | Beginner |
| 22 | How do you accept a file upload in an ASP.NET Core controller action using IFormFile? ASP.NET Core › File Uploads & Streaming Large Files | ASP.NET Core | File Uploads & Streaming Large Files | Beginner |
| 23 | What is the ASP.NET Core Health Checks middleware, and what problem does it solve? ASP.NET Core › Health Checks | ASP.NET Core | Health Checks | Beginner |
| 24 | What HTTP status code does the health check middleware return by default for each status (Healthy, Degraded, Unhealthy)? ASP.NET Core › Health Checks | ASP.NET Core | Health Checks | Beginner |
| 25 | How do you enforce that all HTTP requests to an ASP.NET Core application are redirected to HTTPS? ASP.NET Core › HTTPS, Certificates & Transport Security | ASP.NET Core | HTTPS, Certificates & Transport Security | Beginner |
| 26 | What is the difference between a certificate's public key and private key, and why must the private key never be exposed or committed to source control? ASP.NET Core › HTTPS, Certificates & Transport Security | ASP.NET Core | HTTPS, Certificates & Transport Security | Beginner |
| 27 | How would you get the current date and time, and how does specifying an explicit ZoneId (versus relying on the system default) affect the result of LocalDate.now() or LocalDateTime.now()? Java › Java Date & Time API (java.time) | Java | Java Date & Time API (java.time) | Beginner |
| 28 | What is the difference between IHostedService and the BackgroundService convenience base class? ASP.NET Core › Background Tasks & Hosted Services | ASP.NET Core | Background Tasks & Hosted Services | Intermediate |
| 29 | How does IHostApplicationLifetime let a BackgroundService react to application startup and shutdown events? ASP.NET Core › Background Tasks & Hosted Services | ASP.NET Core | Background Tasks & Hosted Services | Intermediate |
| 30 | How would you configure a BackgroundService to fail fast and crash the host if a critical startup dependency (like a message broker) is unreachable? ASP.NET Core › Background Tasks & Hosted Services | ASP.NET Core | Background Tasks & Hosted Services | Intermediate |
| 31 | How do you configure CORS correctly when a Blazor WebAssembly app is hosted on a different origin than its backend API? ASP.NET Core › Blazor Integration with ASP.NET Core | ASP.NET Core | Blazor Integration with ASP.NET Core | Intermediate |
| 32 | How does appsettings.{Environment}.json layering work, and how does ASP.NET Core determine the current environment? ASP.NET Core › Configuration & Options Pattern | ASP.NET Core | Configuration & Options Pattern | Intermediate |
| 33 | How do environment variables map to nested configuration keys, given some shells don't support colons in variable names? ASP.NET Core › Configuration & Options Pattern | ASP.NET Core | Configuration & Options Pattern | Intermediate |
| 34 | How do you use IHostEnvironment/IWebHostEnvironment to conditionally configure services based on the current environment? ASP.NET Core › Configuration & Options Pattern | ASP.NET Core | Configuration & Options Pattern | Intermediate |
| 35 | What is the purpose of the Vary response header, and how does ASP.NET Core's content negotiation interact with HTTP caching correctness? ASP.NET Core › Content Negotiation & Output Formatters | ASP.NET Core | Content Negotiation & Output Formatters | Intermediate |
| 36 | How do you configure and enforce a maximum request/file upload size in ASP.NET Core, and what's the default limit? ASP.NET Core › File Uploads & Streaming Large Files | ASP.NET Core | File Uploads & Streaming Large Files | Intermediate |
| 37 | Why can't browsers natively call gRPC services directly, and what is gRPC-Web, and how does it solve this? ASP.NET Core › gRPC Services | ASP.NET Core | gRPC Services | Intermediate |
| 38 | How do you configure gRPC to work correctly when hosted behind a reverse proxy or load balancer, given gRPC's reliance on HTTP/2? ASP.NET Core › gRPC Services | ASP.NET Core | gRPC Services | Intermediate |
| 39 | What is HSTS (HTTP Strict Transport Security), and how does UseHsts() in ASP.NET Core implement it? ASP.NET Core › HTTPS, Certificates & Transport Security | ASP.NET Core | HTTPS, Certificates & Transport Security | Intermediate |
| 40 | What is a self-signed certificate, and why is the ASP.NET Core development HTTPS certificate (dotnet dev-certs) not suitable for production use? ASP.NET Core › HTTPS, Certificates & Transport Security | ASP.NET Core | HTTPS, Certificates & Transport Security | Intermediate |
| 41 | How does the UseHttpsRedirection() middleware determine which port to redirect to, and how do you explicitly configure it when the HTTPS port isn't on the default 443? ASP.NET Core › HTTPS, Certificates & Transport Security | ASP.NET Core | HTTPS, Certificates & Transport Security | Intermediate |
| 42 | How would you use JVM flags to tune heap size (-Xms, -Xmx) and understand the trade-offs of setting them equal versus allowing dynamic heap resizing? Java › Garbage Collection | Java | Garbage Collection | Intermediate |
| 43 | How does Windows Authentication (Negotiate/Kerberos) work in ASP.NET Core for intranet applications, and when is it appropriate? ASP.NET Core › Authentication | ASP.NET Core | Authentication | Advanced |
| 44 | How does graceful shutdown work for a BackgroundService, and how should ExecuteAsync respect the CancellationToken? ASP.NET Core › Background Tasks & Hosted Services | ASP.NET Core | Background Tasks & Hosted Services | Advanced |
| 45 | How do background services interact with health checks to signal their operational status to an orchestrator like Kubernetes? ASP.NET Core › Background Tasks & Hosted Services | ASP.NET Core | Background Tasks & Hosted Services | Advanced |
| 46 | How do HTTP caching headers (Cache-Control, ETag) set by an ASP.NET Core API interact with browser and CDN caching, complementing server-side caching? ASP.NET Core › Caching | ASP.NET Core | Caching | Advanced |
| 47 | How does CORS interact with an API gateway or reverse proxy sitting in front of multiple backend microservices? ASP.NET Core › CORS (Cross-Origin Resource Sharing) | ASP.NET Core | CORS (Cross-Origin Resource Sharing) | Advanced |
| 48 | How would you implement true streaming file upload using MultipartReader to avoid ASP.NET Core's default buffering behavior entirely? ASP.NET Core › File Uploads & Streaming Large Files | ASP.NET Core | File Uploads & Streaming Large Files | Advanced |
| 49 | How would you implement a health check specifically for a gRPC service, distinct from the standard ASP.NET Core health check middleware designed for REST endpoints? ASP.NET Core › gRPC Services | ASP.NET Core | gRPC Services | Advanced |
| 50 | How do you differentiate liveness and readiness health checks using tags, and why does Kubernetes treat these two probe types differently? ASP.NET Core › Health Checks | ASP.NET Core | Health Checks | Advanced |
| 51 | How would you implement a startup-specific health check distinct from ongoing liveness/readiness, useful for slow-starting applications with lengthy initialization (like cache warming or large data loads)? ASP.NET Core › Health Checks | ASP.NET Core | Health Checks | Advanced |
| 52 | How would you implement mutual TLS (mTLS) authentication in ASP.NET Core, where the server also validates a client-presented certificate? ASP.NET Core › HTTPS, Certificates & Transport Security | ASP.NET Core | HTTPS, Certificates & Transport Security | Advanced |
| 53 | How would you implement automated, zero-downtime certificate renewal using Let's Encrypt (ACME protocol) for a production ASP.NET Core deployment? ASP.NET Core › HTTPS, Certificates & Transport Security | ASP.NET Core | HTTPS, Certificates & Transport Security | Advanced |
| 54 | How would you configure OCSP stapling or handle certificate revocation checking to ensure a compromised certificate is rejected even if it hasn't yet expired? ASP.NET Core › HTTPS, Certificates & Transport Security | ASP.NET Core | HTTPS, Certificates & Transport Security | Advanced |
| 55 | How would you design a certificate rotation strategy that achieves zero downtime, avoiding the risk of an expired certificate causing an outage? ASP.NET Core › HTTPS, Certificates & Transport Security | ASP.NET Core | HTTPS, Certificates & Transport Security | Advanced |
| 56 | How would you configure a Maven or Gradle build to produce a shaded/fat JAR containing all dependencies bundled into a single executable JAR file? Java › Build Tools: Maven & Gradle | Java | Build Tools: Maven & Gradle | Advanced |
| 57 | How would you implement connection-level HTTP/2 server push handling using HttpClient's PushPromiseHandler, and in what scenario would a server proactively push additional resources? Java › Java Networking & HTTP Client | Java | Java Networking & HTTP Client | Advanced |
| 58 | How would you implement a simple HTTP server (not just a client) using the lightweight com.sun.net.httpserver.HttpServer class bundled with the JDK, without a full framework like Spring? Java › Java Networking & HTTP Client | Java | Java Networking & HTTP Client | Advanced |