In my experience this type of interview (and coding interviews in general) usually fall into one of two categories: 1) "I learned this neat trick and want to show candidates how smart I am" or 2) "I have this bug in prod and I want to see if you can fix it for me."
If the interview was along the lines of upgrading the packages on the system, debugging why nginx was crashing, figuring out the specs of the system, etc. that is totally fine with me and I believe respectful of a candidates time. Unfortunately it always turns into something else when people need to come up with new "challenges" for canidates.
If the interview was along the lines of upgrading the packages on the system, debugging why nginx was crashing, figuring out the specs of the system, etc. that is totally fine with me and I believe respectful of a candidates time. Unfortunately it always turns into something else when people need to come up with new "challenges" for canidates.