The best task to perform to resolve this issue is B. Remove the entry for portal.comptia.org from the local hosts file. This is because the local hosts file has a wrong entry that maps portal.comptia.org to 10.10.10.55, which is different from the actual IP address of 192.168.1.55 that is returned by the DNS server. This causes a mismatch and prevents the workstation from accessing the website. By removing or correcting the entry in the hosts file, the workstation will use the DNS server to resolve the domain name and access the website successfully.
To remove or edit the entry in the hosts file, you need to have root privileges and use a text editor such as vi or nano. For example, you can run the command:
sudo vi /etc/hosts
and delete or modify the line that says:
10.10.10.55 portal.comptia.org
Then save and exit the file.

Explanation
The administrator should do the following two actions to resolve the issue:
Boot the system on a LiveCD/ISO. This is necessary to access the system and repair the boot loader. A LiveCD/ISO is a bootable media that contains a Linux distribution that can run without installation. The administrator can boot the system from the LiveCD/ISO and mount the root partition of the system to a temporary directory, such as /mnt.
Execute grub-install /dev/sdX and reboot. This will reinstall the GRUB boot loader to the disk device, where sdX is the device name of the disk, such as sda or sdb. The GRUB boot loader is a program that runs when the system is powered on and allows the user to choose which operating system or kernel to boot. The issue is caused by a corrupted or missing GRUB boot loader, which prevents the system from booting. The command grub-install will restore the GRUB boot loader and fix the issue.
The other options are incorrect because they either do not fix the boot loader (interrupt the boot process in the GRUB menu or fix the partition modifying /etc/default/grub) or do not use the correct syntax (grub-install
--root-directory=/mnt instead of grub-install /dev/sdX or rescue or single instead of recovery in the GRUB menu). References: CompTIA Linux+ (XK0-005) Certification Study Guide, Chapter 8: Managing the Linux Boot Process, pages 265-266.

Explanation
The command if [ -f "$filename" ]; then checks if the variable $filename refers to a regular file that exists.
The -f option is used to test for files. If the condition is true, the commands after then are executed. This is the correct way to replace the <CONDITIONAL> string. The other options are incorrect because they either use the wrong option (-d tests for directories), the wrong syntax (missing a semicolon after the condition), or the wrong keyword (while is used for loops, not conditions). References: CompTIA Linux+ (XK0-005) Certification Study Guide, Chapter 16: Writing and Executing Bash Shell Scripts, page 493.

The administrator should use the command mount disk by device-id to resolve the device mismatch issue and mount the disk. The issue is caused by the cloned server having a different device name for the disk than the original server. The output of blkid shows that the disk has the device name /dev/sdb1 on the cloned server, but the output of cat /etc/fstab shows that the disk is expected to have the device name /dev/sda1. The command mount disk by device-id will mount the disk by using its unique identifier (UUID) instead of its device name. The UUID can be obtained from the output of blkid or lsblk -f. The command will mount the disk to the specified mount point (/data) and resolve the issue.

If the application server can ping the database server by its IP address but not by its hostname, it indicates a DNS resolution issue. The most likely cause is incorrect DNS server configuration.
The engineer should verify the DNS settings in /etc/resolv.conf or the network configuration.