Course Outline

topic #	Topic	Reading	Homework	Slides
1	installation and environment linux vs UNIX, linux vs linux distributions (lecture) roles of OS, shell, programs (lecture)	Sobell ch 1 "Welcome" - an encompassing, casual background overview of linux Tutorial on MBR and GPT scan A GPT header, part of the GUID partition scheme. "Hard disk layout" - ibmdeveloperworks (through section "GPT partitions") write-ups at class website links entitled "Remote Unix access with ssh" "ssh client alternatives" "Variations among Unixes"	do - fundamental linux commands listen - 1985 roundtable discussion about UNIX. (alternative copy for download here as 25MB zipped mp4 file) ---------------------------------------- for reference only: line termination conventions per OS write-up video exercise hex-dump tools: od command usage - to dump files (and other data) in octal (and other) formats for reference - 3 low-level dump/edit commands xxd's documentation od's documentation bvi's documentation MBR dump Parition table under the microscope	Intro/installation
2	bootup and initialization	article Inside the Linux Boot Process IBM The systemd mechanism for system initialization systemd author's blog wiki	systemd (system initialization method)	Bootup (static slides version) Bootup (narrated lecture version)
3	processes How programs get run fork/exec (lecture)	information scattered in Sobell. Read "Running a Program in the Background" pp163-165 "Processes" pp373-376. Note the interesting pstree command "kill" pp.465-467 "$$: PID number" pp.1028 Videos:: - Linux fork() introduction (1st 11 min) - Linux Exec System Call (1st 9 min) - Fork and Exec System Programming (1st 9:54)	fork system call exec system call	Processes (static slides version) Processes (narrated slides version)
4	user interface: the shell	Sobell ch 5 (7th ed.) "The Shell" - read the whole chapter Sobell ch 9's section entitled "Processing the Command Line," pp. 403-413 for reference -\| bash shell's man page Bash Reference Manual	simpleshell filename expansion	The Shell (static slides) The Shell (narrated slides) (some diagrams toward the end of the static slides illustrating I/O redirection do not appear in the narration)
5	filesystem permissions	Sobell ch 6 (7th ed.) read from the section "Access Permissions" pp. 191-98 and ch9 from the section "Writing and Executing a Shell Script" pp. 336-338 overview of "File permissions"	permissions intro permissions	Permissions (static slides version) Permissions (narrated slides version)
6	interactive bash	"The Linux Utilities" in the textbook (ch 7 in 7th edition, ch 5 in 6th edition) - a catalog of important commands. Read it but skip discussion of the following less important commands: hostname, lpr, diff, mcopy, gzip/gunzip/bzip, apropos, finger, w, write/talk/mesg. Skip vim tutorial. ASCII chart - control characters eg ctlZ=dec26=oct032=hex1A version1 version2 generating binary characters in several products documentation per product syntax product comparison matrix script that generates them	arrays and shell customization functions and file traversal selectstate sortstates	interactive bash (static slides version) interactive bash (narrated slides version 1hr 15min) text processing tools (static slides version) text processing tools (narrated slides version 2hr36min)
7	shell scripting	Sobell ch 9 "The Bourne Again Shell" The chapter is full of embedded short 1- and 2-liner examples. I suggest you be at a bash shell while reading, to try out some of the interesting ones as you go. The most important topics appear in the following pages: 328-340, 352-356, 359-360, 366-367, 373-376, 388-389, 396-398 Sobell ch 17 "Programming the Bourne Again Shell" sections of primary importance: 981-1012 control structures 1014-1015 here document 1022-1029 positional and special parameters 1031-1034 variable parameters 1041-1044 read builtin 1056-1058 arithmetic/logical evaluation write-ups at class website links entitled "Shell script basics" and "Shell programming: if and while" see also the Bash Programming Introduction HOWTO for reference - Advanced Bash-Scripting Guide	~~Shellscript 1~~ ~~Shellscript 2~~ categorize states	getting started (static slides version) getting started (narrated slides version 1hr35min) Shell Scripting (static slides version) Shell Scripting (narrated slides version 2hr28min)
8	user administration	Sobell ch 15 pp. 598-601 but skip the discussion of system-config-users pp. 508-509 /etc/passwd file p. 511 /etc/shadow pp. 506-507 /etc/group	user management script	User administration (static slides version) User administration (narrated slides version 1hr43min) User management script example (static slides version) User management script example (narrated slides version 1hr)
9	automated remote configuration management with ansible	view and survey ansible's documentation browse the list of ansible modules	ansible	ansible (static slides version) ansible (narrated slides version 46min)
10	remote management, webmin	Webmin: A web-based Linux management tool RedHat article	explore webmin	none
11	task scheduling	Sobell Chapter 15 (7th ed.) section titled "Scheduling Tasks" pp. 607-611	scheduled jobs	Scheduled processes (static slides version) Scheduled processes (narrated slides version 59min))
12	Subcontractors: bc, find, xargs	bc tutorial examples - phodd.net interesting xargs stuff documentation: Advanced Bash Scripting Guide contains coverage of bc, xargs, and find GNU bc (precision calculator) manual GNU Findutils manual	bc exercise Example program - reporting disk hogs, employs find bc to perform RSA encryption algorithm	subcontractors - bc (static) subcontractors - bc (narrated 34min) subcontractors - find (static) subcontractors - find (narrated 30min) subcontractors - xargs (static) subcontractors - xargs (narrated 26min)
13	Comparative UNIX kernels, shells, applications, Oh My! Ubuntu, CentOS, FreeBSD, Oh My!!		do - this capstone exercise on comparison among different flavors of UNIX.
				instructor reference: sort multi-line blocks with AWK