Intermediate Linux (TTLX2104)

Course Objectives

This skills-focused course is about 50% lab to lecture ratio, combining expert instructor-led discussions with practical hands-on labs that emphasize current techniques, best practices and standards. Working in this hands-on lab environment, guided by our expert practitioner, attendees will explore:

• Review of the File System
• Introduction to Shells: sh, bash, and ksh
• Shell Programming
• Advanced Shell Features
• Text Manipulation Utilities
• File Processing Utilities
• Multitasking and Batch Processing
• Regular Expressions

Need different skills or topics?  If your team requires different topics or tools, additional skills or custom approach, this course may be further adjusted to accommodate.  We offer additional Unix, Linux, Scripting, administration, networking, programming, data science / machine learning and security courses which may be blended with this course for a track that best suits your learning objectives.

Course Prerequisites

This is an intermediate-level course for attendees with basic Linux experience. Attendees should have experience with common UNIX/Linux user-level commands, such as moving, copying and editing files. Experience with the vi editor is a plus.

Please see the Related Courses tab for specific Pre-Requisite courses, Related Courses that offer similar skills or topics, and next-step Learning Path recommendations.

Course Agenda

1. Review of the File System

• File System Organization
• File Types
• File and Directory Naming Rules and Conventions
• Commands for Navigating the File System
• Introduction to Inodes
• Ownership, Permissions, and Dates
• Manipulating Files and Links
• Manipulating Directories
• Determining Disk Usage
• Other File System Utilities

2. Introduction to Shells: sh, bash, and ksh

• Shell Functions
• I/O Redirection and Pipes
• Command Separation and Grouping
• Background Execution
• Filename Expansion
• Shell Variables
• Command Substitution
• Quoting and Escaping Metacharacters
• Bash Shell Features
• Korn Shell Features
• Command Execution
• Startup Files
• Customizing the User Environment

3. Shell Programming

• Shell Script Features and Capabilities
• Creating and Running a Script
• Working With Variables
• Environment Variables
• Working With Data Types
• Formatting
• Base Conversion
• Setting Special Attributes
• Input/Output Techniques
• Conditional Constructs
• if/then
• else/elif
• Looping Constructs
• for, while, until
• Math Operators

4. Advanced Shell Features

• Manipulating Strings
• Writing and Calling Functions
• Controlling Process Priorities
• Interpreting Command Line Arguments
• Making Scripts Interactive
• Special Shell Variables
• Advanced I/O with Streams
• Improving Performance of Scripts

5. Text Manipulation Utilities

• Editing a File from a Script
• Scripting with ed or sed
• UNIX and Linux Utilities to Manipulate Files
• Regular Expressions
• grep and egrep
• The Stream Editor sed
• Sorting in Scripts
• Generating Reports with awk
• Splitting Large Files
• Counting Words, Lines, and Characters
• Transforming File Contents

6. File Processing Utilities

• Examining and Comparing Files
• Reporting Differences Between Files
• Comparing Files of Any Format
• Displaying Data in Octal and Hex
• Compressing Data
• Converting File Formats
• Extracting Text Strings

7. Multitasking and Batch Processing

• Multitasking
• Scheduled Execution Using cron
• The at and batch Commands

8. Regular Expressions

• Regular Expression Overview
• Regular Expression Implementations
• Regular Expressions
• RE Character Classes
• Regex Quantifiers
• RE Parenthesis

Course Materials

Course Materials: Each student will receive a Student Guide with course notes, code samples, software tutorials, step-by-step written lab instructions, diagrams and related reference materials and links (as applicable). Students will also receive the project files (or code, if applicable) and solutions required for the hands-on work.

Lab Setup Made Simple.   All course labs and solutions, data sets, Tableau course software (limited version, for course use only), detailed courseware, lab guides and resources (as applicable) are provided for attendees in our easy access, no installation required, remote lab environment for the duration of the course. Our tech team will help set up, test and verify lab access for each attendee prior to the course start date, ensuring a smooth start to class and successful hands-on course experience for all participants.