Chapter Topics#
The chapters progress from Linux foundations to Bash programming, reliable automation, and authorized cybersecurity workflows. This table describes the curriculum, including topics whose draft sections are still being developed. Preview, Lab, Homework, and Project activities accompany each chapter.
Chapter |
Topics |
|---|---|
Terminals and shells; Unix and Linux history and design; terminal navigation; kernel, shell, and processes; filesystem hierarchy; authorized lab boundaries. |
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Absolute and relative paths; path tracing; elementary file operations; previewing batches; metadata and links; hidden configuration files; project organization. |
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Users and groups; privileges and sudo; ownership; permission symbols; chmod and chown; umask; default permissions; least privilege and risky access. |
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The Unix file model; viewing and inspecting data; standard input, output, and error; basic pipes; basic redirection; composing inspection commands. |
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Command structure and arguments; quoting and escaping; introductory variables; word splitting and globbing; safe argument construction; POSIX and Bash; shebangs; creating and executing a script; executable permissions; exit status. |
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Assignment and quoted expansion; shell and environment variables; parameter transformations; value construction and integer-expansion preview; indexed arrays and associative-array extension; PATH and environment security. |
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Integer operators and arithmetic commands; numeric and string comparisons; logical operators; file tests; command exit status; short-circuit preflight checks. |
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Branching with if and case; list and condition-based loops; break and continue; positional argument validation; getopts and usage errors; interactive input. |
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Function definition and invocation; local and global scope; return status; reusable libraries; modular script organization. |
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Standard streams and file descriptors; redirection order; pipelines and tee; pipeline status; process substitution and its failure boundaries. |
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grep and regular expressions; find and file discovery; cut, tr, sort, and uniq; sed and awk syntax; combined log-analysis pipelines; JSON with jq (draft). |
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Log generation and inspection; reports; here-documents and here-strings; evidence files; timestamps; hashes and integrity verification. |
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Exit codes and error propagation; shell options; traps; shopt and subshells; input validation; temporary files and cleanup; dependency checks; defensive scripting; logging and error redirection. |
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Process identity and state; signals; foreground and background jobs; disk and memory inspection; top and process snapshots; load and performance interpretation. |
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Package awareness (draft); service state and lifecycle (draft); journal inspection (draft); unit structure and foreground supervision; persistence review (draft). |
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Cron schedules and execution environment; one-time jobs with at; foreground workers and shutdown; overlap prevention; NUL-delimited xargs input; bounded parallel jobs. |
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Connectivity and HTTP checks; SSH host identity and authentication; remote execution and quoting; secure transfer with scp and rsync; remote monitoring and automation. |
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Maintenance; file and database backups; archives; recovery; restore testing; verification of recovered data. |
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Permission audits; account and SSH checks; secrets and integrity checks; secure configuration; repeatable audit reports. |
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Authorized host triage; log-review pipelines; indicators and inventory; incident reports; applying the host audit toolkit. |
Complete VM onboarding in Appendix H: Tooling before VM-based assignments. Keep the book and terminal tiled side by side. Appendix C provides the detailed POSIX portability reference; Appendix G organizes the host audit toolkit capstone.