Linux Shell Scripting Virtual Classroom Live June 30, 2025

Course Overview

• INTRODUCTION TO THE SHELL
  1. Shell Script Strengths and Weaknesses
  2. Shells
  3. Switching User Contexts
  4. Example Shell Script
  5. Shell and Environment Variables
  6. Key Environment Variables
  7. Which and Type
  8. General Quoting Rules
  9. Nesting Commands
  10. Help from Commands and Documentation
  11. whereis
  12. Getting Help Within the Graphical Desktop
  13. Getting Help with man & info
  LAB TASKS
  1. Shell Variables
  2. Shell Meta-Characters
  3. Command Substitution
• SHELL SCRIPTING BASICS
  1. Positional Parameters
  2. Input & Output
  3. printf
  4. alias
  5. Functions
  6. Colors in Scripts
  7. Custom Bash Prompts
  LAB TASKS
  1. Aliases
  2. Bash Login Scripts
  3. Create "userinfo" and "sysinfo" functions
• WORKING WITH FILES
  1. Communication Channels
  2. File Redirection
  3. Piping Commands Together
  4. Doing Math
  5. Filesystem Structures
  6. Determining Disk Usage With df and du
  7. cron
  8. The crontab Command
  9. crontab Format
  10. /etc/cron.*/ Directories
  11. Sending Email with mailx
  LAB TASKS
  1. Disk and Filesystem Usage
  2. Redirection and Pipes
• REGULAR EXPRESSIONS
  1. Searching Inside Files
  2. Regular Expression Overview
  3. Regular Expressions
  4. RE Character Classes
  5. Regex Quantifiers
  6. RE Parenthesis
  7. The Streaming Editor
  LAB TASKS
  1. Pattern Matching with Regular Expressions
  2. Extended Regular Expressions
  3. Using Regular Expressions With sed
• BRANCHING AND LOOPING
  1. Exit Status
  2. Comparisons with test
  3. Conditional Statements
  4. Flow Control: case
  5. Flow Control: while and until Loops
  6. The for Loop
  7. Flow Control: select
  LAB TASKS
  1. Reporting User Statistics
  2. Monitoring Filesystem Usage
• DATA MUNGING
  1. Text Processing with Awk
  2. Text Sorting
  3. Duplicate Removal Utility
  4. Extracting Columns of Text
  LAB TASKS
  1. Create "rmhost" function
  2. Create "showenv" function
  3. Parsing Mail Server Logs
  4. Fixing Incorrect Files
• SECURITY, WHITESPACE AND OTHER GOTCHAS
  1. Gotcha: Quoting Variables
  2. Gotcha: Locales
  3. Gotchas: Maximum Command Length
  4. Gotcha: Whitespace in for Loops
  5. Reading Files with while
  6. Gotcha: $IFS
  7. Gotcha: Printing in .bashrc
  8. Gotcha: Aliases
  LAB TASKS
  1. Renaming MP3 Files
  2. Split and Display $PATH
  3. A tar-based Backup
• CHALLENGE
  1. Apache Configuration Files
  2. httpd.conf – VirtualHost Configuration
  LAB TASKS
  1. Automated Virtual Host Provisioning
• EMACS
  1. Emacs
  2. The Emacs Interface
  3. Basic Emacs
  4. More Emacs Commands
  LAB TASKS
  1. Text Editing with Emacs
• THE SECURE SHELL (SSH)
  1. ssh and sshd Configuration
  2. Accessing Remote Shells
  3. Transferring Files
  4. SSH Key Management

Prerequisites

Solid understanding of Unix-based systems and proficiency on the Unix or Linux command line.