Assignment Learning Outcomes

• Able to correctly apply the following Linux ideas and commands to operate in the terminal:
  • ls; know arguments like -l, -a
  • Paths: relative and absolute, pwd, cd, ~, . and ..
  • Hidden files (. at start of filename); file
  • man, and search inside man page with \<search-term>, n for next, q to quit.
  • mkdir, rmdir
  • touch, cp, mv, rm / rm -r
  • cat, less
  • Terminal Wildcards: *, ?, [sv]*
  • File permissions: owner, group, others; r,w,x; chmod.
    • Don't need to memorize permission shorthand (octal or binary).
  • head, tail; know arguments like head -10 or tail -5 myfile.txt
  • sort, nl, wc (with arguments -l, -w, -m)
  • top, ps, kill
  • sleep, fg
• Understand regular expressions
  • egrep
  • ., [abc], [^abc], [a-z], ^, $
  • [a-z]{2}
  • +, *, {n}
• Able to use piping and redirecting:
  • stdin (0), stout (1), stderr (2)
  • >, >>, <, 2>
  • |
• Understand basic git workflow including the purpose of the following commands:
  • git clone
  • git add
  • git commit
  • git push

Know NeoVim ideas and commands including:

• nvim <filename>
• Command mode vs insert (entry) mode; how to transition between them.
  • Know which is the default mode you should be in most of the time you are working with code.
• Save/Quit: :w, :q, :wq, :q!
• Navigate: j, k, h, l, ^, $, w, b, {, }
• Deleting Content: dd, x, dw, d5w
• Undo/Redo: u, ctrl+r, U
• Inserting text: i, A, a, o, O
• Visual/Yank/Put: v, y, p, P

Able to read, write, and understand bash scripts featuring:

• Shebang (#!/bin/bash)
• Comments
• Command line arguments ($#, $0, $1, $2, ...)
• Variables: $RANDOM, myvar=51, $myvar, read varname
• grep "hi[a-z]\{10\}"
• v=$( ls | wc )
• echo
• cat /dev/stdin | sort
• Math: let "a = 5 + 4", let a++, b=$(( 5 + 4 )), ((i++)), `c=$(( count % 2 == 0))
• Branching and Logic:
  • if [ $a -gt 100 ], then, fi
  • else; elif;
  • &&, ||
  • Tests: -n, =, -eq, -gt, -lt
• Loops:
  • while [...], do, done
  • for myvar in <list>, do, done
  • for i in {1..5}, or for ((num = 1; num <= 5; num++))
  • break, continue

• Know what happen (generally) during pre-processing, compiling, and linking steps.
• How to use clang to:
  • Compile a single .c file
  • Compile multiple .c files and .h files.
  • Generate object files (-o).
  • Link multiple object files into an executable.
• Understand static libraries vs shared libraries.
  • Know what a shared library's name means, like libpthread.so.0.
  • Know how to use ar to generate an archive.
  • Know the -l and -L arguments to clang.
  • Know the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable.
• Understand the following compiler options:
  • -I, -g, -Wall, -Werror, -Weverything, -Wextra, -fsanitize=..., -O1, -O2, -O3

Know the following about build systems:

• Purpose of a modern build system.
• Make
  • Know how to create a Makefile including using targets, prerequisites,
  • Understand and able to write make clean, and make all
  • Use variables x := myfile.c, echo ${x}
  • Able to use wildcards * and %
  • Know about the implicit rules, but don't have to memorize them.
• CMake
  • Know the process for how CMake fits into build system with Make.
  • Know the 3 required components of a CMakeLists.txt, and how to use each.
  • Know the role of build/, and commands to build in this folder (both from inside build/, and from inside the project root directory).
  • Understand include_directories(...) and file(GLOB SOURCES "src/*.c")

• Logging
  • Know the purpose of log statements.
  • Understand how to use log.c logging library (you don't have to memorize it, but if provided, you should be able to use it).
• Assertions
  • Know the purpose of assert statement with regard to verifying preconditions and postconditions.
  • Able to write C code using assert.
• Static Checkers & Sanitizers
  • Know the difference between static and dynamic checkers.
  • Know the purpose of a linter and a sanitizer.
  • Understand how to enable Clang's sanitizers.
• Fuzzers
  • Know the purpose of using a fuzzer.
  • Understand how to use LibFuzzer (but not memorized).
• Debuggers
  • Know the purpose of a debugger.
  • Know how to use cgdb, including:
    • Compiling with debug information (-g)
    • Set breakpoint with break <...>
    • Run/step: run, step, next, continue
    • View info: print, list
    • Watchpoints: watch <var>
    • quit

• Know the memory layout table.
• Know what pointers store and how they operate.
  • Know pointer arithmetic vs non-pointer arithmetic.
  • Know pointers and arrays are interchangable; able to use them as such in C.
• Understand the text segment: what it contains, how we can read it.
  • Understand objdump
• Understand Data and BSS segments: what they contain, how we can read them.
  • Able to view addresses of variables in Data and BSS, and interpret layout.
  • Know the difference between Data and BSS segments.
• Understand the stack segment
  • Know how arrays and variables are laid out in memory.
  • Understand how array access works and how out of bounds access works.
• Function calls
  • Know how the stack grows and shrinks with stack frames from function calls.
  • Know what goes into a stack frame.
  • Understand what a stack buffer overflow attack is, and why we should never use gets().
  • Understand purpose of getrlimit().

• Understand what happens when a user program accesses the kernel memory space.
• Know where shared libraries are loaded in memory.
• Know what malloc(), calloc(), realloc(), and free() do.
• Know the use of pointers for dynamic memory allocation (using malloc(), free(), etc.).
• Know why the heap memory management is considered manual.
• Know how memory leak can occur, why it is a problem, and how to avoid it.
• Understand memory safety issues.
• Understand how raw bytes are represented in memory (endianness), and how different data types are represented in memory (e.g., int, float, double, char, struct).
• Understand the concept of memory alignment, padding, and packing.

• TBA

• TBA

• TBA

• TBA

• TBA