Course Objectives
- Explain the software delivery pipeline and the value of a fully automated delivery process.
- Identify tasks worth automating and implement them as Linux automation scenarios.
- Schedule unattended work reliably using cron and crontab.
- Work confidently within the Linux environment: file system, partitions, users and permissions.
- Write, test and maintain production-quality automation scripts.
Course Outcomes
- CO1: Describe the continuous delivery pipeline, automated build, test and deployment, and the role of RAD and code generation.
- CO2: Implement common Linux automation scenarios — archiving, backups, monitoring, reporting and provisioning.
- CO3: Schedule and debug recurring tasks with cron and crontab.
- CO4: Apply knowledge of the Linux file system, accounts and permissions to run automation with least privilege.
- CO5: Develop robust shell scripts using conditionals, regular expressions and defensive scripting practices.
Using the Decks
- Every lecture is a self-navigating slide deck — open it in any browser.
- → / Space next · ← back · O slide list · D dark mode · F full screen.
- Purple-railed slides marked DO are student work — timers and drills are built in.
- Bring a Linux terminal (VM, WSL or container) to every lecture from Unit 2 onwards.
Lecture Plan
Ten lectures covering the whole syllabus. Click a unit heading to collapse it.
The syllabus lists five units of unequal size, so the ten lectures are not distributed evenly. Unit 2 carries fourteen named automation scenarios and takes three lectures; Unit 3 is a single, tightly focused topic and takes one. Every syllabus item is covered exactly once, and each lecture ends with work that feeds the next — the script written in Unit 2 is scheduled in Unit 3, given an identity in Unit 4, and hardened into the capstone in Unit 5.
Assessment Thread
- Unit 2: choose one automation scenario and take it to production quality.
- Unit 3: schedule it, with locking, logging and a heartbeat.
- Unit 4: give it a least-privilege service identity, plus a threat note.
- Unit 5: capstone — script, identity, schedule, watcher, logrotate config, README and test evidence.
Lab Setup
- Any Linux you can break: a VirtualBox/VMware VM, WSL 2 on Windows, or a container.
- Ubuntu 22.04/24.04 LTS is assumed in the slides; differences on RHEL-family systems are flagged where they matter.
- You need
sudoon that machine — Units 3 and 4 create accounts and install cron entries. - Install
shellcheckearly:sudo apt install shellcheck.
How to Use These Resources
- Nothing below is compulsory — the decks are self-contained.
- Each entry is tagged with the units it supports, so use them as targeted remediation rather than watching front to back.
- Items marked Free need no payment or enrolment.
- On Coursera and edX, use Audit / Full course, no certificate to view the material at no cost.
Online Courses & Video Lectures
NPTEL, MOOC and YouTube material that maps onto this syllabus. All links checked in September 2026.
Linux Programming & Scripting
Prof. Anand Iyer. The closest Indian equivalent to this course's Linux half — the file system, users and groups, permissions, searching and archiving, then shell scripting with worked examples. Lectures 32–44 are the shell-scripting block and pair directly with our Unit 5.
Hands-on Introduction to Linux Commands and Shell Scripting
The single best companion to Units 3–5. Covers the Linux terminal, metacharacters, quoting, variables, command substitution, I/O redirection, pipes and filters, command-line arguments — and scheduling jobs with crontab. Ends with a project that builds a scheduled backup script, which is essentially our capstone.
Introduction to Linux (LFS101)
The standard free introduction to Linux, with over two million enrolments. Distributions, the file system, the command line, users and permissions, processes and package management — the pre-requisite material for this course, if your Linux is rusty. Available on edX or directly from the Linux Foundation training portal.
The Missing Semester of Your CS Education
Short, dense and excellent — the tooling course a CS degree never gives you. The
Shell Tools and Scripting lecture covers how the shell works, PATH,
writing bash scripts and piping commands; Data Wrangling is the best introduction
to sed, awk and regular expressions you will find. Video plus notes and exercises.
Learn Bash Scripting by Building Five Programs
Project-driven rather than syntax-driven, which is the right way round. Variables,
positional arguments, redirection, test operators, conditionals, case, arrays,
loops, functions and exit codes — the whole of our Unit 5 vocabulary, built up
through working programs. Watch this if the Lecture 9 skeleton felt abstract.
DevOps Bootcamp
Where Unit 1 goes next. Docker, Kubernetes, CI/CD with Jenkins, GitLab CI and GitHub Actions, Ansible, Terraform, Prometheus monitoring. Use this after the course to see the pipeline concepts from Lectures 1–2 implemented in real tooling.
Introduction to DevOps
The cultural and organisational half of Unit 1 — DevOps practices, CI/CD, shared ownership and the adoption path. Lighter on Linux than everything else here, and useful if you want the "why the organisation changes shape" argument developed further than a single lecture allows.
Google IT Automation with Python (Professional Certificate)
The natural sequel to Lecture 10's closing advice — know when to stop writing shell. Automation in Python, regular expressions, version control, testing and configuration management at scale. Six courses; audit the individual courses if you do not want the certificate.
Software Engineering
Prof. Rushikesh K. Joshi, Prof. Umesh Bellur and Prof. N. L. Sarda. Background for Lectures 1–2: process models, agile development, software testing, verification and validation, and project management — the discipline into which RAD and the delivery pipeline fit.
Books & Reading
Textbooks, references and freely available books. Links go to the publisher, the free official copy, or an Open Library catalogue record.
Textbooks
Continuous Delivery: Reliable Software Releases through Build, Test, and Deployment Automation
The primary text for Unit 1. Chapters 1–6 are the deployment pipeline, automated build, automated test and automated deployment — essentially the source material for Lecture 1. Still the definitive treatment fifteen years on.
The DevOps Handbook (2nd Edition)
Part III ("The First Way: Flow") is the reading for Lecture 2 — deployment pipelines, automated testing, low-risk releases and how automation drives adoption. Case-study heavy, which makes it the more persuasive book to hand to a sceptical manager.
bash Cookbook (2nd Edition)
The primary text for the scripting half. Problem-and-solution format, so it maps onto Unit 2's scenarios almost recipe for recipe — redirection, argument parsing, temporary files, locking, cron, and a strong chapter on secure shell programming.
The Linux Command Line: A Complete Introduction Free PDF
The author releases every edition as a free PDF under Creative Commons. Parts 1–3 cover the shell, the file system, permissions, processes and the environment (our Unit 4); Part 4 is a complete shell-scripting course. If you buy only one book on this list, and you would rather buy none, download this one.
Reference Books
UNIX and Linux System Administration Handbook (5th Edition)
The reference for Unit 4 and the book to keep on the desk afterwards. Access control and rootly powers, process management, the filesystem, storage, periodic processes (an excellent cron chapter), logging and system monitoring.
Classic Shell Scripting
Older, and deliberately POSIX-focused, which is exactly why it is
useful: it teaches you what is portable shell versus what is a bash extension —
the distinction behind Lecture 7's "/bin/sh is dash" problem. Superb
chapters on text processing with sed and awk.
Learning the bash Shell (3rd Edition)
A systematic, tutorial-style treatment of bash itself — expansion and quoting, parameter substitution, conditionals, functions, options and debugging. Use it when you want the language explained in order rather than as a set of recipes.
Site Reliability Engineering: How Google Runs Production Systems Free online
Readable in full at no cost on Google's site. The chapters on eliminating toil, monitoring distributed systems and being on call are the industrial version of Unit 2's "what is worth automating" and Unit 3's "alert on the absence of success".
Accelerate: The Science of Lean Software and DevOps
The research behind Lecture 2's four delivery metrics, and the evidence for the claim that speed and stability rise together rather than trading off. Short. Read chapter 2 before you argue for a pipeline with anybody.
The Phoenix Project: A Novel about IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win
A novel, not a textbook — and the most efficient way to understand why manual deployment destroys an organisation, which no amount of slides conveys. Optional, enjoyable, and read by most people you will work with.
Free Manuals, Guides & Tools
A note on using these. The four starred tools — ShellCheck, explainshell, crontab.guru and the Bash manual — are worth more to you during the capstone than any book on this page. ShellCheck in particular catches every defect in the Lecture 10 conditionals drill, and running it is a requirement of the Lecture 9 homework. Course and book links were verified in September 2026; if one has moved, the title and ISBN are given so you can find it again.