Did you used to play with LEGOs — or maybe you still do? Do you marvel at the complexity of objects you can construct from simple, discrete parts? The same idea applies to working with the shell. As you become familiar with different shell programs — such as sed, grep, and awk — you’ll be able to add them to your repertoire and advance your shell skills from the equivalent of a five-piece LEGO car to a space fortress.
If your ultimate goal as an admin is to do more in less time, you owe it to yourself to improve your shell skill-set. This session will cover the basics and put you well on your way to becoming self-sufficient with the shell.
Key Concepts:
- Gain familiarity with the bash environment, learn about the UNIX Philosophy, automate tedious tasks, link commands together to perform complex tasks, use logical constructs like if/then/else and for loops.
Foundational Lecture – 75 Minutes
Peter Bukowinski, Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Peter Bukowinski has been working in the IT field since 1996 and has worn many different hats over the years: Mac Admin, Web Developer, Windows Admin, Network Engineer, and Linux Admin, to name a few. He once worried that his “jack-of-all-trades” approach might become a liability, but he repressed that emotion and hasn’t regretted it yet. He currently works as a Linux Sysadmin at Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Janelia Farm Research Campus, focusing on automation and reducing management complexity.