CD-BSP Basic Scripting and Programming

The intent of this Basic Scripting and Programming (BSP) Knowledge Unit is to provide students with foundational skills in scripting and programming. It focuses on enabling students to write simple scripts/programs to automate and perform simple operations, and to provide students with the skills necessary to implement scripts and programming languages to solve problems.

Learning outcomes

What a student must demonstrate to claim coverage of this unit. Each outcome links to the skill drills that assess it.

1. CD-BSP-O1 Write and execute simple scripts to automate system administration tasks.
2. CD-BSP-O2 Write and execute programs in a high-level language using basic programming constructs and concepts
3. CD-BSP-O3 Write and execute simple linear and looping scripts.
4. CD-BSP-O4 Write and execute simple and compound conditions within a programming language or similar environment (e.g., scripts, macros, SQL).
5. CD-BSP-O5 Implement basic security practices in scripting, including bounds checking and input validation.
6. CD-BSP-O6 Demonstrate conceptual understanding and practical use of regular programming or scripting expressions.

Topics

The content areas within this unit. Curricula must cover an appropriate subset.

• CD-BSP-T2 Permissions (e.g., Linux, Windows, MacOS), bounds checking, input validation, type checking and parameter validation
• CD-BSP-T3 Fundamental concepts and basic implementation of regular expressions
• CD-BSP-T6 Scripting language on both Windows and Linux (e.g. PERL, Python, BASH, JAVA, VB Scripting, Powershell)
• CD-BSP-T8a Variables and types (e.g., int, float, char, etc.)
• CD-BSP-T8d Assignments (e.g., :=, =, ++, --, etc.)
• CD-BSP-T8i Console and file I/O

EWU courses that cover this unit

CSCD 240 lectures and labs

Exam questions that cite this unit

• CSCD240-E1-A-Q14 grep-recursive Show the filenames containing "printf" in all .c files in home directory and subdirs.
• CSCD240-E1-A-Q15 env-path Add /opt/tools/bin to PATH for the current shell.
• CSCD240-E1-A-Q20 background Execute firefox and allow the shell to be used for other activities.
• CSCD240-E1-A-Q25 alias Create alias ll for long listing with human-readable file sizes.
• CSCD240-E1-A-Q28 globbing Files: data, data1, data12, data2. Display only data1 and data12 via ls.
• CSCD240-E1-A-Q29 regex contacts.txt has Name<tab>number lines. Print only those whose number ends with 6.
• CSCD240-E1-A-Q31 quoting var="Stu Steiner". A) echo "Hello $var" B) echo 'Hello $var'. Explain difference and output.
• CSCD240-E1-A-Q35 redir-stderr Send only stderr of "scan /etc/shadow" to errors.log; keep stdout on terminal.
• CSCD240-E1-A-Q36 redir-merge Send BOTH stdout and stderr of build.sh into build.log.
• CSCD240-E1-A-Q38 pipeline-distinct Count distinct lines in visitors.txt (unsorted input).
• CSCD240-E1-A-Q39 assignment A) FOO=bar B) FOO = bar. Which is valid? One-sentence explanation of the error.
• CSCD240-E1-A-Q43 history-expansion Forgot sudo on previous command. Re-run with sudo prepended without retyping.
• CSCD240-E1-A-Q44 history Bash keystroke that begins reverse-incremental history search.
• CSCD240-E1-A-Q45 command-substitution Print "Backup taken on <today>" using $(date +%Y-%m-%d) as the date.
• CSCD240-E1-A-Q46 env Display every environment variable currently defined in your shell.
• CSCD240-E1-A-Q50 log-pipeline auth.log line format "2026-04-14 08:31 FAIL user=alex src=10.x". Print top-3 FAIL source IPs, count first, most-frequent first.
• CSCD240-E1-B-Q15 redir Send only stderr of "scan /etc/shadow" to errors.log; leave stdout on terminal.
• CSCD240-E1-B-Q16 redir Send BOTH stdout and stderr of build.sh to build.log.
• CSCD240-E1-B-Q19 log-pipeline Top 5 source IPs in FAIL lines of auth.log, where IP is field 5.
• CSCD240-E1-B-Q22 regex-alt Print lines of fw.log matching DENY OR DROP (extended regex).
• CSCD240-E1-B-Q39 quoting var="Red Team". A) echo "Go $var" B) echo 'Go $var'. Output + explain difference.
• CSCD240-E1-B-Q40 assignment A) FOO=bar B) FOO = bar. Which valid; explain error.
• CSCD240-E1-B-Q41 command-subst Print "Backup taken on <today>" using $(date +%F).
• CSCD240-E1-B-Q42 env-path Append /opt/tools/bin to PATH for current shell.
• CSCD240-E1-B-Q43 shell-config Reload ~/.bashrc without opening a new terminal.
• CSCD240-E1-B-Q44 alias Alias lsm = ls -lah --sort=time.
• CSCD240-E1-B-Q47 history Re-run the previous command with sudo prepended without retyping.
• CSCD240-E1-B-Q48 history Bash keystroke to begin reverse-incremental history search.
• CSCD240-E1-C-Q05 redir Which redirection sends only stderr of a command to a file err.log?
• CSCD240-E1-C-Q09 quoting NAME=ops. echo '$NAME' prints what?

CTF challenges aligned to this unit