CAE-CD Technical Core OSC

CD-OSC Operating Systems Concepts

The intent of this Operating Systems Concepts (OSC) Knowledge Unit is to provide students with an understanding of the roles of an operating system, its basic functions, and the services provided by the operating system.

Learning outcomes

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

CD-OSC-O1 Describe and discuss the role and basic functions of an operating system.
CD-OSC-O2 Describe and discuss how operating systems interact with hardware and software applications.
CD-OSC-O3 Identify and describe basic security issues of operating systems.
CD-OSC-O4 Install, configure, and harden operating systems in a virtual environment.

Topics

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

CD-OSC-T1 Installation and configuration of common OSes (e.g., Linux distros, Windows)
CD-OSC-T2 Privileged and non-privileged states
CD-OSC-T3 Application processes and threads
CD-OSC-T4 Memory (e.g., real, virtual, and management)
CD-OSC-T5 Files systems, log files
CD-OSC-T6 Virtualization/hypervisors
CD-OSC-T7 Fundamental security design principles as applied to an OS (e.g., System Hardening, Domain separation, process isolation, resource encapsulation, least privilege)
CD-OSC-T8 Access controls (e.g., models and mechanisms)
CD-OSC-T9 Domain separation, process isolation, resource encapsulation, least privilege

EWU courses that cover this unit

CSCD240-S26 primary

CSCD 240 — C and Unix Programming

Operating Systems Concepts.

CSCD240 primary

CSCD 240 — C and Unix Programming

Operating Systems Concepts: processes, scheduling, memory, file systems, permissions.

CSCD470 strong

CSCD 470 — Operating Systems

OS Concepts advanced.

CSCD 240 lectures and labs

Lectures

CSCD240-S26-L01 Setup: VPN, SSH, GitHub Classroom, Tokens, First Commands
CSCD240-S26-L02 Shell basics, navigation, file type identification, which
CSCD240-S26-L03 Files, directories, file command, wildcards, viewing
CSCD240-S26-L04 Command history, man pages, help system, history file
CSCD240-S26-L05 Permissions part 1: ls -l anatomy, rwx, file types
CSCD240-S26-L06 Permissions part 2: chmod octal + symbolic, directory x bit
CSCD240-S26-L07 I/O redirection, aliases, source, .bashrc, env
CSCD240-S26-L08 Pipes, filters, grep, sort, uniq, wc, tar

Labs

CSCD240-S26-LAB0 Lab 0: Setup Verification
CSCD240-S26-LAB1 Linux Lab 1: Navigation and Files
CSCD240-S26-LAB2 Linux Lab 2: Pathnames and History
CSCD240-S26-LAB3 Linux Lab 3: Permissions and Man Pages
CSCD240-S26-LAB4 Linux Lab 4: Redirection and Environment
CSCD240-S26-LAB5 Linux Lab 5: Quoting and File Utilities
CSCD240-S26-LAB6 Linux Lab 6: Processes and Pipes

Exam questions that cite this unit

CSCD240-E1-A-Q01 navigation pwd is /home/ssteiner/labs/lab1; home is /home/ssteiner. For each cd, show pwd after. Assume return to starting pwd.
CSCD240-E1-A-Q02 io Give a single command that does a long listing of the current directory and scrolls the output one page at a time.
CSCD240-E1-A-Q03 io-redirection Cause executable grader to run with stdout redirected to report.txt. pwd is part of PATH.
CSCD240-E1-A-Q04 permissions Given -rw-r-x--x 2 ssteiner faculty 4096 Apr 14 09:30 notes.sh — what does the - as first symbol mean?
CSCD240-E1-A-Q05 permissions-anatomy Describe what r, w, x, and - mean and what each group of three symbols means.
CSCD240-E1-A-Q06 permissions First symbol d — what does this mean?
CSCD240-E1-A-Q07 permissions First symbol l — what does this mean?
CSCD240-E1-A-Q08 permissions What does 4096 refer to in the ls -l line?
CSCD240-E1-A-Q09 permissions Who owns this file?
CSCD240-E1-A-Q10 permissions What group does this file belong to?
CSCD240-E1-A-Q11 permissions-chmod Change permissions of notes.sh: owner rwx, group rx, other none. Use octal.
CSCD240-E1-A-Q12 permissions-chmod Using only letters, remove write permission from the owner on notes.sh.
CSCD240-E1-A-Q13 search-find Somewhere in the filesystem there is a file config.ini. Locate it.
CSCD240-E1-A-Q16 file-ops Copy report.txt from current dir into subdirectory archive.
CSCD240-E1-A-Q17 process-listing Display PID and full process info for all processes containing "python".
CSCD240-E1-A-Q18 process-definition Define what a process is.
CSCD240-E1-A-Q19 job-vs-process Define what a job is and explain how jobs differ from processes.
CSCD240-E1-A-Q21 jobs-output Firefox running in background; nothing else. What does typing jobs print?
CSCD240-E1-A-Q22 reading-comprehension 3 jobs: 1) firefox 2) gedit 3) code. Bring kate to foreground — give the command.
CSCD240-E1-A-Q23 signal ./daemon &. Terminate the JOB daemon (no other jobs active).
CSCD240-E1-A-Q24 process-termination ./daemon &. Terminate the PROCESS via PID (PID=7291). Show PID discovery AND kill.
CSCD240-E1-A-Q26 rm-recursive Using absolute path, remove subdirectory scratch under /home/ssteiner. Not in home dir.
CSCD240-E1-A-Q27 file-ops Remove empty subdirectory tmp under /home/ssteiner. You are in home dir.
CSCD240-E1-A-Q30 archive Create gzip-compressed tarball backup.tar.gz of all .txt files in pwd.
CSCD240-E1-A-Q32 help-system Explain man and --help. When to use each?
CSCD240-E1-A-Q33 sys-id SSH-in; confirm machine name, kernel version, and architecture in one command.
CSCD240-E1-A-Q34 grep Print lines of access.log containing 403 with their line numbers.
CSCD240-E1-A-Q37 field-extract data.csv has comma-separated records. Print just the second column.
CSCD240-E1-A-Q42 chmod-recursive Recursively change permissions in current dir so group and other have no write permission.
CSCD240-E1-A-Q47 priority PID 9142 — reduce priority (increase nice value to +10) without stopping it.