Bash Scripting in 3 Weeks

Shell scripts have been around for 50 years, and Bash for over 30 years. As other technologies have come and gone, Bash scripting is still used daily by millions of engineers across the world, and shows no sign of going away. Despite its obscure syntax, which can be baffling to newcomers, its power as a tool for getting things done means it is still essential to learn if you have ambitions of becoming a senior engineer. Experienced engineers are assumed to have the ability to script in Bash, but there is little explicit support for newcomers to gain this fundamental skill.

Join Linux expert Ian Miell to get up to speed on Bash scripting and the tools and techniques you’ll need to write professional Bash code. The course will be helpful for students who want to earn Linux Foundation LFCS, CompTIA Linux+, or Red Hat RHCSA certifications.

Week 1: Your First Bash Scripts

In Week 1, you’ll create your first Bash script and learn about the central constructs of Bash as a programming language. In addition, you’ll cover the most common commands (such as grep, chmod, find, read) and how they are best used in shell scripts.

Week 2: Scripting Techniques

In Week 2, you’ll build on earlier work by learning about more advanced shell scripting techniques such as pipes and redirection, subshells, file handles, and command substitution. You’ll also cover more commonly used shell scripting commands, such as xargs, wc, uniq, sed, and rsync. With these commands at your fingertips, you’ll be able to tackle the vast majority of everyday challenges that can be solved by shell scripts and to read and critique most shell scripts already in use.

Week 3: Advanced Scripting

Week 3, you’ll focus on writing robust, sophisticated, and professional shell scripts that will mark you as a senior engineer. You’ll learn about job control, signal trapping, and how to debug scripts when they go wrong. You’ll also learn about the most important system commands that you might use in your scripts or for general debugging.

NOTE: With today’s registration, you’ll be signed up for all three sessions. Although you can attend any of the sessions individually, we recommend participating in all three weeks and pursuing the skills challenges in between sessions.

Skills challenges

At the end of each week, Ian Miell will provide you with a skills challenge—an interactive scenario-based evaluation to help you determine whether you’ve mastered the skills taught in the live training and whether you’re ready to apply these skills in a real-world setting.

To reinforce your learning, we strongly recommend pursuing each skills challenge before the next week of the course. If you’re unable to successfully complete the challenge, try reviewing the video recording of the live training (emailed to you 24 hours after each session) for tips.