Linux System Programming Fundamentals (NDC TechTown) workshop outline

1. Course Introduction
2. Fundamental Concepts
   • System calls and library functions
   • Error handling
   • System data types
   • Notes on code examples
3. File I/O and Files
   • File I/O overview
   • open(), read(), write(), and close()
   • The file offset and lseek()
   • Relationship between file descriptors and open files
   • Duplicating file descriptors
   • File status flags (and fcntl())
   • Retrieving file information: stat()
4. Processes
   • Process IDs
   • Process memory layout
   • Command-line arguments
   • The environment list
   • The /proc filesystem
5. Signals
   • Overview of signals
   • Signal dispositions
   • Signal handlers
   • Useful signal-related functions
   • Signal sets, the signal mask, and pending signals
   • Designing signal handlers
6. Signals: Signal Handlers
   • Async-signal-safe functions
   • Interrupted system calls
   • SA_SIGINFO signal handlers (*)
   • The signal trampoline (*)
7. Process Lifecycle
   • Introduction
   • Creating a new process: fork()
   • Process termination
   • Monitoring child processes
   • Orphans and zombies
   • The SIGCHLD signal
   • Executing programs: execve()
8. System Call Tracing with strace (*)
   • Getting started
   • Tracing child processes
   • Filtering strace output
   • System call tampering
   • Further strace options
9. Pipes and FIFOs
   • Overview
   • Creating and using pipes
   • Connecting filters with pipes (*)
   • FIFOs (*)
10. Alternative I/O Models
    • Overview
    • Nonblocking I/O
    • Signal-driven I/O
    • I/O multiplexing: poll()
11. Alternative I/O Models: epoll
    • Problems with poll() and select()
    • The epoll API
    • epoll events
    • epoll: edge-triggered notification (*)
    • epoll: API quirks (*)
    • Event-loop programming (*)

(*) Topics marked with an asterisk will be covered subject to time constraints.

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