Welcome to CS 24! We’re super excited to have you here this term!
Announcements
Due Soon
Calendar
Wellness and Inclusion
It is very important to us that you succeed in CS 24. We provide many extra resources to help you. Adam and the TAs hold many office hours, and we have a message board called campuswire.
It is also very important to us that you maintain your mental wellness throughout the course. A few points are not worth losing sleep over. Everyone on the course staff is available to chat, and you can always attend office hours for a non-academic conversation if necessary. You can also visit the counseling center if you find you need help beyond the course staff. If you have a temporary health condition or permanent disability (either mental health or physical health related), you should contact accessibility services if you have not already. Additionally, if there is something we can do to make your experience better, please let us know.
Diversity, inclusion, and belonging are all core values of this course. All participants in this course must be treated with respect by other members of the community in accordance with the honor code. If you feel unwelcome or unsafe in any way, no matter how minor, we encourage you to talk to Adam or one of the Deans. We view these sorts of honor code violations as completely unacceptable, and we take them very seriously.
Course Staff
Instructor
Teaching Assistants
Handouts
The following is a list of handouts that you might find helpful throughout the course. We’ve categorized them by when they are useful.
Course
Syllabus – an overview of the course and administrative information
Collaboration Policy – the course collaboration policy
Course Policies & Guidelines – an overview how the course will work since we’re online
Code Quality Guidelines – a list of style requirements for the projects
Tools of the Trade – tutorials for tools that you will need to use in this course
Manual Pages – documentation for relevant standard C functions
Weeks 2 & 3
x86-64 Reference – a description of relevant instructions and ABIs for x86-64
Schedule
| L00 | Wed, Sep 30 |
Perspectives on Computing Systems
What is this course about? How will grading work? What will the notes look like? What is hexadecimal and why do I care? How do computers represent information?
|
| L01 | Fri, Oct 02 |
Memory
[ pdf
]
What does an abstraction for memory look like? Give me the details!
|
| L02 | Mon, Oct 05 |
Fixed-Width Integers
[ pdf
]
How do computers represent integers? What about negative numbers? How does this affect me as a programmer?
DS 4.1-4.7
|
| Project00 (disk) due @ 11:30 pm on Mon, Oct 05 | ||
| L03 | Wed, Oct 07 |
x86-64 Introduction
[ pdf
]
What is x86-64? Why should I care about assembly? How can I understand basic assembly programs and instructions such as mov and others?
DS 7.1-7.3
|
| L04 | Fri, Oct 09 |
x86-64 Conditionals
[ pdf
]
How does branching work in x86-64? What is a label? How can we translate if statements into assembly?
DS 7.4
|
| L05 | Mon, Oct 12 |
x86-64 Loops & Data
[ pdf
]
Can you decipher the mystery programs? How do memory instructions work?
DS 7.5-7.6
|
| Project01 (jvm) due @ 11:30 pm on Mon, Oct 12 | ||
| L06 | Wed, Oct 14 |
x86-64 Procedures
[ pdf
]
How do function calls and returns work? What is 'the stack' really?
DS 7.7-7.9, 12
|
| L07 | Fri, Oct 16 |
Security: Buffer Overflows
What happens if we read past the end of a buffer? How can we exploit this?
|
| L08 | Mon, Oct 19 |
Security: Buffer Overflows, Continued
Are there more sophisticated buffer overflow attacks? How do those work?
|
| Project02 (asmgen) due @ 11:30 pm on Mon, Oct 19 | ||
| L09 | Wed, Oct 21 |
Dynamic Memory: Basic
[ pdf
]
What does a "basic" implementation of malloc look like?
|
| L10 | Fri, Oct 23 |
Dynamic Memory: Advanced
[ pdf
]
How can we make a performant malloc implementation?
|
| L11 | Mon, Oct 26 |
Dynamic Memory: Garbage Collection
[ pdf
]
How does Python handle reclaiming memory?
|
| L12 | Wed, Oct 28 |
ECF: Processes
[ pdf
]
What is a process? How does Linux create, maintain, and destroy processes? How do shells work?
DS 13.2, OSTEP 5
|
| L13 | Fri, Oct 30 |
ECF: Signals
[ pdf
]
How do programs that are misbehaving get dealt with? How does the kernel communicate to user programs that something important has happened?
DS 13.4.1
|
| :( | Mon, Nov 02 | No Class |
| Project03 (shellcode) due @ 11:30 pm on Mon, Nov 02 | ||
| :( | Wed, Nov 04 | No Class |
| L14 | Fri, Nov 06 |
Memory: Locality & The Memory Hierarchy
[ pdf
]
How is memory unified into a seemingly giant array? What properties of programs make this work? How can we write good programs that take advantage of these properties?
DS 11.1-11.2
|
| L15 | Mon, Nov 09 | Memory: Cache Memories DS 11.3 |
| L16 | Wed, Nov 11 |
Memory: Virtual Memory
DS 13.3 |
| L17 | Fri, Nov 13 | Security: Side-Channel Attacks |
| L18 | Mon, Nov 16 | Security: Meltdown |
| Project04 (malloc) due @ 11:30 pm on Mon, Nov 16 | ||
| ExtraCredit01 (gc) due @ 11:30 pm on Mon, Nov 16 | ||
| L19 | Wed, Nov 18 |
Concurrent Programming: Processes & Threads
OSTEP 26 |
| L20 | Fri, Nov 20 |
Concurrent Programming: pthreads & mutexes
OSTEP 27 |
| L21 | Mon, Nov 23 |
Concurrent Programming: condition variables
OSTEP 27 |
| Project05 (meltdown) due @ 11:30 pm on Mon, Nov 23 | ||
| :( | Wed, Nov 25 | No Class: Thanksgiving |
| :( | Fri, Nov 27 | No Class: Thanksgiving |
| L22 | Mon, Nov 30 |
Concurrent Programming: Pitfalls
OSTEP 32 |
| L23 | Wed, Dec 02 | Final Exam Review |
| L24 | Fri, Dec 04 | Victory Lap |
| Project06 (passwd) due @ 11:30 pm on Fri, Dec 04 | ||
| Final (final nocollab) due @ 11:30 pm on Wed, Dec 09 | ||