Welcome to CS 24! We’re super excited to have you here this term!
Due Next
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 Ticketing System where you can ask questions asynchronously.
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.
Tools
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
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 28 |
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, Sep 30 |
Memory
[ pdf
]
What does an abstraction for memory look like? Give me the details!
|
| L02 | Mon, Oct 03 |
Fixed-Width Integers
How do computers represent integers? What about negative numbers? How does this affect me as a programmer?
DS 4.1-4.7
|
| Pre-Test (disk) due @ 11:30 pm on Mon, Oct 03 | ||
| L03 | Wed, Oct 05 |
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 07 |
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 10 |
x86-64 Loops & Data
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 10 | ||
| L06 | Wed, Oct 12 |
x86-64 Procedures
How do function calls and returns work? What is 'the stack' really?
DS 7.7-7.9, 12
|
| L07 | Fri, Oct 14 |
x86-64 Recursive Procedures
How does recursion work using the stack?
DS 7.7-7.9, 12
|
| L08 | Mon, Oct 17 |
Security: Buffer Overflows
What happens if we read past the end of a buffer? How can we exploit this?
|
| Project02a (bomb) due @ 11:30 pm on Mon, Oct 17 | ||
| L09 | Wed, Oct 19 |
HTTP and Buffer Overflow Review
How do you make a request to a webserver? Review of buffer overflow exploits.
|
| L10 | Fri, Oct 21 | Cancelled: Adam Sick. |
| L11 | Mon, Oct 24 |
Dynamic Memory: Basic
What does a "basic" implementation of malloc look like?
|
| Project02b (asmgen) due @ 11:30 pm on Mon, Oct 24 | ||
| L12 | Wed, Oct 26 |
Dynamic Memory: Advanced
[ pdf
]
How can we make a performant malloc implementation?
|
| L13 | Fri, Oct 28 |
ECF: Processes I
[ pdf
]
What is a process? How does Linux create, maintain, and destroy processes? How do shells work?
DS 13.2, OSTEP 5
|
| L14 | Mon, Oct 31 |
ECF: Processes II
[ pdf
]
What is a process? How does Linux create, maintain, and destroy processes? How do shells work?
DS 13.2, OSTEP 5
|
| Midterm (adventure) due @ 11:30 pm on Mon, Oct 31 | ||
| L15 | Wed, Nov 02 |
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
|
| L16 | Fri, Nov 04 |
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
|
| L17 | Mon, Nov 07 |
Memory: Cache Memories
[ pdf
]
A further investigation into Hardware Cache Memories
DS 11.3
|
| L18 | Wed, Nov 09 |
Memory: Virtual Memory
An introduction to WeensyOS. How can every process see the same memory layout?
DS 13.3
|
| L19 | Fri, Nov 11 |
Memory: Virtual Memory
An introduction to WeensyOS. How can every process see the same memory layout?
DS 13.3
|
| L20 | Mon, Nov 14 |
Security: Meltdown
Meltdown!
|
| Project03 (malloc) due @ 11:30 pm on Mon, Nov 14 | ||
| L21 | Wed, Nov 16 |
Concurrent Programming: Processes & Threads
How can we execute multiple things at the same time?
OSTEP 26
|
| L22 | Fri, Nov 18 |
Concurrent Programming: pthreads & mutexes
How can we make sure to avoid race conditions in a concurrent context?
OSTEP 27
|
| L23 | Mon, Nov 21 |
Concurrent Programming: Condition Variables
OSTEP 30 |
| Project04 (vm & meltdown) due @ 11:30 pm on Mon, Nov 21 | ||
| :( | Wed, Nov 23 | No Class: Thanksgiving! |
| :( | Fri, Nov 25 | No Class: Thanksgiving! |
| L24 | Mon, Nov 28 | Final Exam Review |
| L25 | Wed, Nov 30 | Victory Lap |
| Project05 (passwd) due @ 11:30 pm on Wed, Nov 30 | ||
| Final (final) due @ 11:30 pm on Thu, Dec 08 | ||