Lab 02 -- Setting up SSH key based access; Git repo setup and usage

This page gives an overview of the lecture and the lab session on Aug 07, 2025. The class ended at 5.00 PM due to another class scheduled in the same room.

Short lecture summary

• Public key cryptography, One-time pad. Secure shell, ssh keys - creating and managing the keys.

• Setting up git account and verifying if it works correctly.

• Guided Bash exercises

Readings

1. The Linux Command Line by William Shotts (Online version)

   

   Read chapters (PDF available here)

   • Chapter 6 - Redirection
   • Chapter 7 - Seeing the World as the Shell Sees It
   • Chapter 8 - Advanced Keyboard Tricks
   • Chapter 9 - Permissions
   • Chapter 10 - Processes

2. Check the manual pages for gittutorial for the basic overview of Git and gittutorial2 for a better understanding of how git internals work.

   

   You can see the contents by doing man gittutorial or man gittutorial2 in terminal. You can also read online via the following links.

   • man gittutorial
   • man gittutorial-2

3. Dive Into Systems by Suzanne J. Matthews, Tia Newhall, Kevin C. Webb (Online version)

   

   Read chapters

   • Chapter 17. Appendix 2: Using Unix

4. In case you are wondering how many of the shell programs got there name, this link tells the history behind it.

Practise

1. Read and practise the wikibook on introductory shell scripting.

2. Read and practise from Chapter 1, 3 and 4 from the Bash Guide

3. Please also try to improve your typing speed. You can practise typing online here. You can also run gtypist in the lab machines to improve your typing speed.

Editor

1. Learn and understand how to use Nano.

2. As time progress, you will realise that the need to use a different editor. One such editor which we will be using is vim. Type vimtutor in terminal to learn how to use vim. If you would like to learn online, here is a cool interactive website. Happy Vimming !

3. Check “Editors (Vim)” from missing lectures for an in-depth understanding. Work out the exercises given at the end.

4. There is another powerful editor called Emacs. You can learn more about it here.

Additional readings

• Bash styling guide
• Editor wars. If you search in Google for “emacs”, it gives a suggestion did you mean “vim”? (and also the other way round !).