Linux System Engineer: Bash Shell Scripting for Automation

Learn how to use bash scripting to automate common tasks on Linux.

Learn how to use bash scripting to automate common tasks on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)—one of the most popular Linux distributions. This course covers the foundations of creating and debugging bash scripts, including scripts that accept input via positional arguments, pipes, and file parsing. Plus, learn how to get data out of bash scripts and set up conditional and looping code blocks. Grant also solves some real-world problems, using bash to monitor user space and CPU usage.

Note: This course also helps you study to pass the Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE) exam—the benchmark certification for Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

Introduction

• Bash scripting for automation
• What you will need

1. Introduction to Linux Scripting

• Introduction to bash
• What makes a shell script a shell script?
• Using bash debugging mode
• Bash variable scope

2. Using Outside Data in a Script

• Positional arguments
• Load files using while read
• Load files into arrays with mapfile
• Prompt for input
• Pipe data into a script
• Process shell options

3. Outputting Data from a Script

• Saving data to files
• Outputting to STDOUT and STDERR

4. Bash Logic

• Conditional flow with if, then fi
• Conditional flow with case
• Numeric conditions
• String conditions
• File conditions

5. Bash Loops

• For loop
• While loop

6. Real-World Examples

• Monitoring user space usage
• Monitoring CPU usage

Conclusion

• Next steps