Akamai Operating Systems Fundamentals Course

Lesson 1 • Core OS Components Overview

Surveys the kernel, shell, file system, and process manager as integrated subsystems. Sets the vocabulary used in every subsequent chapter.

Lesson 2 • OS Interaction with Hardware

Explains how the OS communicates with CPU, memory, and I/O devices through drivers and interrupts. Prepares students for process and memory management chapters.

Lesson 3 • Historical Evolution of Operating Systems

Traces OS development from batch systems to modern distributed environments. Provides context for design decisions encountered throughout the course.

Lesson 1 • Package Management and Software Installation

Covers package managers for installing, updating, and removing software. Ensures students can maintain consistent software environments across systems.

Lesson 2 • Shell Scripting Basics

Introduces Bash scripting for automating repetitive administrative tasks. Provides the automation foundation expanded in the process management chapter.

Lesson 3 • Users, Groups, and Permissions

Explains Linux identity model, permission bits, and access control. Directly supports security hardening and multi-user environment management.

Lesson 4 • Linux File System Hierarchy

Maps the standard directory tree and explains the purpose of each top-level directory. Enables confident navigation and file placement decisions.

Lesson 1 • Process Lifecycle and States

Defines process creation, state transitions, and termination. Establishes the mental model needed to interpret process monitoring output.

Lesson 2 • Signals and Process Control

Covers UNIX signals for communicating with and controlling processes. Enables operators to gracefully stop, reload, or kill services without data loss.

Lesson 3 • Monitoring Processes in Real Time

Teaches tools for observing CPU, memory, and I/O consumption per process. Connects theory to practical troubleshooting workflows used in operations roles.

Lesson 4 • Inter-Process Communication

Introduces pipes, sockets, shared memory, and message queues as IPC mechanisms. Prepares students to understand how complex services coordinate internally.

Lesson 1 • Huge Pages and NUMA Awareness

Covers large page configurations and non-uniform memory access topology. Relevant for high-throughput Akamai edge services requiring low-latency memory access.

Lesson 2 • Physical and Virtual Memory Model

Explains address spaces, paging, and the role of the MMU. Provides the conceptual base for understanding swap, OOM, and performance tuning.

Lesson 3 • Memory Allocation and the Heap

Describes how user-space programs request and release memory via system calls. Connects allocation patterns to memory leak symptoms observed in monitoring.

Lesson 4 • Paging, Swapping, and Demand Paging

Covers how the OS moves pages between RAM and disk to extend available memory. Explains performance costs and when swap becomes a bottleneck.

Lesson 1 • RAID, Redundancy, and Data Integrity

Introduces software RAID levels and data integrity mechanisms. Prepares students to design resilient storage configurations for high-availability deployments.

Lesson 2 • Mounting, fstab, and Automounting

Covers persistent and dynamic mount configuration for local and network storage. Ensures students can manage storage reliably across reboots and failures.

Lesson 3 • Block Devices and Disk Partitioning

Explains block device abstraction, partition tables, and disk layout strategies. Provides the foundation for file system creation and storage planning.

Lesson 4 • I/O Schedulers and Performance Tuning

Examines I/O scheduler algorithms and their impact on latency and throughput. Enables tuning decisions for SSD and HDD storage in production environments.

Lesson 1 • Network Stack Architecture

Maps the Linux network stack from socket API to physical driver. Provides the structural understanding needed to interpret packet flow and diagnose issues.

Lesson 2 • Firewall and Packet Filtering

Introduces netfilter, iptables, and nftables for controlling traffic at the OS level. Supports security hardening and service isolation tasks.

Lesson 3 • Network Performance Tuning

Covers kernel parameters and socket buffer settings that affect throughput and latency. Directly applicable to optimising Akamai edge node network performance.

Lesson 4 • Interface Configuration and Management

Covers IP address assignment, link state, and routing table management. Enables students to bring up and configure network interfaces in any environment.

Lesson 1 • Systemd Units and Targets

Explains unit file types, dependency directives, and target equivalents to runlevels. Enables precise control over service startup order and conditions.

Lesson 2 • Writing Custom Unit Files

Teaches authoring service unit files with restart policies, environment variables, and resource limits. Enables deployment of custom applications as managed services.

Lesson 3 • Journald and Log Management

Covers structured logging with journald, log persistence, and forwarding to syslog. Ensures students can retrieve and analyse service logs efficiently.

Lesson 4 • Managing Services with systemctl

Covers start, stop, enable, disable, and status operations for system services. Builds the daily operational skills needed to manage Akamai edge software.

Lesson 1 • Kernel Tuning with sysctl

Covers persistent and runtime kernel parameter adjustment for CPU, memory, and network. Synthesises tuning knowledge from all prior chapters into actionable configurations.

Lesson 2 • Memory and Cache Performance

Examines page cache hit rates, slab allocator usage, and memory bandwidth. Connects memory metrics to application latency and throughput outcomes.

Lesson 3 • CPU Performance Profiling

Covers tools for measuring CPU utilisation, context switches, and cache efficiency. Enables identification of CPU-bound processes and scheduling inefficiencies.

Lesson 4 • Performance Analysis Methodology

Introduces structured approaches such as USE and workload characterisation for diagnosing bottlenecks. Prevents random tuning and establishes a repeatable diagnostic workflow.