Annexure-II 1

UNIX SYSTEM PROGRAMMING Semester V

Course Code BCS515C CIE Marks 50
Teaching Hours/Week (L: T:P: S) 3:0:0:0 SEE Marks 50
Total Hours of Pedagogy 40 Total Marks 100
Credits 03 Exam Hours 03
Examination type (SEE) Theory
Course objectives: This course will enable students to
● To help the students to understand effective use of Unix concepts, commands and
terminology. Identify, access, and evaluate UNIX file system
● Explain the fundamental design of the unix operating system
● Familiarize with the systems calls provided in the unix environment
● Design and build an application/service over the unix operating system

Teaching-Learning Process (General Instructions)

These are sample Strategies; which teachers can use to accelerate the attainment of the various
course outcomes.
1. Lecturer method (L) need not to be only a traditional lecture method, but alternative
effective teaching methods could be adopted to attain the outcomes.
2. Use of Video/Animation to explain functioning of various concepts.
3. Encourage collaborative (Group Learning) Learning in the class.
4. Ask at least three HOT (Higher order Thinking) questions in the class, which promotes
critical thinking.
5. Adopt Problem Based Learning (PBL), which fosters students’ Analytical skills, develop
design thinking skills such as the ability to design, evaluate, generalize, and analyze
information rather than simply recall it.
6. Introduce Topics in manifold representations.
7. Show the different ways to solve the same problem with different circuits/logic and
encourage the students to come up with their own creative ways to solve them.
8. Discuss how every concept can be applied to the real world - and when that's possible, it
helps improve the students' understanding.
Module-1
Introduction: Unix Components/Architecture. Features of Unix. The UNIX Environment and
UNIX Structure, Posix and Single Unix specification. General features of Unix commands/
command structure. Command arguments and options. Basic Unix commands such as echo,
printf, ls, who, date, passwd, cal, Combining commands. Meaning of Internal and external
commands. The type command: knowing the type of a command and locating it. The root
login. Becoming the super user: su command.

Unix files: Naming files. Basic file types/categories. Organization of files. Hidden files.
Standard directories. Parent-child relationship. The home directory and the HOME variable.
Reaching required files- the PATH variable, manipulating the PATH, Relative and absolute
pathnames. Directory commands – pwd, cd, mkdir, rmdir commands. The dot (.) and double
dots (..) notations to represent present and parent directories and their usage in relative path
names. File related commands – cat, mv, rm, cp, wc and od commands.

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Text Book1: Chapter-1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Module-2
File attributes and permissions: The ls command with options. Changing file permissions:
the relative and absolute permissions changing methods. Recursively changing file
permissions. Directory permissions.

The shells interpretive cycle: Wild cards. Removing the special meanings of wild cards.
Three standard files and redirection.

Connecting commands: Pipe. Basic and Extended regular expressions. The grep, egrep.
Typical examples involving different regular expressions.

Shell programming: Ordinary and environment variables. The. profile. Read and read-only
commands. Command line arguments. exit and exit status of a command. Logical operators
for conditional execution. The test command and its shortcut. The if, while, for and case
control statements. The set and shift commands and handling positional parameters. The here
(<<) document and trap command. Simple shell program examples.

Text Book1: Chapter-6,8,13,14

Module-3
Unix Standardization and Implementations: Introduction, Unix Standardization, UNIX
System Implementation.

File I/O: Introduction, File Description, open, create, read, write, close, fcntl functions.

Files and Dictionaries: mkdir and rmdir functions, reading dictionaries, chdir, fchdir and
getcwd functions. Device Special files.

The Environment of a UNIX Process: Introduction, main function, Process Termination,

Command-Line Arguments, Environment List, Memory Layout of a C Program, Shared
Libraries, Memory Allocation, Environment Variables, setjmp and longjmp Functions,
getrlimit, setrlimit Functions.

Text Book 2: 2,3,4,7.

Module-4
Process Control: Introduction, Process Identifiers, fork, vfork, exit, wait, waitpid, wait3,
wait4 Functions, Race Conditions, exec Functions.

Overview of IPC Methods, Pipes, popen, pclose Functions, Coprocesses, FIFOs, System V
IPC, Message Queues, Semaphores.

Shared Memory, Client-Server Properties, Passing File Descriptors, An Open Server-Version

1.

Text Book2: Chapter 8, 15,17

Module-5

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Signals and Daemon Processes: Introduction, Signal Concepts, Signal Functions, SIGCLD
Semantics, Kill and Raise functions, Alarm and Pause Functions, Signal Sets, sigprocmask
Function, sigpending function, sigaction function, sigsetjmp and siglongjmp functions,
sigsuspend function, abort function, system function, sleep, nanosleep and clock_nanosleep
functions, sigqueue functions, job-control signals, signal names and numbers.

Daemon Processes: Introduction, Daemon Characteristics, Coding Rules, Error Logging,

Client-Server Model.

Text Book 2: Chapter 10, 13

Course outcome (Course Skill Set)
At the end of the course, the student will be able to:
● Demonstrate the basics of Unix concepts and commands.
● Demonstrate the UNIX file system.
● Apply comands to reflect changes in file system.
● Demonstrate IPC and process management.
●Develop an application/service over a Unix system.
Assessment Details (both CIE and SEE)
The weightage of Continuous Internal Evaluation (CIE) is 50% and for Semester End Exam (SEE) is
50%. The minimum passing mark for the CIE is 40% of the maximum marks (20 marks out of 50)
and for the SEE minimum passing mark is 35% of the maximum marks (18 out of 50 marks). A
student shall be deemed to have satisfied the academic requirements and earned the credits
allotted to each subject/ course if the student secures a minimum of 40% (40 marks out of 100) in
the sum total of the CIE (Continuous Internal Evaluation) and SEE (Semester End Examination)
taken together.

Continuous Internal Evaluation:

● For the Assignment component of the CIE, there are 25 marks and for the Internal Assessment
Test component, there are 25 marks.
● The first test will be administered after 40-50% of the syllabus has been covered, and the
second test will be administered after 85-90% of the syllabus has been covered
● Any two assignment methods mentioned in the 22OB2.4, if an assignment is project-based then
only one assignment for the course shall be planned. The teacher should not conduct two
assignments at the end of the semester if two assignments are planned.
● For the course, CIE marks will be based on a scaled-down sum of two tests and other methods of
assessment.
Internal Assessment Test question paper is designed to attain the different levels of Bloom’s
taxonomy as per the outcome defined for the course.

Semester-End Examination:
Theory SEE will be conducted by University as per the scheduled timetable, with common question papers for
the course (duration 03 hours).
1. The question paper will have ten questions. Each question is set for 20 marks.
2. There will be 2 questions from each module. Each of the two questions under a module (with a
maximum of 3 sub-questions), should have a mix of topics under that module.
3. The students have to answer 5 full questions, selecting one full question from each module.
4. Marks scored shall be proportionally reduced to 50 marks.

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Suggested Learning Resources:

Text Books:

1. Sumitabha Das., Unix Concepts and Applications., 4thEdition., Tata McGraw Hill
2. W. Richard Stevens: Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment, 2nd Edition,
Pearson Education, 2005
Reference Books:

1. Unix System Programming Using C++ - Terrence Chan, PHI, 1999.

2. M.G. Venkatesh Murthy: UNIX & Shell Programming, Pearson Education.
3. Richard Blum, Christine Brenham: Linux Command Line and Shell Scripting Bible,
2ndEdition, Wiley, 2014.
Web links and Video Lectures (e-Resources):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffYUfAqEamY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q05NZiYFcD0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GdT53KDIyY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=3Pga3y7rCgo
Activity Based Learning (Suggested Activities in Class)/ Practical Based learning
Programming assignment -1 (Shell level) - 10 marks
Programming assignment -2 (API level) - 15 marks

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