Scripting and Automation for IT

Automating system administration with Bash, PowerShell and Python: files, users, logs, scheduled jobs and working with APIs.

PYTH-120 Year 1 3 credits 12 lessons · 5 h 22 min ▶ Video lessons coming soon

Offered by HSM University · IT Foundations

What you'll learn

Decide which IT chores are worth automating by weighing time saved, cost of mistakes and stability, and choose between Bash, PowerShell and Python.
Read and write Bash scripts that use variables, quoting, arguments, tests, loops, pipes and safe settings.
Read and write PowerShell scripts that pass objects through pipelines, take typed parameters and handle errors.
Build Python command-line tools with argparse, environment variables, subprocess and meaningful exit codes.
Find, rename, organize, copy, archive and safely delete files and folders with pathlib and shutil.
Parse application and web server logs with string methods and regular expressions, and summarize them.
Script user onboarding and offboarding, and read, set and audit file permissions using least privilege.
Schedule jobs with cron, systemd timers and Task Scheduler, avoiding environment, time zone and overlap traps.
Call web APIs from Python, handling JSON, query strings, credentials, pagination, rate limits and retries.
Explain configuration management, desired state, idempotence and templates, and read an Ansible playbook.
Make scripts safe with specific error handling, input validation, logging, atomic writes and dry runs.
Design, build, test, schedule and hand over a complete automation for a recurring administrative task.

12 lessons · 5 h 22 min total · final exam

Recommended background. You can start any course at any time.

Automating system administration with Bash, PowerShell and Python: files, users, logs, scheduled jobs and working with APIs.

Part of the Information Technology stream, typically taken in year 1.