Bash Hunting

This repo is my personal journey to master advanced Bash scripting and bare-metal automation in 1 month (2h/day, 5 days/week).

The goal: build safe, idempotent scripts, bootstrap servers automatically, and transition towards Ansible + declarative workflows.

By the end, you’ll have:

• Advanced Bash skills (strict mode, modular scripts, testing)
• Reusable automation scripts for server bootstrap
• Systemd + IPMI automation for bare-metal
• Starter Ansible setup to move beyond Bash

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📅 Week 1 – Bash Foundations (Safe & Modern)

Goal: Build safe, reusable Bash scripts with strict mode, error handling, and logging.

• Day 1

  • Learn and enable strict mode (set -Eeuo pipefail, IFS)
  • Create a script template with logging + traps

• Day 2

  • Practice functions, variables, arrays
  • Handle input with getopts and env vars

• Day 3

  • Implement error handling (trap, exit codes)
  • Add cleanup function + logging to your template

• Day 4

  • Practice file/text processing: sed, awk, grep, cut, xargs
  • Learn safe file handling (mktemp, install, checksums)

• Day 5 (Mini-Project)

  • Script to bootstrap a server user (add user, SSH key, sudo, umask)
  • Run ShellCheck + shfmt on the script

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📅 Week 2 – Advanced Bash & Testing

Goal: Write modular scripts and test them.

• Day 6

  • Learn advanced parameter expansion + regex
  • Use [[ ]] vs [ ]

• Day 7

  • Practice loops (for, while)
  • Try parallelism (xargs -P, GNU parallel)

• Day 8

  • Build modular Bash libraries (e.g., roles/users.sh)
  • Learn sourcing and reusing functions

• Day 9

  • Install bats-core
  • Write first unit test for a script

• Day 10 (Mini-Project)

  • Write a service setup script (e.g., install + configure nginx/postgres)
  • Add bats tests to validate behavior

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📅 Week 3 – Bare-Metal Automation

Goal: Automate full server lifecycle, services, and inventory-driven configs.

• Day 11

  • Study PXE/iPXE basics
  • Learn Kickstart/Preseed/Autoinstall workflow

• Day 12

  • Write a systemd unit file
  • Add hardening options (e.g., ProtectSystem, PrivateTmp)

• Day 13

  • Learn IPMI/Redfish basics
  • Script power/reset with ipmitool

• Day 14

  • Learn YAML/CSV parsing with yq + jq
  • Drive automation from inventory

• Day 15 (Mini-Project)

  • Write a “new server bootstrap” script that:
    • Reads inventory
    • Configures hostname, users, sshd
    • Installs base packages
    • Deploys a systemd service

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📅 Week 4 – Beyond Bash (Better Practices)

Goal: Learn Ansible + modern practices (secrets, monitoring, pipelines).

• Day 16

  • Install Ansible
  • Write first playbook (inventory + tasks)

• Day 17

  • Run a Bash script via Ansible task
  • Convert a script into an Ansible role

• Day 18

  • Learn secrets management (Ansible Vault, sops/age)
  • Store and load secrets securely

• Day 19

  • Automate monitoring setup (Prometheus node_exporter, journald log shipping)
  • Add automated health checks

• Day 20 (Capstone Project)

  • Build a full server pipeline:
    • PXE boot → Bash bootstrap → Ansible config → Systemd services
  • Document workflow in repo README

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By the end of this plan, you’ll:

• Be fluent in advanced Bash scripting (safe, idempotent, tested).
• Have working server bootstrap scripts for bare-metal.
• Know how to use systemd + OOB automation.
• Have a starter Ansible setup built from your Bash scripts.
• Own a reproducible server build pipeline.