Lectures

There will be two lectures given in the beginning of the course. The first one focuses on course practicalities and also gives a preview to the assignments. The second lecture is about working with Linux command line and some necessary networking tools you might need during the course. We hope you will attend at least the first lecture, but the lectures are not mandatory. Come to the second one if you are not completely fluent with CLI and Linux networking, you might learn something useful and make this course easier for yourself.

Course assignments

The assignments of this course deal mainly with networking and security topics and they have been divided to two different paths (A and B). Both paths contain assignments in both main topics. The assignment instructions can be seen in their own subpages (left column).

In order to complete the course with five credits, you have to complete one of the paths (assignments Ax or Bx). The first five assignments are mandatory, and the sixth is a bonus assignment for those who either have failed one of the mandatory assignments or want a better grade.

For the ten credits, you have to complete both paths (A and B), and you can patch/enhance your course performance with one of the extra assignments (you cannot do both, however). The first assignment is shared by both paths.

The assignments you complete this year are also valid on the next years course. Contact the course staff if you have completed assignments from the previous year, and we will see what assignments you should do this year to pass the course. 

Receptions and demos

During the course we will follow a strict schedule that specifies the weeks when specific assignment demos can be given to course assistants. In order to get points from an assignment, you have to give a demo of it. Therefore, the demo is effectively an oral exam for each assignment, where you will show your knowledge and skills, and the course assistant will measure your understanding by asking questions.

Do not be too afraid or stressed out by the demo sessions. The first assignment is intentionally easy and part of its idea is to practice for the demo sessions.

To ease your work, the course assistant provide receptions a week before the demo week. There you can ask your questions about the next week's assignments.

In order to ensure effective use of both the assistant's and your time, we use a reservation system for demos. The course assistants mark their possible time slots there, and you can then select the slot most suitable for yourself. The reservation is binding and cannot be modified after the reservation deadline (previous day 18:00).

The reservation system is available at https://appointments.cs.hut.fi.

Grading

The grading of a specific assignment is displayed in each assignment's subpage. The points will come solely from the demo. The assignment is failed if you get under 30% of the maximum points. To complete a path, you need to pass 5 out of 6 assignments (including the extra assignment).

The total course grade is based on the assignment points. In order to get calculate the total grade, the assignment points are scaled. 

5cr version

All assignment points are scaled to [0,100] and are summed together. The grade limits are:

10cr version

The points from the first and the extra assignment are both scaled to [0,200] points, others to [0,100] points, then summed together and the grade limits are:

The course staff reserves a right to lower these limits during the course if it seems appropriate. Note: You have to do the extra assignment if you want grade 5.

Registration

To give you access to course resources (virtual servers, access to reservation system etc.), we require you to register to this course in Oodi before the DL (12.1. this year).

Contacting the course staff

To contact the course staff, you can use the course staff mailing list:

t-110.5102 (at) list.aalto.fi

• If your question is about a specific assignment, include the assignment code (Ax or Bx) to the message subject.
• On personal matters, include your student number in the message.