Beginner DevOps Learning Roadmap

Learn

• What is Linux? Introduction to Operating Systems
• Common Linux distributions (Ubuntu, CentOS)
• Basic Linux commands (ls, cd, pwd, mkdir, rm, cp, mv, cat, less, grep)
• Linux file system hierarchy (/, /bin, /etc, /var, /home)
• User management and permissions (chmod, chown)
• Package management (apt, yum) and software installation
• Introduction to Networking: IP addresses, DNS, ports, firewalls
• SSH (Secure Shell) for remote access

Practice & build

• Set up a Linux Virtual Machine (e.g., using VirtualBox or WSL2)
• Practice core Linux commands and navigate the file system
• Create/manage users and assign file permissions
• Install and update software packages using apt/yum
• Connect to a remote server using SSH

Learn

• Introduction to Python for scripting: variables, data types, control flow (if/else, loops), functions
• Working with files in Python
• Introduction to Bash scripting: variables, conditionals, loops, functions
• Executing Bash scripts and setting permissions
• Text processing tools: grep, sed, awk
• Environment variables and their use

Practice & build

• Write simple Python scripts to automate file operations or data manipulation
• Create Bash scripts for system maintenance tasks (e.g., backup, log rotation)
• Use grep, sed, and awk to parse and manipulate text files
• Automate a basic task by combining Python and Bash scripts

Learn

• What is Version Control? Why Git?
• Git architecture: working directory, staging area, local repository
• Basic Git commands: init, add, commit, status, log, diff
• Branching and Merging: creating, switching, deleting branches
• Handling merge conflicts
• Working with remote repositories (GitHub/GitLab): clone, pull, push, fetch
• Introduction to Pull Requests/Merge Requests

Practice & build

• Initialize a local Git repository and track changes
• Create and manage branches for new features
• Perform merges and resolve merge conflicts manually
• Push local changes to a remote GitHub repository
• Collaborate on a small project using branches and pull requests

Learn

• What is CI/CD? Benefits and principles
• Phases of a CI/CD pipeline (build, test, deploy)
• Introduction to Continuous Integration (CI): automated builds and testing
• Introduction to Continuous Delivery/Deployment (CD): automated releases
• Overview of popular CI/CD tools (Jenkins, GitLab CI, GitHub Actions)
• Basic concepts of build automation tools (e.g., Maven, npm – conceptual only)
• Webhooks and basic integrations

Practice & build

• Explore the UI of a CI/CD platform (e.g., GitHub Actions web interface)
• Set up a basic CI pipeline to automatically build and test a simple application (e.g., Python script)
• Trigger builds automatically on code pushes to a Git repository
• Interpret CI/CD pipeline logs and identify failures

Learn

• What are containers? Introduction to containerization vs. VMs
• Docker architecture: Daemon, Client, Images, Containers, Registries (Docker Hub)
• Installing Docker Engine
• Docker commands: run, ps, stop, start, rm, rmi, images, pull, push
• Dockerfile: syntax, instructions (FROM, RUN, CMD, ENTRYPOINT, EXPOSE, ENV, WORKDIR)
• Building custom Docker images
• Docker volumes for persistent data
• Docker networking basics
• Introduction to Docker Compose: defining multi-service applications

Practice & build

• Install Docker on your system
• Run various official Docker images (e.g., Nginx, Redis)
• Create Dockerfiles to containerize simple web applications (e.g., Python Flask app)
• Build, tag, and push custom images to Docker Hub
• Use Docker Compose to run a multi-container application (e.g., web app with a database)

Learn

• What is Infrastructure as Code (IaC)? Benefits and principles
• Declarative vs. Imperative IaC
• Introduction to Terraform: HCL (HashiCorp Configuration Language)
• Terraform basics: providers, resources, variables, outputs, state file
• Terraform commands: init, plan, apply, destroy
• Introduction to Ansible: agentless configuration management
• Ansible architecture: control node, managed nodes, inventory
• Ansible playbooks: tasks, modules, variables, handlers
• Basic Ansible roles and command-line ad-hoc commands

Practice & build

• Install Terraform and configure a cloud provider (e.g., AWS Free Tier)
• Write Terraform configurations to provision basic cloud resources (e.g., EC2 instance, VPC)
• Apply and destroy infrastructure using Terraform
• Install Ansible and create an inventory file
• Write Ansible playbooks to configure a web server (e.g., Nginx) on a provisioned EC2 instance
• Run ad-hoc Ansible commands to manage remote hosts

Learn

• What is Kubernetes? Benefits of container orchestration
• Kubernetes architecture: Master and Worker Nodes, Pods, Deployments, Services, Namespaces
• kubectl: The Kubernetes command-line tool
• YAML for Kubernetes manifests
• Key Kubernetes objects: Pods, Deployments, ReplicaSets
• Services: exposing applications within and outside the cluster
• Basic networking in Kubernetes
• Setting up a local Kubernetes cluster (Minikube or Kind)

Practice & build

• Set up a local Kubernetes cluster using Minikube or Kind
• Use kubectl to interact with the cluster (get nodes, pods, services)
• Write YAML manifests for a simple Pod and Deployment
• Deploy a containerized application to Kubernetes
• Expose the application using a Kubernetes Service
• Scale a deployment up and down

Learn

• Importance of Monitoring and Logging in DevOps
• Metrics vs. Logs vs. Traces (conceptual)
• Introduction to Prometheus: architecture, exporters, basic querying (PromQL)
• Introduction to Grafana: creating dashboards for visualization
• Basic concepts of centralized logging with ELK Stack (Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana)
• DevOps Security (DevSecOps) principles: 'Shift Left'
• Secrets management (e.g., environment variables, basic vaults - conceptual)
• Least privilege principle and basic network security

Practice & build

• Set up Prometheus to monitor a basic application or system metrics
• Create simple dashboards in Grafana to visualize metrics from Prometheus
• Explore basic log collection and viewing using a tool like rsyslog or a simple ELK setup
• Implement basic security best practices for your containerized applications (e.g., non-root user in Dockerfile)