Systems Cheatsheet

A quick-reference guide for systems and networking.

Networking Layers

OSI vs TCP/IP, encapsulation, and an interactive zoom that unwraps a single HTTPS request from bits on the wire down to the HTTP payload.

TCP Handshake

The three-way handshake that establishes a reliable byte stream — segments, flags, state transitions, and teardown.

TLS Handshake

Authentication, key exchange, and cipher negotiation — TLS 1.3 flow, certificate verification, and 0-RTT resumption.

Linux Binary Execution

From ./prog to main()execve, ELF layout, ld.so, the startup path, and exec-time security.

Linux Signals

How an async notification becomes a handler call — generation, pending sets, kernel-exit dispatch, sigaction flags, and async-signal safety.