If you are considering taking 6.1800 this semester, and have a question about whether that's a good idea, please check out our FAQ for interested students. It includes information about prerequisites and lecture recordings.

Course Calendar

6.1800 covers four units of technical content: operating systems, networking, distributed systems, and security. Lectures deliver the fundamental technical concepts; recitations show you how those concepts are applied to real systems. In tutorial, you'll learn communication skills to help you reason about systems, and describe and defend your own.

The calendar below includes lecture and recitation topics, along with due dates for all assignments. We also note when we expect various assignments to become available, and when we expect to deliver feedback (grades or otherwise) for each of assignment. The release dates for assignments and feedback are subject to small changes throughout the semester.

We will release the Spring 2024 assignments as the semester progresses. The contents of this calendar for days more than two weeks in the future may be missing or inaccurate.

MondayTuesday WednesdayThursday Friday
feb 5
LEC 1: Modularity, Abstraction, and the Impact of Systems


First day of classes
feb 6
REC 1: We Did Nothing Wrong
feb 7
LEC 2: Naming
feb 8
REC 2: DNS

Assignment Available: Hands-on DNS
feb 9
TUT 1: Intro to 6.1800 Communication
feb 12
LEC 3: Virtual memory
feb 13
REC 3: Canceled due to snow
feb 14
LEC 4: Bounded buffers and locks
feb 15
REC 4: UNIX

Assignment Available: Hands-on UNIX
feb 16
TUT 2: Consensus and Reasoning About Systems

DUE: DP Team Preferences
feb 19
President's day
feb 20
LEC 5: Threads


Monday schedule
feb 21
LEC 6: OS structure, Virtual Machines

DUE: Hands-on DNS
Released: DP Spec
Assignment Available: DP Prep Assignment
feb 22
REC 5: DP Discussion

Released: DP Team Assignments
feb 23
TUT 3: Reading for Systems Concepts
feb 26
LEC 7: OS Performance (Storage)
feb 27
REC 6: UNIX
feb 28
LEC 8: Intro to networking and layering
feb 29
REC 7: Ethernet

Released: Hands-on DNS grades
Assignment Available: DP preliminary report (DPPR)
mar 1
TUT 4: Collaboration and Collaborative Writing

DUE: DP Prep Assignment
Released: Recitation Participation Check-in #1
mar 4
LEC 9: Network Layer: Routing
mar 5
REC 8: Encapsulation

DUE: Hands-on UNIX
mar 6
LEC 10: BGP

Assignment Available: Hands-on networking
mar 7
REC 9: Overlay Networks
mar 8
TUT 5: Visual Design, Figures, and Diagrams

Released: Technical feedback on DP Prep assignment (see FAQ)

Add Date
mar 11
LEC 11: Transport Layer: TCP
mar 12
REC 10: DCTCP

DUE: Hands-on networking
Released: Hands-on UNIX grades
mar 13
LEC 12: In-network Resource Management
mar 14
REC 11: End-to-end Arguments
mar 15
TUT 6: Assembling the DPPR

Released: WRAP feedback on DP Prep assignment
mar 18
LEC 13: Application Layer
mar 19
REC 12: CDNs

Released: Hands-on networking grades
mar 20
LEC 14: Datacenters and Clouds
mar 21
REC 13: Physical Deployability
mar 22
DUE: DP Preliminary Report (DPPR)
Released: Recitation Participation Check-in #2
mar 25
Spring break
mar 26
Spring break
mar 27
Spring break
mar 28
Spring break
mar 29
Spring break
apr 1
LEC 15: Reliability
apr 2
REC 14: GFS
apr 3
LEC 16: Transactions
apr 4
REC 15: Canceled

EXAM: Exam 1
apr 5
TUT 7: DP Presentation

Assignment Available: DP Presentation Assignment
apr 8
LEC 17: Logging

Assignment Available: Hands-on logging
apr 9
REC 16: MapReduce

Released: DP update
Released: DPPR grades
Assignment Available: Hands-on MapReduce
apr 10
LEC 18: Isolation
apr 11
REC 17: ZFS

Released: Exam 1 grades
apr 12
TUT 8: Responding to Feedback
apr 15
Patriots day
apr 16
REC 18: Concurrency Control

DP Presentations begin here, and run through 4/23
apr 17
LEC 19: Distributed Transactions

DUE: Hands-on logging
apr 18
REC 19: Consistency Rationing

Assignment Available: DP Final Report
Assignment Available: Hands-on databases
apr 19
TUT 9: Analysis and Evaluation
apr 22
LEC 20: Replication
apr 23
REC 20: Raft

This is the last day for DP Presentations
DUE: Hands-on MapReduce

Drop Date
apr 24
LEC 21: Intro to Security + Authentication

Released: Hands-on logging grades
apr 25
REC 21: Canceled (prep for peer review)

Released: DP Presentation grades
Assignment Available: DP Peer Review
apr 26
TUT 10: Peer Review

Released: Recitation Participation Check-in #3
apr 29
LEC 22: Low-level attacks
apr 30
REC 22: Meltdown

DUE: Hands-on databases
Released: Hands-on MapReduce grades
may 1
LEC 23: Secure Channels
may 2
REC 23: DNSSEC
may 3
TUT 11: Writing About Evaluation
may 6
LEC 24: ToR

DUE: DP Final Report
may 7
REC 24: Bitcoin

Released: Hands-on databases grades
may 8
LEC 25: Network Attacks
may 9
REC 25: Keys Under Doormats
may 10
DUE: Peer Review
may 13
LEC 26: Wrap-up
may 14
REC 26: Wrap-up

Released: Tutorial Participation grades

Last day of classes
may 15
Released: Recitation Participation grades
may 16 may 17
EXAM: Exam 2
may 20 may 21 may 22 may 23 may 24
Released: DP Final Report grades
Released: DP Peer Review grades