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 2025 assignments as the semester progresses. The contents of this calendar for days more than two weeks in the future may be missing or inaccurate.

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
feb 3 LEC 1: Modularity, Abstraction, and the Impact of Systems First day of classes	feb 4 REC 1: We Did Nothing Wrong	feb 5 LEC 2: Naming	feb 6 REC 2: DNS Assignment Available: Hands-on DNS	feb 7 TUT 1: Intro to 6.1800 Communication
feb 10 LEC 3: Virtual memory	feb 11 REC 3: UNIX 1	feb 12 LEC 4: Bounded buffers and locks	feb 13 REC 4: UNIX 2 Assignment Available: Hands-on UNIX	feb 14 TUT 2: Consensus and Reasoning About Systems DUE: DP Team Preferences
feb 17 President's day	feb 18 LEC 5: Threads Monday schedule	feb 19 LEC 6: OS structure, Virtual Machines DUE: Hands-on DNS Released: DP Spec Assignment Available: DP Prep Assignment	feb 20 REC 5: DP Discussion Released: DP Team Assignments	feb 21 TUT 3: Reading for Systems Concepts
feb 24 LEC 7: OS Performance (Storage)	feb 25 REC 6: TBD (Threads vs. Events)	feb 26 LEC 8: Intro to networking and layering Released: Hands-on DNS grades	feb 27 REC 7: Ethernet Assignment Available: DP preliminary report (DPPR)	feb 28 TUT 4: Collaboration and Collaborative Writing DUE: DP Prep Assignment Released: Recitation Participation Check-in #1
mar 3 LEC 9: Network Layer: Routing	mar 4 REC 8: Encapsulation DUE: Hands-on UNIX	mar 5 LEC 10: BGP Assignment Available: Hands-on networking	mar 6 REC 9: Overlay Networks	mar 7 TUT 5: Visual Design, Figures, and Diagrams Released: Technical feedback on DP Prep assignment (see FAQ) Add Date
mar 10 LEC 11: Transport Layer: TCP	mar 11 REC 10: DCTCP DUE: Hands-on networking Released: Hands-on UNIX grades	mar 12 LEC 12: In-network Resource Management	mar 13 REC 11: End-to-end Arguments	mar 14 TUT 6: Assembling the DPPR Released: WRAP feedback on DP Prep assignment
mar 17 LEC 13: Application Layer	mar 18 REC 12: CDNs Released: Hands-on networking grades	mar 19 LEC 14: Datacenters and Clouds	mar 20 REC 13: Physical Deployability	mar 21 DUE: DP Preliminary Report (DPPR) Released: Recitation Participation Check-in #2
mar 24 Spring break	mar 25 Spring break	mar 26 Spring break	mar 27 Spring break	mar 28 Spring break
mar 31 LEC 15: Reliability	apr 1 REC 14: GFS	apr 2 LEC 16: Transactions	apr 3 REC 15: Canceled EXAM: Exam 1	apr 4 TUT 7: DP Presentation Assignment Available: DP Presentation Assignment Released: Technical feedback on DPPR
apr 7 LEC 17: Logging Assignment Available: Hands-on logging	apr 8 REC 16: MapReduce Released: DP update Released: DPPR grades Assignment Available: Hands-on MapReduce	apr 9 LEC 18: Isolation	apr 10 REC 17: ZFS Released: Exam 1 grades	apr 11 TUT 8: Responding to Feedback
apr 14 LEC 19: Distributed Transactions DP Presentations begin here, and run through 4/18	apr 15 REC 18: Concurrency Control DUE: Hands-on logging	apr 16 LEC 20: Replication	apr 17 REC 19: Consistency Rationing Assignment Available: DP Final Report Assignment Available: Hands-on databases	apr 18 TUT 9: Analysis and Evaluation This is the last day for DP Presentations Released: Peer review matches
apr 21 Patriots day	apr 22 REC 20: Raft Released: DP Presentation grades Drop Date	apr 23 LEC 21: Intro to Security + Authentication DUE: Hands-on MapReduce Released: Hands-on logging grades	apr 24 REC 21: Canceled (prep for peer review) Assignment Available: DP Peer Review	apr 25 TUT 10: Peer Review Released: Recitation Participation Check-in #3
apr 28 LEC 22: Low-level attacks	apr 29 REC 22: Meltdown DUE: Hands-on databases	apr 30 LEC 23: Secure Channels Released: Hands-on MapReduce grades	may 1 REC 23: DNSSEC	may 2 TUT 11: Writing About Evaluation
may 5 LEC 24: ToR DUE: DP Final Report	may 6 REC 24: Bitcoin Released: Hands-on databases grades	may 7 LEC 25: Network Attacks	may 8 REC 25: Keys Under Doormats	may 9 DUE: Peer Review
may 12 LEC 26: Wrap-up	may 13 REC 26: Wrap-up Released: Tutorial Participation grades Last day of classes	may 14 Released: Recitation Participation grades	may 15	may 16 First day of finals (we will add the 6.1800 final exam date during the third week of classes)
may 19	may 20	may 21	may 22	may 23 Released: DP Final Report grades Released: DP Peer Review grades Last day of finals