A working library

Field Notes

Three courses on the systems everything else is standing on. Written in dependency order, with an interactive model in every chapter rather than a diagram of one.

How these fit together

The courses cross-reference each other where one genuinely explains another. Kubernetes resource limits point down to cgroups; pod termination points down to signal handling; kube-proxy points down to netfilter. Security points sideways into both. Follow the markers when you want the layer underneath.

If you are starting from scratch, Under the Hood Part III is the most useful thing to read before Inside Out — namespaces and cgroups are what a container actually is, and everything Kubernetes does with pods is a consequence.

Progress is tracked separately per course and stored in this browser. Every chapter prints cleanly to PDF.