Course Calendar
6.033 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 2022 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 |
| jan 31 LEC 1: Modularity, Abstraction, and the Impact of Systems First day of classes |
feb 1 REC 1: We Did Nothing Wrong |
feb 2 LEC 2: Naming |
feb 3 REC 2: DNS Assignment Available: Hands-on DNS |
feb 4 TUT 1: Intro to 6.033 Communication |
| feb 7 LEC 3: Virtual memory |
feb 8 REC 3: UNIX |
feb 9 LEC 4: Bounded buffers and locks |
feb 10 REC 4: UNIX Assignment Available: Hands-on UNIX |
feb 11 TUT 2: Consensus and Reasoning About Systems DUE: DP Team Preferences (on Piazza) |
| feb 14 LEC 5: Threads Released: DP Spec |
feb 15 REC 5: Eraser DUE: Hands-on DNS |
feb 16 LEC 6: OS structure, Virtual Machines |
feb 17 REC 6: DP Discussion Released: DP Team Assignments (on Piazza) Assignment Available: DP Prep Assignment |
feb 18 TUT 3: Reading for Systems Concepts |
| feb 21 President's day |
feb 22 LEC 7: OS Performance (Storage) Released: Hands-on DNS grades Monday schedule |
feb 23 LEC 8: Intro to networking and layering |
feb 24 REC 7: Ethernet |
feb 25 TUT 4: Canceled due to snow DUE: DP Prep Assignment Assignment Available: DP preliminary report (DPPR) Released: Recitation Participation Check-in #1 |
| feb 28 LEC 9: Network Layer: Routing |
mar 1 REC 8: Encapsulation DUE: Hands-on UNIX |
mar 2 LEC 10: BGP Assignment Available: Hands-on networking |
mar 3 REC 9: Overlay Networks |
mar 4 TUT 5: Visual Design, Figures, and Diagrams Released: Technical feedback on DP Prep assignment (see FAQ) ADD DATE |
| mar 7 LEC 11: Transport Layer: TCP |
mar 8 REC 10: DARPA DUE: Hands-on networking |
mar 9 LEC 12: In-network Resource Management |
mar 10 REC 11: DCTCP |
mar 11 TUT 6: Assembling the DPPR Released: Impact Framework example Released: WRAP feedback on DP Prep assignment Released: Hands-on UNIX grades |
| mar 14 LEC 13: Application Layer |
mar 15 REC 12: CDNs Released: Hands-on networking grades |
mar 16 LEC 14: Datacenters and Clouds |
mar 17 REC 13: End-to-end Arguments |
mar 18 DUE: DP Preliminary Report Released: Recitation Participation Check-in #2 |
| mar 21 Spring break |
mar 22 Spring break |
mar 23 Spring break |
mar 24 Spring break |
mar 25 Spring break |
| mar 28 LEC 15: Reliability |
mar 29 REC 14: GFS |
mar 30 LEC 16: Transactions |
mar 31 REC 15: Canceled EXAM: Exam 1 |
apr 1 TUT 7: DP Presentation Assignment Available: DP Presentation Assignment Feedback Released: Technical feedback on DPPR |
| apr 4 LEC 17: Logging Feedback Released: DP update Assignment Available: Hands-on logging |
apr 5 REC 16: MapReduce Released: DPPR grades Assignment Available: Hands-on MapReduce |
apr 6 LEC 18: Isolation Released: Exam 1 grades |
apr 7 REC 17: ZFS |
apr 8 TUT 8: Responding to Feedback |
| apr 11 LEC 19: Distributed Transactions DP Presentations begin here, and run through 4/19 |
apr 12 REC 18: Databases DUE: Hands-on logging |
apr 13 LEC 20: Replication |
apr 14 REC 19: Consistency Guarantees Assignment Available: DP Report |
apr 15 TUT 9: Analysis and Evaluation Assignment Available: Hands-on databases |
| apr 18 Patriots day |
apr 19 REC 20: Raft This is the last day for DP Presentations DUE: Hands-on MapReduce Drop Date |
apr 20 LEC 21: Intro to Security + Authentication |
apr 21 REC 21: Canceled (prep for peer review) Released: DP Presentation grades Released: Hands-on logging grades |
apr 22 TUT 10: Peer Review Assignment Available: DP Peer Review Released: Recitation Participation Check-in #3 |
| apr 25 LEC 22: Low-level attacks |
apr 26 REC 22: Meltdown DUE: Hands-on databases Released: Hands-on MapReduce grades |
apr 27 LEC 23: Secure Channels |
apr 28 REC 23: DNSSEC |
apr 29 TUT 11: Final DP Report |
| may 2 LEC 24: ToR DUE: DP Report |
may 3 REC 24: Canceled |
may 4 LEC 25: Network Attacks |
may 5 REC 25: Mirai |
may 6 DUE: DP Peer Review Released: Tutorial Participation grades |
| may 9 LEC 26: Wrap-up Released: Hands-on databases grades |
may 10 REC 26: Wrap-up Last day of classes |
may 11 Released: Recitation Participation grades |
may 12 |
may 13 |
| may 16 EXAM: Exam 2 |
may 17 | may 18 | may 19 | may 20 Released: DP Final Report grades Released: Peer Review grades |