Chapter 5A:
File-System Interface
Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
Chapter 5A: File-System Interface
● File Concept
● Access Methods
● Directory Structure
● File-System Mounting
● File Sharing
● Protection
Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 10.2 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
Objectives
● To explain the function of file systems
● To describe the interfaces to file systems
● To discuss file-system design tradeoffs, including access methods, file
sharing, file locking, and directory structures
● To explore file-system protection
Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 10.3 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
File Concept
● Contiguous logical address space
● Types:
● Data
4 numeric
4 character
4 binary
● Program
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File Structure
● None - sequence of words, bytes
● Simple record structure
● Lines
● Fixed length
● Variable length
● Complex Structures
● Formatted document
● Relocatable load file
● Can simulate last two with first method by inserting appropriate control
characters
● Who decides:
● Operating system
● Program
Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 10.5 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
File Attributes
● Name – only information kept in human-readable form
● Identifier – unique tag (number) identifies file within file system
● Type – needed for systems that support different types
● Location – pointer to file location on device
● Size – current file size
● Protection – controls who can do reading, writing, executing
● Time, date, and user identification – data for protection, security, and
usage monitoring
● Information about files are kept in the directory structure, which is
maintained on the disk
Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 10.6 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
File Operations
● File is an abstract data type
● Create
● Write
● Read
● Reposition within file
● Delete
● Truncate
● Open(Fi) – search the directory structure on disk for entry Fi, and move
the content of entry to memory
● Close (Fi) – move the content of entry Fi in memory to directory
structure on disk
Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 10.7 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
Open Files
● Several pieces of data are needed to manage open files:
● File pointer: pointer to last read/write location, per process that
has the file open
● File-open count: counter of number of times a file is open – to allow
removal of data from open-file table when last processes closes it
● Disk location of the file: cache of data access information
● Access rights: per-process access mode information
Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 10.8 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
Open File Locking
● Provided by some operating systems and file systems
● Mediates access to a file
● Mandatory or advisory:
● Mandatory – access is denied depending on locks held and
requested
● Advisory – processes can find status of locks and decide what to
do
Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 10.9 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
File Locking Example – Java API
import [Link].*;
import [Link].*;
public class LockingExample {
public static final boolean EXCLUSIVE = false;
public static final boolean SHARED = true;
public static void main(String arsg[]) throws IOException {
FileLock sharedLock = null;
FileLock exclusiveLock = null;
try {
RandomAccessFile raf = new RandomAccessFile("[Link]", "rw");
// get the channel for the file
FileChannel ch = [Link]();
// this locks the first half of the file - exclusive
exclusiveLock = [Link](0, [Link]()/2, EXCLUSIVE);
/** Now modify the data . . . */
// release the lock
[Link]();
Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 10.10 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
File Locking Example –
Java API (Cont.)
// this locks the second half of the file - shared
sharedLock = [Link]([Link]()/2+1, [Link](),
SHARED);
/** Now read the data . . . */
// release the lock
[Link]();
} catch ([Link] ioe) {
[Link](ioe);
}finally {
if (exclusiveLock != null)
[Link]();
if (sharedLock != null)
[Link]();
}
}
}
Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 10.11 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
File Types – Name, Extension
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Access Methods
● Sequential Access
read next
write next
reset
no read after last write
(rewrite)
● Direct Access
read n
write n
position to n
read next
write next
rewrite n
n = relative block number
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Sequential-access File
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Simulation of Sequential Access on
Direct-access File
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Example of Index and Relative Files
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Directory Structure
● A collection of nodes containing information about all files
Directory
Files F F F
F 4
1 2
3 F
n
Both the directory structure and the files reside on disk
Backups of these two structures are kept on tapes
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Disk Structure
● Disk can be subdivided into partitions
● Disks or partitions can be RAID protected against failure
● Disk or partition can be used raw – without a file system, or formatted
with a file system
● Partitions also known as minidisks, slices
● Entity containing file system known as a volume
● Each volume containing file system also tracks that file system’s info in
device directory or volume table of contents
● As well as general-purpose file systems there are many special-
purpose file systems, frequently all within the same operating system
or computer
Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 10.18 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
A Typical File-system Organization
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Operations Performed on Directory
● Search for a file
● Create a file
● Delete a file
● List a directory
● Rename a file
● Traverse the file system
Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 10.20 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
Organize the Directory
(Logically) to Obtain
● Efficiency – locating a file quickly
● Naming – convenient to users
● Two users can have same name for different files
● The same file can have several different names
● Grouping – logical grouping of files by properties, (e.g., all Java
programs, all games, …)
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Single-Level Directory
● A single directory for all users
Naming problem
Grouping problem
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Two-Level Directory
● Separate directory for each user
● Path name
● Can have the same file name for different user
● Efficient searching
● No grouping capability
Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 10.23 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
Tree-Structured Directories
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Tree-Structured Directories (Cont.)
● Efficient searching
● Grouping Capability
● Current directory (working directory)
● cd /spell/mail/prog
● type list
Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 10.25 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
Tree-Structured Directories (Cont)
● Absolute or relative path name
● Creating a new file is done in current directory
● Delete a file
rm <file-name>
● Creating a new subdirectory is done in current directory
mkdir <dir-name>
Example: if in current directory /mail
mkdir count
mail
pr ex coun
prog copy
t p t
Deleting “mail” ⇒ deleting the entire subtree rooted by “mail”
Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 10.26 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
Acyclic-Graph Directories
● Have shared subdirectories and files
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Acyclic-Graph Directories (Cont.)
● Two different names (aliasing)
● If dict deletes list ⇒ dangling pointer
Solutions:
● Backpointers, so we can delete all pointers
Variable size records a problem
● Backpointers using a daisy chain organization
● Entry-hold-count solution
● New directory entry type
● Link – another name (pointer) to an existing file
● Resolve the link – follow pointer to locate the file
Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 10.28 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
General Graph Directory
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General Graph Directory (Cont.)
● How do we guarantee no cycles?
● Allow only links to file not subdirectories
● Garbage collection
● Every time a new link is added use a cycle detection algorithm to
determine whether it is OK
Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 10.30 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
File System Mounting
● Mounting is a process in which the operating system adds the directories
and files from a storage device to the user’s computer file system.
● The file system is attached to an empty directory, by adding so the
system user can access the data that is available inside the storage
device through the system file manager.
● Storage systems can be internal hard disks, external hard disks, USB
flash drivers, SSD cards, memory cards, network-attached storage
devices, CDs and DVDs, remote file systems, or anything else.
● A file system must be mounted before it can be accessed
● A unmounted file system (i.e., Fig. 11-11(b)) is mounted at a mount
point
Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 10.31 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
(a) Existing (b) Unmounted Partition
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Mount Point
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Mounting in Windows OS
● In windows mounting is very easy for a user. When we
connect the external storage devices, windows automatically
detect the file system and mount it to the drive letter. Drive
letter may be D: or E:.
● Steps:
● Connect an external storage device to your PC.
● Windows detects the file system on the drive (e.g., FAT32
or NTFS) and assigns it a drive letter, such as "E:".
● You can access the derive by going through, THIS PC -->
FILE EXPLORER -->"E:" drive
● Access the data.
Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 10.34 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
File Sharing
● Sharing of files on multi-user systems is desirable
● Sharing may be done through a protection scheme
● On distributed systems, files may be shared across a network
● Network File System (NFS) is a common distributed file-sharing method
Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 10.35 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
File Sharing – Multiple Users
● User IDs identify users, allowing permissions and protections to be
per-user
● Group IDs allow users to be in groups, permitting group access
rights
Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 10.36 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
File Sharing – Remote File Systems
● Uses networking to allow file system access between systems
● Manually via programs like FTP
● Automatically, seamlessly using distributed file systems
● Semi automatically via the world wide web
● Client-server model allows clients to mount remote file systems from
servers
● Server can serve multiple clients
● Client and user-on-client identification is insecure or complicated
● NFS is standard UNIX client-server file sharing protocol
● CIFS is standard Windows protocol
● Standard operating system file calls are translated into remote calls
● Distributed Information Systems (distributed naming services) such
as LDAP, DNS, NIS, Active Directory implement unified access to
information needed for remote computing
Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 10.37 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
File Sharing – Failure Modes
● Remote file systems add new failure modes, due to network failure,
server failure
● Recovery from failure can involve state information about status of
each remote request
● Stateless protocols such as NFS include all information in each
request, allowing easy recovery but less security
Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 10.38 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
Protection
● File owner/creator should be able to control:
● what can be done
● by whom
● Types of access
● Read
● Write
● Execute
● Append
● Delete
● List
Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 10.39 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
Access Lists and Groups
● Mode of access: read, write, execute
● Three classes of users
RWX
a) owner access 7 ⇒ 111
RWX
b) group access 6 ⇒ 110
RWX
c) public access 1 ⇒ 001
● Ask manager to create a group (unique name), say G, and add
some users to the group.
● For a particular file (say game) or subdirectory, define an
appropriate access.
owner group public
chmod 761 game
Attach a group to a file
chgrp G game
Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 10.40 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
Windows XP Access-Control
List Management
Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 10.41 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
A Sample UNIX Directory Listing
Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 10.42 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
End of Module 5A
Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009