File-System Interface

Operating Systems
 Contents
• File Concept
• Access Methods
• Directory Structures
• File System
Mounting
• File Sharing
• Protection

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 File Concept
• Contiguous logical address space.
• Types:
– Data
• numeric
• character
• binary
– Program
• Contents defined by file’s creator:
– Many types:
• Consider text file, source file, executable file

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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

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 Basic file attributes
• Name – only information kept in human-readable form.
• Identifier – unique tag (number) identifies file within 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.
• Many variations, including extended file attributes such as file checksum.
• Information kept in the directory structure.

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 More file attributes

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 File Type Extensions (1)

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 File Type Extensions (2)

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 Common File Operations
• Create
• Read/Write – at read/write pointer location.
• Seek: Reposition within file.
• Delete
• Append/Truncate
• Set/Get Attributes
• 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.

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 Open Files
• Several pieces of data needed to manage open files:
– Open-file table: tracks 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.

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 Access Methods
• Sequential Access
read next
write next
reset
no read after last write
(rewrite)
• Direct Access – file is fixed length logical records
read n
write n
position to n
read next
write next
rewrite n
n = relative block number

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 Sequential/Direct Access

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 Other Access Methods
• Can be built on top of base methods.
• General involve creation of an index for the file.
• Keep index in memory for fast determination of location of data to be
operated on (consider UPC code plus record of data about that item).
• If too large, index (in memory) of the index (on disk).
• IBM indexed sequential-access method (ISAM):
– Small master index, points to disk blocks of secondary index
– File kept sorted on a defined key
– All done by the OS.
• VMS operating system provides index and relative files as another example
(see next slide).

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 Example of Index and Relative Files

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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.

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 A Typical File-system Organization

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 Types of File Systems
• We mostly talk of general-purpose file systems.
• But systems frequently have may file systems, some
general- and some special- purpose.
• Consider Solaris has:
– tmpfs – memory-based volatile FS for fast, temporary I/O
– objfs – interface into kernel memory to get kernel symbols for
debugging
– ctfs – contract file system for managing daemons
– lofs – loopback file system allows one FS to be accessed in place of
another
– procfs – kernel interface to process structures
– ufs, zfs – general purpose file systems

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 Directory Structures
• Collection of nodes containing information about all files.

Directory

Files F1 F2 F3 F4
Fn

Both the directory structure and the files reside on disk.

Backups of these two structures are kept on tapes.
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 Information in a Directory Entry
• Name
• Type
• Address
• Current length
• Maximum length
• Date last accessed (for archival)
• Date last updated (for dump)
• Owner ID (who pays)
• Protection information
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 Directory Operations
• Operations performed on a directory:
– Search for a file
– Create a file
– Delete a file
– List a directory
– Rename a file
– Traverse the file system

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 Directory Organization Characteristics
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.
• Common problems:
– Eventual length of directory.
– Giving unique names to files.
– Remembering names of files.
– Grouping of files (use file extensions).

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 Two-Level Directory
• Separate directory for each user.
• Use of path name.
• Can have the same file name for different users.
• Provides efficient searching.
• No grouping capability.
• Main problem: violates zero-one-infinity principle.

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 Tree-Structured Directory Components

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 Directory Path Names

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 Tree-Structured Directory

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 Tree-Structured Directories (1)
• Provides efficient searching.
• Has grouping capability.
• Current directory (working directory):
– cd /spell/mail/prog
– type list
• Use absolute or relative path name.

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 Tree-Structured Directories (2)
• 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
mail
mkdir count
prog copy prt exp count

• Deleting “mail”  deleting the entire subtree

rooted by “mail”.
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 Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) Directories

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 Directed Acyclic Graph Directories
• Have shared subdirectories and files.
• Entry may have 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.
• Newer type of directory entry:
– Link – another name (pointer) to an existing file
– Resolve the link – follow pointer to locate the file

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 Shared File Example

(a) Situation prior to linking. (b) After the link is created.

(c) After the original owner removes the file.
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 General Graph Directory

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 General Graph Directory
• How do we guarantee no cycles?
– Allow only links to files, not subdirectories.
– Every time a new link is added use a cycle
detection algorithm to determine whether
it is OK.
– Use garbage collection.

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 File System Mounting
• A file system must be mounted before it can
be accessed.
• A unmounted file system is mounted at a
mount point.

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 Example – File System Mounting

Before mounting (b) Mounted system )a(

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 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.
• If multi-user system:
– User IDs identify users, allowing permissions and
protections to be per-user.
– Group IDs allow users to be in groups, permitting group
access rights.
– Owner/Group of a file/directory.

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 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 Web.
• Client-server model allows clients to mount remote file systems
from servers:
– Server can serve multiple clients.
– Client & user-on-client identification is insecure/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.

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 Mounting Remote Name Spaces

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 File Sharing – Failure Modes
• All file systems have failure modes:
– For example corruption of directory structures or
other non-user data, called metadata.
• 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 v3 include all
information in each request, allowing easy recovery
but less security.
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 Protection
• File owner/creator should be able to control:
– what can be done
– and by whom
• Types of access:
– Read
– Write
– Execute
– Append
– Delete
– List
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 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
• Attach a group to a file
chmod 761 game
chgrp G game
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 A Sample UNIX Directory Listing

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 Windows XP
Access-control List Management

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 References
• Operating System by A. Frank - P.
Weisberg

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 Thank You

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