File-System Structure

File structure
Logical storage unit
Collection of related information
File system resides on secondary storage (disks)
Provided user interface to storage, mapping logical to physical
Provides efficient and convenient access to disk by allowing data
to be stored, located retrieved easily
Disk provides in-place rewrite and random access
I/O transfers performed in blocks of sectors (usually 512 bytes)
File control block – storage structure consisting of information
about a file
Device driver controls the physical device
File system organized into layers
Layered File System
 File System Layers
Device drivers manage I/O devices at the I/O control layer
Given commands like “read drive1, cylinder 72, track 2, sector 10,
into memory location 1060” outputs low-level hardware specific
commands to hardware controller
Basic file system given command like “retrieve block 123” translates
to device driver
Also manages memory buffers and caches (allocation, freeing,
replacement)
Buffers hold data in transit
Caches hold frequently used data
File organization module understands files, logical address, and
physical blocks
Translates logical block # to physical block #
Manages free space, disk allocation
 File System Layers (Cont.)
Logical file system manages metadata information
Translates file name into file number, file handle, location by
maintaining file control blocks (inodes in UNIX)
Directory management
Protection
Layering useful for reducing complexity and redundancy, but adds
overhead and can decrease performanceTranslates file name into
file number, file handle, location by maintaining file control blocks
(inodes in UNIX)
Logical layers can be implemented by any coding method
according to OS designer
 File System Layers (Cont.)
Many file systems, sometimes many within an operating system
Each with its own format (CD-ROM is ISO 9660; Unix has
UFS, FFS; Windows has FAT, FAT32, NTFS as well as floppy,
CD, DVD Blu-ray, Linux has more than 40 types, with
extended file system ext2 and ext3 leading; plus
distributed file systems, etc.)
New ones still arriving – ZFS, GoogleFS, Oracle ASM, FUSE
 File-System Implementation
We have system calls at the API level, but how do we implement
their functions?
On-disk and in-memory structures
Boot control block contains info needed by system to boot OS from
that volume
Needed if volume contains OS, usually first block of volume
Volume control block (superblock, master file table) contains
volume details
Total # of blocks, # of free blocks, block size, free block pointers
or array
Directory structure organizes the files
Names and inode numbers, master file table
 File-System Implementation (Cont.)
Per-file File Control Block (FCB) contains many details about the
file
inode number, permissions, size, dates
NFTS stores into in master file table using relational DB
structures
 In-Memory File System Structures

Mount table storing file system mounts, mount points, file

system types
The following figure illustrates the necessary file system
structures provided by the operating systems
Figure 12-3(a) refers to opening a file
Figure 12-3(b) refers to reading a file
Plus buffers hold data blocks from secondary storage
Open returns a file handle for subsequent use
Data from read eventually copied to specified user process
memory address
In-Memory File System Structures
 Partitions and Mounting
Partition can be a volume containing a file system (“cooked”) or raw –
just a sequence of blocks with no file system
Boot block can point to boot volume or boot loader set of blocks that
contain enough code to know how to load the kernel from the file
system
Or a boot management program for multi-os booting
Root partition contains the OS, other partitions can hold other Oses,
other file systems, or be raw
Mounted at boot time
Other partitions can mount automatically or manually
At mount time, file system consistency checked
Is all metadata correct?
 If not, fix it, try again
 If yes, add to mount table, allow access
 Virtual File Systems
Virtual File Systems (VFS) on Unix provide an object-oriented way
of implementing file systems
VFS allows the same system call interface (the API) to be used for
different types of file systems
Separates file-system generic operations from implementation
details
Implementation can be one of many file systems types, or
network file system
 Implements vnodes which hold inodes or network file
details
Then dispatches operation to appropriate file system
implementation routines
 Virtual File Systems (Cont.)

The API is to the VFS interface, rather than any specific type of
file system
 Virtual File System Implementation
For example, Linux has four object types:
inode, file, superblock, dentry
VFS defines set of operations on the objects that must be implemented
Every object has a pointer to a function table
 Function table has addresses of routines to implement that
function on that object
 For example:
 • int open(. . .)—Open a file
 • int close(. . .)—Close an already-open file
 • ssize t read(. . .)—Read from a file
 • ssize t write(. . .)—Write to a file
 • int mmap(. . .)—Memory-map a file
 Directory Implementation
Linear list of file names with pointer to the data blocks
Simple to program
Time-consuming to execute
 Linear search time
 Could keep ordered alphabetically via linked list or use B+
tree
Hash Table – linear list with hash data structure
Decreases directory search time
Collisions – situations where two file names hash to the same
location
Only good if entries are fixed size, or use chained-overflow
method
 Allocation Methods - Contiguous

An allocation method refers to how disk blocks are allocated for

files:
Contiguous allocation – each file occupies set of contiguous
blocks
Best performance in most cases
Simple – only starting location (block #) and length (number of
blocks) are required
Problems include finding space for file, knowing file size,
external fragmentation, need for compaction off-line
(downtime) or on-line
 Contiguous Allocation

Mapping from logical to physical

LA/512

Block to be accessed = Q + starting

address
Displacement into block = R
 Extent-Based Systems

Many newer file systems (i.e., Veritas File System) use a modified
contiguous allocation scheme

Extent-based file systems allocate disk blocks in extents

An extent is a contiguous block of disks

Extents are allocated for file allocation
A file consists of one or more extents
 Allocation Methods - Linked
Linked allocation – each file a linked list of blocks
File ends at nil pointer
No external fragmentation
Each block contains pointer to next block
No compaction, external fragmentation
Free space management system called when new block needed
Improve efficiency by clustering blocks into groups but increases
internal fragmentation
Reliability can be a problem
Locating a block can take many I/Os and disk seeks
 Allocation Methods – Linked (Cont.)
FAT (File Allocation Table) variation
Beginning of volume has table, indexed by block number
Much like a linked list, but faster on disk and cacheable
New block allocation simple
 Linked Allocation
Each file is a linked list of disk blocks: blocks may be scattered
anywhere on the disk
block = pointer

Mapping
Q
LA/511
R
Block to be accessed is the Qth block in the linked chain of blocks
representing the file.

Displacement into block = R + 1

Linked Allocation
File-Allocation Table
 Allocation Methods - Indexed

Indexed allocation
Each file has its own index block(s) of pointers to its data blocks

Logical view

index table
Example of Indexed Allocation
 Indexed Allocation (Cont.)

Need index table

Random access

Dynamic access without external fragmentation, but have overhead of

index block

Mapping from logical to physical in a file of maximum size of 256K

bytes and block size of 512 bytes. We need only 1 block for index
table
Q
LA/512
R

Q = displacement into index table

R = displacement into block
 Indexed Allocation – Mapping (Cont.)
Mapping from logical to physical in a file of unbounded length (block size
of 512 words)

Linked scheme – Link blocks of index table (no limit on size)

Q1
LA / (512 x 511)
R1
Q1 = block of index table
R1 is used as follows:
Q2
R1 / 512
R2

Q2 = displacement into block of index table

R2 displacement into block of file:
Indexed Allocation – Mapping (Cont.)
Two-level index (4K blocks could store 1,024 four-byte pointers in outer
index -> 1,048,567 data blocks and file size of up to 4GB)

Q1
LA / (512 x 512)
R1

Q1 = displacement into outer-index

R1 is used as follows:
Q2
R1 / 512
R2

Q2 = displacement into block of index table

R2 displacement into block of file:
Indexed Allocation – Mapping (Cont.)
 Combined Scheme: UNIX UFS
4K bytes per block, 32-bit addresses

More index blocks than can be addressed with 32-bit file pointer
 Performance
Best method depends on file access type
Contiguous great for sequential and random
Linked good for sequential, not random
Declare access type at creation -> select either contiguous or
linked
Indexed more complex
Single block access could require 2 index block reads then
data block read
Clustering can help improve throughput, reduce CPU
overhead
 Performance (Cont.)
Adding instructions to the execution path to save one disk I/O is
reasonable
Intel Core i7 Extreme Edition 990x (2011) at 3.46Ghz = 159,000
MIPS
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instructions_per_second
Typical disk drive at 250 I/Os per second
 159,000 MIPS / 250 = 630 million instructions during one
disk I/O
Fast SSD drives provide 60,000 IOPS
 159,000 MIPS / 60,000 = 2.65 millions instructions during
one disk I/O
 Free-Space Management

File system maintains free-space list to track available blocks/clusters

(Using term “block” for simplicity)
Bit vector or bit map (n blocks)

0 1 2 n-1
…

1  block[i] free
bit[i] =
0  block[i] occupied

Block number calculation

(number of bits per word) *

(number of 0-value words) +
offset of first 1 bit
CPUs have instructions to return offset within word of first “1” bit
 Free-Space Management (Cont.)
Bit map requires extra space
Example:
block size = 4KB = 212 bytes
disk size = 240 bytes (1 terabyte)
n = 240/212 = 228 bits (or 32MB)
if clusters of 4 blocks -> 8MB of memory

Easy to get contiguous files

 Linked Free Space List on Disk

Linked list (free list)

Cannot get contiguous
space easily
No waste of space
No need to traverse the
entire list (if # free blocks
recorded)
 Free-Space Management (Cont.)

Grouping
Modify linked list to store address of next n-1 free blocks in first
free block, plus a pointer to next block that contains free-block-
pointers (like this one)

Counting
Because space is frequently contiguously used and freed, with
contiguous-allocation allocation, extents, or clustering
 Keep address of first free block and count of following free
blocks
 Free space list then has entries containing addresses and
counts
 Free-Space Management (Cont.)
Space Maps
Used in ZFS
Consider meta-data I/O on very large file systems
 Full data structures like bit maps couldn’t fit in memory ->
thousands of I/Os
Divides device space into metaslab units and manages metaslabs
 Given volume can contain hundreds of metaslabs
Each metaslab has associated space map
 Uses counting algorithm
But records to log file rather than file system
 Log of all block activity, in time order, in counting format
Metaslab activity -> load space map into memory in balanced-tree
structure, indexed by offset
 Replay log into that structure
 Combine contiguous free blocks into single entry
 Efficiency and Performance

Efficiency dependent on:

Disk allocation and directory algorithms
Types of data kept in file’s directory entry
Pre-allocation or as-needed allocation of metadata
structures
Fixed-size or varying-size data structures
 Efficiency and Performance (Cont.)

Performance
Keeping data and metadata close together
Buffer cache – separate section of main memory for frequently
used blocks
Synchronous writes sometimes requested by apps or needed by
OS
 No buffering / caching – writes must hit disk before
acknowledgement
 Asynchronous writes more common, buffer-able, faster
Free-behind and read-ahead – techniques to optimize
sequential access
Reads frequently slower than writes
 Page Cache

A page cache caches pages rather than disk blocks using virtual memory
techniques and addresses

Memory-mapped I/O uses a page cache

Routine I/O through the file system uses the buffer (disk) cache

This leads to the following figure

I/O Without a Unified Buffer Cache
 Unified Buffer Cache

A unified buffer cache uses the same page cache to cache both
memory-mapped pages and ordinary file system I/O to avoid
double caching

But which caches get priority, and what replacement algorithms

to use?
I/O Using a Unified Buffer Cache
 Recovery

Consistency checking – compares data in directory structure with

data blocks on disk, and tries to fix inconsistencies
Can be slow and sometimes fails

Use system programs to back up data from disk to another storage

device (magnetic tape, other magnetic disk, optical)

Recover lost file or disk by restoring data from backup

 Log Structured File Systems
Log structured (or journaling) file systems record each metadata
update to the file system as a transaction
All transactions are written to a log
A transaction is considered committed once it is written to the
log (sequentially)
Sometimes to a separate device or section of disk
However, the file system may not yet be updated
The transactions in the log are asynchronously written to the file
system structures
When the file system structures are modified, the transaction is
removed from the log
If the file system crashes, all remaining transactions in the log must
still be performed
Faster recovery from crash, removes chance of inconsistency of
metadata
 The Sun Network File System (NFS)

An implementation and a specification of a software system for

accessing remote files across LANs (or WANs)

The implementation is part of the Solaris and SunOS operating

systems running on Sun workstations using an unreliable
datagram protocol (UDP/IP protocol and Ethernet
 NFS

Interconnected workstations viewed as a set of independent machines

with independent file systems, which allows sharing among these file
systems in a transparent manner
A remote directory is mounted over a local file system directory
The mounted directory looks like an integral subtree of the local
file system, replacing the subtree descending from the local
directory
Specification of the remote directory for the mount operation is
nontransparent; the host name of the remote directory has to be
provided
 Files in the remote directory can then be accessed in a
transparent manner
Subject to access-rights accreditation, potentially any file system (or
directory within a file system), can be mounted remotely on top of
any local directory
 NFS
• NFS is designed to operate in a heterogeneous environment of
different machines, operating systems, and network architectures; the
NFS specifications independent of these media

• This independence is achieved through the use of RPC primitives built

on top of an External Data Representation (XDR) protocol used
between two implementation-independent interfaces

• The NFS specification distinguishes between the services provided by

a mount mechanism and the actual remote-file-access services
Three Independent File Systems
 Mounting in NFS

Mounts Cascading mounts

 NFS Mount Protocol
Establishes initial logical connection between server and client
Mount operation includes name of remote directory to be mounted
and name of server machine storing it
Mount request is mapped to corresponding RPC and forwarded
to mount server running on server machine
Export list – specifies local file systems that server exports for
mounting, along with names of machines that are permitted to
mount them
Following a mount request that conforms to its export list, the server
returns a file handle—a key for further accesses
File handle – a file-system identifier, and an inode number to identify
the mounted directory within the exported file system
The mount operation changes only the user’s view and does not
affect the server side
 NFS Protocol
Provides a set of remote procedure calls for remote file operations.
The procedures support the following operations:
searching for a file within a directory
reading a set of directory entries
manipulating links and directories
accessing file attributes
reading and writing files
NFS servers are stateless; each request has to provide a full set of
arguments (NFS V4 is just coming available – very different, stateful)
Modified data must be committed to the server’s disk before results
are returned to the client (lose advantages of caching)
The NFS protocol does not provide concurrency-control mechanisms
 Three Major Layers of NFS Architecture

UNIX file-system interface (based on the open, read, write, and close
calls, and file descriptors)

Virtual File System (VFS) layer – distinguishes local files from remote
ones, and local files are further distinguished according to their file-
system types
The VFS activates file-system-specific operations to handle local
requests according to their file-system types
Calls the NFS protocol procedures for remote requests

NFS service layer – bottom layer of the architecture

Implements the NFS protocol
Schematic View of NFS Architecture
 NFS Path-Name Translation

Performed by breaking the path into component names and

performing a separate NFS lookup call for every pair of component
name and directory vnode

To make lookup faster, a directory name lookup cache on the

client’s side holds the vnodes for remote directory names
 NFS Remote Operations

Nearly one-to-one correspondence between regular UNIX system

calls and the NFS protocol RPCs (except opening and closing files)
NFS adheres to the remote-service paradigm, but employs buffering
and caching techniques for the sake of performance
File-blocks cache – when a file is opened, the kernel checks with the
remote server whether to fetch or revalidate the cached attributes
Cached file blocks are used only if the corresponding cached
attributes are up to date
File-attribute cache – the attribute cache is updated whenever new
attributes arrive from the server
Clients do not free delayed-write blocks until the server confirms
that the data have been written to disk
 Example: WAFL File System
Used on Network Appliance “Filers” – distributed file system
appliances
“Write-anywhere file layout”
Serves up NFS, CIFS, http, ftp
Random I/O optimized, write optimized
NVRAM for write caching
Similar to Berkeley Fast File System, with extensive modifications
The WAFL File Layout
Snapshots in WAFL