Chapter 11:

File-System Interface

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Chapter 11: File-System Interface

 File Concept
 Access Methods
 Disk and Directory Structure
 File-System Mounting
 File Sharing
 Protection

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.2 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 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 – 9th Edition 11.3 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 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

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.4 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 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
 Many variations, including extended file attributes such as file
checksum
 Information kept in the directory structure

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.5 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 File info Window on Mac OS X

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.6 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 File Operations
 File is an abstract data type
 Create
 Write – at write pointer location
 Read – at read pointer location
 Reposition within file - seek
 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 – 9th Edition 11.7 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Open Files
 Several pieces of data are 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

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.8 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Open File Locking
 Provided by some operating systems and file systems
 Similar to reader-writer locks
 Shared lock similar to reader lock – several processes can
acquire concurrently
 Exclusive lock similar to writer lock
 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 – 9th Edition 11.9 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 File Types – Name, Extension

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.10 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 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 – 9th Edition 11.11 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Sequential-access File

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.12 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 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

 Relative block numbers allow OS to decide where file should be placed

 See allocation problem in Ch 12

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.13 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Simulation of Sequential Access on Direct-access File

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.14 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 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)

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.15 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Example of Index and Relative Files

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.16 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 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

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.17 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 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 – 9th Edition 11.18 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 End of Chapter 11

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013