By

K PAVAN KUMAR
Dept. Of CSE
VFSTR University
Secondary Storage Structure
• File Systems - file concept, access methods
• Directory structure,
• File system mounting,
• File sharing protection;
• File-system structure,
• File system implementation,
• Directory implementation,
• Allocation methods,
• Free space management.
File

• Its a collection of data or information.

• Computer treats every file like a single unit.
• Therefore each file has a filename.
• 2 Types: Program files and Data Files.
• Program files  Software instructions.
• Source program files and Executable files.
• Data Files  Stores information.
• Graphic Files, Audio files and Animation/Video files.
File systems

• Data structure that stores data and information on storage devices

• File system is the part of the OS.
• It is responsible for file management.
• It provides a mechanism to store the data and access to the file
contents including data and programs.

• Some Operating systems treats everything as a file for example

Ubuntu.
File systems in Windows

• Windows environment, follows 3 file systems.

• Each with different indexing methods.
1. FAT (12, 16, or 32) file system.
2. NTFS (New Technology File System)
3. exFAT, is a lightweight file system used primarily in flash storage
applications and SD cards.
• FAT: file allocation table
 File systems in Unix
• Linux file system has a hierarchal file structure
• It contains a root directory and its subdirectories.
• All other directories can be accessed from the root directory.
• A partition usually has only one file system, but it may have more than
one file system.

Ex: Ext, Ext2, Ext3 and Ext4  Extended File System.

• JFS  Journaled File System, and it is developed by IBM for AIX Unix. ...
• ReiserFS File System. ...
• XFS File System. ...
• Btrfs File System. ...
• Swap File System.
Important properties of a file system:

• Files are stored on disk or other storage.

• Files have names and are associated with access permissions.

• Arranged to reflect the relationship between them.

• File Name = Name.Extension

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
File Operations
File is an abstract data type
• Create :
• Write : At write pointer location
• Read : At read pointer location
• Reposition/Seek : Current position to a specific place in the file.
• Delete : Directory is searched and Freed.
• Truncate : Deleting the file except deleting 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.
• Append and Rename
 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
Open File Locking

• Provided by some OS 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
File Types

• Executable files  .exe

• Object files  .obj/o
• Source code  .c, .java etc..
• Batch Files  bat
• Text files
• Word process files
• Print and view files pdf
• Library files  .lib
• Archive files  .zip
• Multimedia files  .mp4
File Types – Name. Extension
File Structure

• Predefined format in such a way that an OS understands.

• It has an exclusively defined structure, which is based on its type.
• Three types of files structure in OS:
Text file: It is a series of characters that is organized in lines.
Object file: It is a series of bytes that is organized into blocks.
Source file: It is a series of functions and processes.
File Structure

• 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
Access Methods

• When a file is used, information is read and accessed into computer

memory
Types are
• Sequential-Access,
• Direct Access,
• Index sequential Method.
Sequential-Access

• Data is accessed one record right after another record in an order.

• When we use read command, it move ahead pointer by one
• When we use write command, it will allocate memory and move the
pointer to the end of the file
• Such a method is reasonable for tapeEditor and compiler usually
access the file in this fashion.
Direct Access

• Relative access method.

• Read and Write records in No Particular order.
• Access is based on the disk model of a file.
• For direct access, the file is viewed as a numbered sequence of block
or record.
Ex: Read 14 then block 59 and then block 17.

• A block number provided by the user to the OS is normally a relative

block number, the first relative block of the file is 0 and then 1 and so
on.
Index sequential method

• It is built on top of Sequential access.

• It control the pointer by using index

• To find a record in the file, we first search the index and then by the
help of pointer we access the file directly.
Ex: of Index and Relative Files
Directory structure
Directory

• Directory is a container that is used to contain folders and files.

• It organizes files and folders in a hierarchical manner.
 Directory
• A collection of nodes containing
information about all files.
• Both the directory structure and
the files reside on disk
Directory Organization

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, …)
Operations Performed on Directory

• Search for a file

• Create a file

• Delete a file

• List a directory

• Rename a file

• Traverse the file system

Directory Structure

• Single-level directory
• Two-level directory
• Tree-structured directory
• Acyclic graph directory
• General graph directory structure
 Single-level directory
• Simplest directory structure.
• In it, all files are contained in the same directory
Advantages:
• Implementation is very easy.
• If the files are smaller in size, creation, searching, deletion, updating
will become faster.

Disadvantages:
• There may chance of name collision because two files can not have
the same name.
• If the files are larger in size, creation, searching, deletion, updating
will become slow.
• This can not group the same type of files together.
Two-level directory
• Create a separate directory for each user.
• Each user has their own UFD (user files directory).
• System’s MFD(master file directory) is searches whenever a new user
id=s logged in.
Two-level directory

Advantages:
• We can give full path like /User-name/directory-name/.
• Different users can have the same directory as well as the file name.
• Searching of files becomes easier due to pathname and user-
grouping.

Disadvantages:
• A user is not allowed to share files with other users.
• Still, it not very scalable, two files of the same type cannot be
grouped together in the same user.
Tree structure

• The tree has a root directory, and every file in the system has a
unique path.
Tree structure

• Efficient searching
• Grouping Capability
• Current directory (working directory)
• cd /spell/mail/prog
• type list

No Sharing between users

Tree structure

• Path: Describes the location of a file

• Absolute path or full path: It always starts at the root directory.
• Relative path: It is a path that describes the location of a file or folder
in relative to the current working directory.
Acyclic graph directory

• It is a graph with no cycles

• Allows us to share subdirectories and files.
Acyclic graph directory

Advantages:
• Share files.
• Searching is easy due to different-different paths.

Disadvantages:
• We share the files via linking, in case deleting it may create the
problem,
• If the link is a soft link then after deleting the file we left with a
dangling pointer.
• In the case of a hard link, to delete a file we have to delete all the
references associated with it.
General Graph Directory

• Cycles are allowed within a directory structure where multiple

directories can be derived from more than one parent directory.
General Graph Directory

Advantages:
• It allows cycles.
• It is more flexible than other directories structure.

Disadvantages:
• It is more costly than others.
• It needs garbage collection.
File System Mounting

• Mounting is a process by which the OS makes files and directories on

a storage device (such as hard drive, CD-ROM, or network share)
available for users to access via the computer's file system.
 File System Mounting
• OS is given the name of the device and the mount point -the location
within the file structure where the file system is to be attached.

• Typically, a mount point is an empty directory.

• Next, the OS verifies that the device contains a valid file system.
• Finally, the OS notes in its directory structure that a file system is
mounted at the specified mount point.
• This scheme enables the OS to traverse its directory structure, switching
among file systems as appropriate.
Mount Point

• A unmounted file system (b) is mounted at a mount point

File Sharing/ File-swapping

• 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 of a file / directory
• Group of a file / directory
File sharing

Ways are:
• Removable storage devices
• Centralized file hosting server installations on networks
• World Wide Web-oriented hyperlinked documents
• Distributed peer-to-peer networks
File Sharing – Remote File Systems

• In Distributed systems, file system access between systems

• Manually via programs like FTP
• Automatically, seamlessly using distributed file systems
• Semi automatically via the world wide web
File Sharing – Remote File Systems

• In 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
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
Protection

• File owner/creator should be able to control:

• what can be done
• by whom
• Types of access
• Read
• Write
• Execute
• Append
• Delete
• List
Access Lists and Groups

• Mode of access: read, write, execute

• Three classes of users on Unix / Linux
• RWX
• a) owner access 7  111
b) group access 6  110
• c) public access 1  001
Ex: chmod 761 f1