 File system - From user’s point of view one of the

most important part of the OS.

 File system allows the user to create a collection of

data called files with the following properties –

1. Long-term existence
◦ Stored on disk or secondary storage
2. Sharable between processes
◦ Access can be controlled, with permissions
3. Structure
◦ Depending on the file structure, a file can have internal
structure convenient for a particular application.
◦ Files can be organized in hierarchy or more complex
structure – to reflect relationships among them.
A file system also provides a collection of
functions
that can be performed on files.
 Create – define new file and position it within
file structure.
 Delete – remove from the file structure and
destroyed.
 Open – to allow a process to perform
functions on it.
 Close – close with respect to a process.
 Read – read all or a portion of a file.
 Write (update) – add new data, or change
values.
File Management System
 A set of system software.
 The way a user of application may access

files is through the FMS

 Programmer does not need to develop file

management software
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16
20
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 Directly access a block at a known address
 Key field required for each record

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 Contains information about files
◦ Attributes
◦ Location
◦ Ownership
 Directory itself is a file owned by the
operating system
 Provides mapping between file names and

the files themselves

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 List of entries, one for each file
 Sequential file with the name of the file

serving as the key

 Provides no help in organizing the files
 Forces user to be careful not to use the

same name for two different files

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 One directory for each user and a master
directory
 Master directory contains entry for each

user
◦ Provides address and access control information
 Each user directory is a simple list of files
for that user
 Still provides no help in structuring

collections of files

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 Master directory with user directories
underneath it
 Each user directory may have

subdirectories and files as entries

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 Files can be located by following a path
from the root, or master, directory down
various branches
◦ This is the pathname for the file
 Can have several files with the same file
name as long as they have unique path
names

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 Current directory is the working directory
 Files are referenced relative to the working

directory

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 On secondary storage a file is a collection of
blocks; the operating system or file management
system is responsible for allocating blocks to files
 Two management issues
◦ Space on secondary storage must be allocated
to files
◦ Keep track of the space available for allocation
 The approach taken for file allocation may
influence the approach taken for available space
management
 Three common file allocation methods are
:
◦ Contiguous allocation
 Single contiguous set of blocks is allocated to a file
at the time of file creation
◦ Chained allocation
 Each block contains a pointer to the next block in the
chain
◦ Indexed allocation
 The file allocation table contains a separate one level
index for each file; the index has one entry for each
allocated portion (unit) to the file.
1. Contiguous allocation:
 A single contiguous set of blocks assigned to a file when it is
created
 Only a single entry in the file allocation table showing the starting

block and length of the file.

 Multiple blocks can be read at a time in case of sequential
processing.
 Assuming contiguous blocks are stored on one track , disk seek
time is minimum.
 How to satisfy a request of size n from a list of free holes?

Strategies used are first fit, best fit and next fit.
 Disadv

Suffers from external fragmentation.

As files are allocated and deleted, free space on the disk is broken
down into smaller pieces.
Soln : USE COMPACTION
Before Compaction After Compaction
2. Chained Allocation
 Each file is a linked list of disk blocks; the blocks can

be scattered anywhere on the disk

 Each block contains a pointer to the next block in the

chain
 File allocation table consists of

◦ Starting block and length of file

 No external fragmentation

◦ Any free block can be added to a chain

 Best for sequential files

 No accommodation of the principle of locality

Note : Some FATs may contain start
block and end(instead of length)
Disadv :
 No accommodation of the principle of locality.

If it is required to bring in several blocks of file at a time,

then a series of accesses to different parts of the disk are
required (Increase in head movement).
3. Indexed Allocation
 File allocation table contains one level index for each file.

 The file index for a file is kept in a separate block and the

entry for the file allocation table points to that block

 Eliminates external fragmentation
 Just as allocated space must be managed,
so must the unallocated space.

 To perform file allocation, it is necessary to

know which blocks are available

 A disk allocation table is needed in

addition to a file allocation table
1. Bit Tables(Bit vector)
 This method uses a vector containing one

bit for each block on the disk

 Each entry of a 0 corresponds to a free

block, and each 1 corresponds to a block in

use.
 For example, for the disk layout of 35 blocks

00111000011111000011111111111011000
Means 0 1 5 6 7 8 …… are free
Adv:
Easy to find one or more contiguous group of free blocks.
Disadv:
 The amount of memory (in bytes) required for a block

bitmap is
disk size in bytes/(8 * file system block size)

 Thus, for a 16-Gbyte disk with 512-byte blocks, the bit

table occupies about
4 Mbytes.
 Can we spare 4 Mbytes of main memory for the bit
table?
2. Linked list
 Link together all the free disk blocks,

keeping a pointer to the first free block in a

special location on the disk.
 This first block contains a pointer to the

next free disk block and so on.

 Not efficient since to traverse the list we

must read each block, which requires a

substantial I/O.
3. Grouping
 A modification of the linked-list approach is to store

the addresses of n free blocks in the first free

block(if the block can hold upto n addresses).
 The first n-1 of these are actually free.

 The last one is the disk address of another block

containing addresses of another n free blocks.

 The importance of this implementation is that

addresses of a large number of free blocks can be

found quickly.
4. Counting
 Another approach is to take advantage of the fact

that, generally, several contiguous blocks may be

allocated or freed simultaneously, particularly
when contiguous allocation is used.
 Thus, rather than keeping a list of free disk

addresses, the address of the first free block is

kept and the number n of free contiguous blocks
that follow the first block.
 Each entry in the free-space list then consists of a

disk address and a count.

 In the original Unix file system, Unix divided physical
disks into logical disks called partitions.
1. Boot block

2. Super Block

3. Array of inodes

4. Directory and data blocks

1. Boot block is located in the first few sectors of a file system.
The boot block contains the initial bootstrap program used to
load the operating system.

2. Super block consists of

- the size of the file system
- the number of free blocks in the file system
- a list of free blocks available on the file system
- the size of the inode list
- the number of free inodes in the file system
- a list of free inodes in the file system
3. Inode is the data structure that describes the attributes of a file,
including the layout of its data on disk.
 Every file has a unique inode

 Contain the information necessary for a process to access a file

 Inode consists of consists of

- file owner identifier

- file type
- file access permissions
- file access times
- number of links to the file
- table of contents for the disk address of data in a file
- file size
4. Data blocks containing the actual contents of files.
There is a one to one mapping of files to inodes and vice versa.
Thus, while users think of files in terms of file names, Unix thinks of files in terms
of inodes.
 Each inode contains a table of contents for the disk address of data
in a file.
 Some unix systems contain 10 directs block numbers, 1 indirect
block number, 1 double indirect block number and 1 triples indirect
block number.
Inode Data Blocks
direct0
direct1
direct2
direct3
direct4
direct5
direct6
direct7
direct8
direct9
single indirect
double indirect
triple indirect

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 Direct block numbers
These contain block numbers that contain the file’s data.
Having these gives us direct access to the file’s data.
 Indirect block number
This is a block number of a block that contains a list of
direct block numbers. Each block number is the number
of a block that contains the file’s data.
 Double indirect block number
This refers to a block that contains a list of indirect block
numbers. Each indirect block number is the number of a
block that contains a list of direct block numbers.
 Triple indirect block number
This refers to a block that contains a list of double
indirect block numbers . Each double indirect block
number is the number of a block that contains a list of
indirect block numbers. Each of these contains a list of
direct block number.
 Assume size of each block is 1K(1024) bytes and that a block number
is addressable by a 32 bit integer(4-bytes) ,
 Then a block can hold up to 256 block numbers (1024bytes / 4bytes)

 Inode contains

10 direct blocks, 1 indirect, 1 double-indirect, 1 triple indirect

 Capacity =

Direct blocks will address: 1K × 10 blocks = 10,240 bytes

1 Indirect block: additional 256 X 1K = 256K bytes
1 Double indirect block: additional 256 X 256 K =64M bytes
1 Triple indirect block: additional 256 X 64 MB= 16G
 Maximum file size = 10,240 + 256K + 64M + 16G =

 = 17247250432 bytes ≈ 16G bytes

Block size = 1024 bytes, 10 direct,
indirect/double/triple are 1
How does a process access byte 3073 of a file?
10 direct blocks addresses 10240 bytes of file data.
Since 3073<10240, hence byte 3073 lies in one of
the direct block numbers.
3073/1024=3.0009
Hence 3073 lies in block pointed to by direct entry 3.
Where does the byte lie in that data block(at what offset)?
1024*3=3072
(3073-3072)=1
Hence the byte lies in block pointed to by direct entry 3 and
in that data block at offset 1.
 Data Block

4096

4096 Data Block

228
Byte no 1
12
Direct
5 5

0
Single 428
Double 9156
Triple 824
Block size = 1024 bytes, 10 direct,
indirect/double/triple are 1
How does a process access byte 11265 of a file?
10 direct blocks addresses 10240 bytes of file data.
Since 11265>10240, hence byte 11265 lies within
single indirect block number.
11265-10240=1025(within single indirect it is byte no
1025)
Which entry within single indirect block no?
1025/1024=1.0009
Entry numbered 1(Assuming it starts from 0)
In this entry there is a data block no.
Which offset within this block?
1025-(1x1024)=1 {byte offset 1}
 Block size = 1024 bytes, 10 direct,
indirect/double/triple are 1
 Case 1 : Access byte offset 9000 of a file.
 Case 2 : Access byte offset 350,000 of a file.
 0 4096 Data Block
228
808 th
Direct Case 1 (9000-
367 1024*8)

8 367
Double Indirect (start from 10K + 256K = 272,384)
9 0 Data Block
Case 2
Single 428 331 816 th
Double 75 3333
9156 350,000
Triple 824 -
272,384 331 3333
9156
= 77,616 75x1024=76800
77616-76800=816
 0 45
 Eg 75 3333 Data blk
5
331
55
Data blk
234
140
816 Data blk
2
331
3333
140 12
266 266

167
9

9156 121
Double Indirect
blk no 126

16 Data blk
9
 If a process wants to access byte offset 350,000 in the
file, it must access a double indirect block, number 9156
in the figure.
 Since an indirect block has room for 256 block

numbers, the first byte accessed via the double indirect

block is byte number 272,384 (256K + 10K)
 Byte number 350,000 in a file is therefore byte number

77,616 of the double indirect block.

 Since each single indirect block accesses 256K bytes,

byte number 350,000 must be in the 0th single indirect

block of the double indirect block — block number 331.
 Since each direct block in a single indirect
block contains IK bytes, byte number
77,616 of a single indirect block is in the
75th direct block in the single indirect block
— block number 3333.
 Finally, byte number 350,000 in the file is at

byte number 816 in block 3333.