Chapter 11:

File-System Interface
Chapter 11: File-System Interface

 File Concept
 Access Methods
 Disk and Directory Structure
 File-System Mounting
 File Sharing
 Protection
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
11.1 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
 Text - sequence of characters organized into lines
 A source file is a sequence of functions, each of which is further
organized as declarations followed by executable statements.
 An executable file is a series of code sections that the loader
can bring into memory and execute.
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
File info Window on Mac OS X
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
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 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
File Locking Example – Java API
import java.io.*;
import java.nio.channels.*;
public class LockingExample {
public static final boolean EXCLUSIVE = false;
public static final boolean SHARED = true;
public static void main(String arsg[]) throws IOException {
FileLock sharedLock = null;
FileLock exclusiveLock = null;
try {
RandomAccessFile raf = new RandomAccessFile("file.txt", "rw");
// get the channel for the file
FileChannel ch = raf.getChannel();
// this locks the first half of the file - exclusive
exclusiveLock = ch.lock(0, raf.length()/2, EXCLUSIVE);
/** Now modify the data . . . */
// release the lock
exclusiveLock.release();
 File Locking Example – Java API (Cont.)

// this locks the second half of the file - shared

sharedLock = ch.lock(raf.length()/2+1, raf.length(),
SHARED);
/** Now read the data . . . */
// release the lock
sharedLock.release();
} catch (java.io.IOException ioe) {
System.err.println(ioe);
}finally {
if (exclusiveLock != null)
exclusiveLock.release();
if (sharedLock != null)
sharedLock.release();
}
}
}
File Types – Name, Extension
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
Sequential-access File
11.2 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
Simulation of Sequential Access on Direct-access File
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)
Example of Index and Relative Files
11.3 Directory Structure

 A collection of nodes containing information about all files

Directory

Files
F1 F2 F4
F3
Fn

Both the directory structure and the files reside on disk

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
A Typical File-system Organization
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
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 Organization

The directory is organized 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, …)
Types
 Single-level directory
 Two-level directory
 Tree-structured directory
 Acyclic graph directory
 General graph directory structure
Single-Level Directory
 A single directory for all users

Advantages:
 Since it is a single directory, so its implementation is very easy.
 If files are smaller in size, searching will faster.
 The operations like file creation, searching, deletion, updating are very easy in
such a directory structure.
Disadvantages:
 There may chance of name collision because two files can not have the same
name.
 Searching will become time taking if directory will large.
 In this can not group the same type of files together.
Two-Level Directory
 Separate directory for each user

Advantages:
We can give full path like /User-name/directory-name/.
Diffrent users can have same directory as well as file name.
Searching of files become more easy due to path name 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-Structured Directories
Tree-Structured Directories (Cont.)
 Efficient searching
 Grouping Capability
 Current directory (working directory)
 cd /spell/mail/prog
 type list
Advantages:
 Very generalize, since full path name can be given.
 Very scalable, the probability of name collision is less.
 Searching becomes very easy, we can use both absolute path as well as
relative.
Disadvantages:
 Every file does not fit into the hierarchical model, files may be saved into
multiple directories.
 We can not share files.
 It is inefficient, because accessing a file may go under multiple directories.
 Tree-Structured Directories (Cont)
 Absolute or relative path name
 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
mkdir count

Deleting “mail”  deleting the entire subtree rooted by “mail”

Acyclic-Graph Directories
 Have shared subdirectories and files
Acyclic-Graph Directories

Advantages:
We can share files.
Searching is easy due to different-different paths.
Disadvantages:
We share the files via linking, in case of deleting it
may create the problem,
If the link is softlink then after deleting the file we
left with a dangling pointer.
In case of hardlink, to delete a file we have to
delete all the reference associated with it.
Acyclic-Graph Directories (Cont.)
 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
 New directory entry type
 Link – another name (pointer) to an existing file
 Resolve the link – follow pointer to locate the file
General Graph Directory
General Graph Directory (Cont.)
 How do we guarantee no cycles?
 Allow only links to file not subdirectories
 Garbage collection
 Every time a new link is added use a cycle detection
algorithm to determine whether it is OK
General Graph Directory
(Cont.)
Advantages:
It allows cycles.
It is more flexible than other directories structure.
Disadvantages:
It is more costly than others.
It needs garbage collection.
11.4 File System Mounting
 A file system must be mounted before it can be
accessed
 A unmounted file system (i.e., Fig. 11-11(b)) is
mounted at a mount point
Mount Point
11.5 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 of a file / directory
 Group of a file / directory
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 world wide web
 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
 Distributed Information Systems (distributed naming
services) such as LDAP, DNS, NIS, Active Directory implement
unified access to information needed for remote computing
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
File Sharing – Consistency Semantics
 Specify how multiple users are to access a shared file
simultaneously
 Similar to Ch 5 process synchronization algorithms
 Tend to be less complex due to disk I/O and network latency (for
remote file systems
 Andrew File System (AFS) implemented complex remote file
sharing semantics
 Unix file system (UFS) implements:
 Writes to an open file visible immediately to other users of the
same open file
 Sharing file pointer to allow multiple users to read and write
concurrently
 AFS has session semantics
 Writes only visible to sessions starting after the file is closed
11.6 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
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.

Attach a group to a file

chgrp G game
Windows 7 Access-Control List
Management
A Sample UNIX Directory Listing
End of Chapter 11