Chapter 11: File System

Implementation

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition, Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009

Chapter 11: File System Implementation

 File-System Structure
 File-System Implementation
 Directory Implementation
 Allocation Methods
 Free-Space Management
 Efficiency and Performance
 Recovery
 Log-Structured File Systems
 NFS
 Example: WAFL File System

(slides selected/reordered/fixed by R. Doemer, 02/17/09)

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 File-System Structure
 File structure
 Logical storage unit
 Collection of related information
 File system resides on secondary storage (disks)
 File system organized into layers
 File control block – storage structure consisting of information about a file

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Layered File System

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 A Typical File Control Block

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In-Memory File System Structures

 The following figure illustrates the necessary file system structures
provided by the operating system.

(a) Opening a file.

(a) Reading a file.

(slides combined/fixed by R. Doemer, 02/17/09)
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 Virtual File Systems
 Virtual File Systems (VFS) 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.

 The API is to the VFS interface, rather than any specific type of file system.

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Schematic View of Virtual File System

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 Directory Implementation
 Linear list of file names with pointer to the data blocks.
 simple to program
 time-consuming to execute

 Hash Table – linear list with hash data structure.

 decreases directory search time
 collisions – situations where two file names hash to the same location
 fixed size

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 11.9 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009

Allocation Methods
 An allocation method refers to how disk blocks are allocated for files:

 Contiguous allocation

 Linked allocation

 Indexed allocation

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 Contiguous Allocation
 Each file occupies a set of contiguous blocks on the disk

 Simple – only starting location (block #) and length (number of

blocks) are required

 Random access

 Wasteful of space (dynamic storage-allocation problem)

 Files cannot grow

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Contiguous Allocation of Disk Space

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 Contiguous Allocation
 Mapping from logical to physical block number

Q (quotient)

LA/512

R (remainder)

Block to be accessed = Q + starting address

Displacement into block = R

(slide fixed by R. Doemer, 02/17/09)

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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.

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 Linked Allocation
 Each file is a linked list of disk blocks:
blocks may be scattered anywhere on the disk.

block = pointer

data

(slide fixed by R. Doemer, 02/17/09)

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Linked Allocation

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 Linked Allocation (Cont.)
 Simple – need only starting address
 Free-space management system – no waste of space
 No random access
 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

(slide fixed by R. Doemer, 02/17/09)

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 11.17 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009

File-Allocation Table
File-allocation table (FAT) –
disk-space allocation used by MS-DOS and OS/2.

(slide fixed by R. Doemer, 02/17/09)

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 Indexed Allocation
 Brings all pointers together into the index block.
 Logical view.

index table

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Example of Indexed Allocation

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 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
words and block size of 512 words. We need only 1 block for index
table.

Q
LA/512
R

Q = displacement into index table

R = displacement into block

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 11.21 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009

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:

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 Indexed Allocation – Mapping (Cont.)
 Two-level index (maximum file size is 5123)

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:

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 11.23 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009

Indexed Allocation – Mapping (Cont.)

outer-index

index table file

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 Combined Scheme: UNIX (4K bytes per block)

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