Modern Operating Systems
Fifth Edition
Chapter 4
File Systems
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File Systems (1 of 4)
Essential requirements for long-term information storage:
1. It must be possible to store a very large amount of information.
2. Information must survive termination of process using it.
3. Multiple processes must be able to access information concurrently.
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File Systems (2 of 4)
Think of a disk as a linear sequence of fixed-size blocks and supporting two
operations:
1. Read block k.
2. Write block k
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File Systems (3 of 4)
Questions that quickly arise:
1. How do you find information?
2. How do you keep one user from reading another user’s data?
3. How do you know which blocks are free?
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File Systems (4 of 4)
File Systems are:
• A way to organize and (persistently) store information
• An abstraction over storage devices:
– Hard disk, SSD, network, RAM, …
• Organized in files and (typically) directories.
• Examples:
– FAT12/FAT16: MS-DOS
– NTFS: Windows
– Ext4: Linux
– APFS: macOS/iOS
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Overview
Storage
Operating System
I want to read /home/ast/shell.c
User program
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Overview
Storage
HDD, SSD, network, RAM, …
Operating System Buffer cache
FAT driver
Virtual File Page NTFS driver
System cache
Ext4 driver
...
Syscall
open, read, write, readdir, ...
User program
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Overview
Storage Chapter 5 (I/O)
HDD, SSD, network, RAM, …
Operating System Buffer cache
FAT driver
Virtual File Page NTFS driver
System cache
Ext4 driver
...
Chapter 4 (FS)
Syscall
open, read, write, readdir, ...
User program
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Files
• Abstract storage nodes
• File access:
– Sequential vs. random access
• File types:
– Regular files, directories, soft links
– Special files (e.g., device files, metadata files)
• File structure:
– OS’ perspective: Files as streams of bytes
– Program’s perspective: Archives, Executables, etc.
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File Naming
• Different file systems have different limitations/conventions for file names
• File extensions
• File name length
– FAT12: 8.3 characters (later extended to 255)
– Ext4: 255 characters
• Special characters in file names
– FAT12: No "*/:<>?\| and more
– Ext4: No '\0' and '/', or the special names "." and ".."
• Case sensitivity
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File Naming
Figure 4.1 Some typical file extensions.
Extension Meaning
.bak Backup file
.c C source program
.gif Compuserve Graphical Interchange Format image
.html World Wide Web HyperText Markup Language document
.jpg Still picture encoded with the J PEG standard
.mp3 Music encoded in MPEG layer 3 audio format
.mpg Movie encoded with the M PEG standard
.o Object file (compiler output, not yet linked)
.pdf Portable Document Format file
.ps PostScript file
.tex Input for the T EX formatting program
.txt General text file
.zip Compressed archive
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File Types
Figure 4-3. (a) An executable file. (b) An archive
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File Attributes (1 of 2)
Figure 4-5. Some possible file attributes.
Attribute Meaning
Protection Who can access the file and in what way
Password Password needed to access the file
Creator ID of the person who created the file
Owner Current owner
Read-only flag 0 for read/write; 1 for read only
Hidden flag 0 for normal; 1 for do not display in listings
System flag 0 for normal files; 1 for system file
Archive flag 0 for has been backed up; 1 for needs to be backed up
ASCII/binary flag 0 for ASCII file; 1 for binary file
Random access flag 0 for sequential access only; 1 for random access
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File Operations (1 of 2)
1. Create & Delete
2. Open & Close
3. Read & Write
4. Append
5. Seek
6. Get & Set attributes
7. Rename
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File Operations - UNIX
• Opening and reading file:
int fd = open(“foo.txt”, O_RDONLY);
char buf[512];
ssize_t bytes_read = read(fd, buf, 512);
close(fd);
printf(“read %zd: %s\n”, bytes_read, buf);
• Opening a file returns a handle (file descriptor) for future operations.
• Any function may return an error, e.g.:
– -ENOENT: File does not exist
– -EBADF: Bad file descriptor
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File Operations - UNIX
• Seeking in files:
int fd = open(“foo.txt”, O_RDONLY);
lseek(fd, 128, SEEK_CUR);
char buf[8];
read(fd, buf, 8);
close(fd);
• Move current position in file forwards or backwards.
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File Operations - UNIX
• Writing files:
int fd = open(“foo.txt”, O_WRONLY | O_CREAT | O_TRUNC);
char buf[] = “Hi there”;
write(fd, buf, strlen(buf));
close(fd);
• O_CREAT: Create file if it does not exist
• O_TRUNC: “Truncate” file to size 0 if it exists (i.e., throw away current file
contents)
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File Operations - UNIX
• Removing file:
– unlink(“foo.txt”);
• Renaming file:
– rename(“foo.txt”, “bar.txt”);
• Change file permission attribute:
– chmod(“foo.txt”, 0755);
• Change file owner attribute:
– chown(“foo.txt”, uid, gid);
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Directories
• Data structures organizing and maintaining information about files
• Often stored as file entries with special attributes
• Directories are denoted by “/” (Unix) or “\” (Windows)
• Special directory entries:
– . Current directory
– .. Parent directory
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Single-Level Directory Systems
Figure 4-7. A single-level directory system containing four files.
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Hierarchical Directory Systems
Figure 4-8. A hierarchical directory system.
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Directory Operations
1. Create & Delete
2. Opendir & Closedir
3. Readdir (no writedir)
4. Rename
5. Link & Unlink
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Directory Operations - UNIX
• Reading current directory contents:
DIR *dirp = opendir(“.”);
struct dirent *dirent;
while ((dirent = readdir(dirp)))
printf(“%s\n”, dirent->d_name);
closedir(dirp);
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Virtual File Systems (1 of 2)
Figure 4-21. Position of the virtual file system.
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File System Implementation
• How to store files?
• How to implement directories?
• How to manage disk space?
• How to ensure file system performance?
• How to ensure file system dependability?
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File System Layout
Figure 4-10. A possible file system layout.
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How to Store Files on the Disk?
Contiguous allocation
• Store files as a contiguous stream of bytes
• Requires max file size, prone to fragmentation
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Implementing Files Contiguous Layout
Figure 4-12. (a) Contiguous allocation of disk space for seven files. (b) The state of the
disk after files D and F have been removed.
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How to Store Files on the Disk?
Contiguous allocation
• Store files as a contiguous stream of bytes
• Requires max file size, prone to fragmentation
Block-based strategies
• Linked List
• File Allocation Table
• i-nodes
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Implementing Files - Linked List Allocation
Figure 4-13. Storing a file as a linked list of disk blocks.
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Implementing Files - File Allocation Table
Figure 4-14. Linked list allocation using a file allocation table in main memory.
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Implementing Files - inodes
Figure 4-15. An example i-node.
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Implementing Files - inodes with Indirect Blocks
Figure 4-35. A UNIX i-node
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File System Implementation
• How to store files?
• How to implement directories?
• How to manage disk space?
• How to ensure file system performance?
• How to ensure file system dependability?
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Directory Implementation
• How to store directory entries and attributes?
• How to find the root directory?
• How to find any other directory?
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FAT12/FAT16 Layout
Boot Reserved FAT #1 FAT #2 Root Clusters
Sector Directory
• Reserved later used for FS information
• FAT #1/#2: preallocated File Allocation Tables
• Preallocated root directory
• Clusters represent addressable blocks:
– FAT contains chains indexed by starting cluster
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FAT12/16 Directory Entry
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UNIX Directory Entry
• Directory entry stores only name and #i-node
• Attributes are stored in the i-node
• One i-node per file, first i-node is the root
• Where are i-nodes stored?
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UNIX FS Layout (MINIX Example)
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Directory Lookup
Figure 4-36. The steps in looking up /usr/ast/mbox.
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Hard Links vs. Soft Links
• Hard links reference a shared file (i-node)
– The file is removed only with no hard links left
– Space-efficient (only 1 directory entry per hard link)
– Good to manage shared files across owners
• Soft (or symbolic) links reference a file name
– Removing the file renders its soft links invalid
– Less space-efficient (need 1 i-node per soft link)
– More flexible (can reference file names across FSes)
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File System Implementation
• How to store files?
• How to implement directories?
• How to manage disk space?
• How to ensure file system performance?
• How to ensure file system dependability?
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Block Size
• How do choose the block size?
• Important speed-space tradeoff to consider
• Larger block sizes allow transferring more data per block
– Better overall data rates
• Smaller block sizes reduce space overhead for small files
– Less fragmentation
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Block Size Impact
Figure 4-23. The dashed curve (left-hand scale) gives the data rate of a disk. The solid curve (right-hand scale) gives
the disk space efficiency. All files are 4 KB.
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Keeping Track of Free Blocks (1 of 2)
Figure 4-24. (a) Storing the free list on a linked list. (b) A bitmap.
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File System Implementation
• How to store files?
• How to implement directories?
• How to manage disk space?
• How to ensure file system performance?
• How to ensure file system dependability?
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File System Performance
How to optimize file system performance?
• Minimize disk access
• Minimize seek time
• Minimize space usage
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Minimize Disk Access: Caching
• Buffer cache: Cache disk blocks in RAM
• Page cache: Cache VFS pages (before going to driver)
– Often same data as buffer cache, so OS may merge them
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Cache Management
• Caches have LRU semantics adapted to:
– Blocks with poor temporal locality
– Critical blocks for file system consistency
• Write-through caching vs. periodic syncing
• Disk read-ahead: read blocks that may be used soon
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Minimize Disk Access: Log-structure File Systems
i-nodes Data blocks segment segment
UNIX FS Log-Structured File System
• Idea: Optimize for frequent small writes
• Collect pending writes in a log segment with i-nodes, entries, blocks
• Segments are often flushed to disk and can be large (e.g., 1MB)
• i-node map to find i-nodes in the log
• Garbage collection to reclaim old log entries
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Minimize Seek Time: HDD Layout Management
• Not an issue for modern SSDs
– Seek time is constant
• Important for traditional HDDs
• Different strategies to minimize HDD seek time:
– Try to allocate files contiguously
– Defragment disk
– Store small file data “inline” in i-node
– Spread i-nodes over the disk rather than at the start
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File System Implementation
• How to store files?
• How to implement directories?
• How to manage disk space?
• How to ensure file system performance?
• How to ensure file system dependability?
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File System Dependability Threats
• Disk failures:
– Bad blocks
– Whole-disk errors
• Power failures:
– (Meta)-data inconsistently written to disk
• Software bugs:
– Bad (meta)-data written to disk
• User errors:
– rm *.o vs. rm * .o
• Lost or stolen computer
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File System Backups
Backups to disk are generally made to handle one of two
potential problems:
1. Recover from disaster.
2. Recover from stupidity.
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Backups: Properties
• Incremental vs. full
• Online vs. offline
• Physical vs. logical
• Compressed vs. uncompressed
• Local vs. remote
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RAID: Redundant Array of Independent Disks
RAID 0
RAID 1
RAID 5
• RAID 0 & 2: Expand file system over multiple disks (+storage)
• RAID 1: Duplicate file system over disks (+redundancy)
• RAID 3-6: Store parity information (+storage, +redundancy)
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File System Consistency Check
Programs like fsck and chkdsk try to find (and fix) consistency errors in file
system metadata
• Corrupt values
• Used blocks also marked as free
• Blocks not marked as free nor used
• Blocks being used multiple times
• ...
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File System Consistency
Figure 4-29. File system states. (a) Consistent. (b) Missing block. (c) Duplicate block in free list. (d) Duplicate data
block.
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Journaling File Systems
• Idea: Use “logs” for crash recovery
• First write transactional operations in log
– E.g., removing a file:
▪ Remove file from its directory
▪ Release i-node to the pool of free i-nodes
▪ Return all disk blocks to pool of free blocks
• After crash, replay operations from log
• Single operations need to be idempotent
• Should support multiple, arbitrary crashes
• Journaling widely used in modern FSes (e.g., Ext4, NTFS)
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Textbook (Chapter 4)
All sections except:
• Section 4.5.3
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