Chapter 11:
File-System Interface
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
Chapter 11: File-System Interface
File Concept
Access Methods
Disk and Directory Structure
File-System Mounting
File Sharing
Protection
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.2 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
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
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.3 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
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
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.4 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
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
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.5 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
File info Window on Mac OS X
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.6 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
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
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.7 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
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
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.8 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
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
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.9 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
File Types – Name, Extension
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File Structure
None - sequence of words, bytes
Simple record structure
Lines
Fixed length
Variable length
Complex Structures; Formatted document
Can be simulated by inserting appropriate control
characters
Who decides:
Operating system
Program
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.11 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
Sequential-access File
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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
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.13 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
Simulation of Sequential Access on Direct-access File
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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)
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.15 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
Example of Index and Relative Files
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.16 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
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
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.17 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
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
So a partition becomes a volume when formatted for a file-
system
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
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.18 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
A Typical File-system Organization
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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
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.20 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
Operations Performed on Directory
Search for a file
Create a file
Delete a file
List a directory
Rename a file
Traverse the file system
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.21 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
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, …)
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.22 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
Single-Level Directory
A single directory for all users
Naming problem
Grouping problem
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Two-Level Directory
Separate directory for each user
Path name
Can have the same file name for different user
Efficient searching
No grouping capability
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.24 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
Tree-Structured Directories
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Tree-Structured Directories (Cont.)
Efficient searching
Grouping Capability
Current directory (working directory)
cd /spell/mail/prog
type list
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.26 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
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”
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.27 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
Acyclic-Graph Directories
If there are no-cycles (pointers never take you back to the
starting point), it is called Acyclic graph
We can have shared subdirectories /files using Acyclic graph
directory structure
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Acyclic-Graph Directories (Cont.)
Two different names (aliasing)
If a shared subdirectory/file is deleted by one of the parent
directories, the others do not know of it
E.g. 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
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.29 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
General Graph Directory
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.30 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
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
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.31 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
File System Mounting
Just as a file must be opened before it is used a file system
must be mounted before it can be accessed (made available
to processes on the system).
A unmounted file system (i.e., Fig. 11-11(b)) is mounted at a
mount point
Existing Volume UnMounted Volume
(Cannot be accessed)
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.32 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
Mount Point
Typically, a mount point is an empty directory. For instance, on a UNIX
system, a file system containing a user’s home directories might be
mounted as /users
Then, to access the directory structure within that file system, we could
precede the directory names with /users, as in /users/jane.
Mounted Volume at Mount Point
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.33 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
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
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.34 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
Protection
File owner/creator should be able to control:
what can be done
by whom
Types of access
Read
Write
Execute
Append
Delete
List
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.35 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
Windows 7 Access-Control List Management
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.36 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
A Sample UNIX Directory Listing
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.37 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
End of Chapter 11
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
