System Software

Jimmy Mathew
jimmym@rajagiritech.ac.in
Department of Information Technology
Rajagiri School of Engineering and Technology
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 MODULE 3
INFORMATION MANAGEMENT

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 References
1. “System software – An introduction to system programming”,
Leland L Beck, 3rd edition

2. “System programming and operating system”, D M

Dhamdhere

3. “Operating system”, Peterson & Silberschatz, Addison Wesley

4. “Design of UNIX operating system”, Maurice J Bach

5. “UNIX system programming”, Stevens

6. “Operating System”, Dietal H M

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 Self study topics
1. Details of basic file system calls

2. Pipes

3. Device management in UNIX

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 Module overview
1. File system

2. Directory structure

3. Basic file system calls

4. File protection

5. Allocation methods

6. Disk blocks and inodes in UNIX

7. Device management

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 File system
File system provides the followings


File naming freedom


File sharing


Protection against illegal file accesses


Reliable storage of files in directories

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 File system
File system access is implemented by two data structures

1. File label

2. File control block (FCB)

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 File system
File label


Contains information of size and location of the file


VTOC – Volume Table Of Contents


VTOC – contains all file labels existing in a disk volume

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 File system
General fields of an FCB

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 File system
General NTFS file system

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 File system
General FAT file system

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 File system
General comparison between FAT and NTFS

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 File system
Example of an FCB content for an image file

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 Directory structure
Examples

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 Directory structure
Examples

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 Directory structure
Directory structure in UNIX

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 Directory structure
Directory structure in UNIX

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 Directory structure
Directory structure in UNIX

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 Directory structure
Directory – contains information about files

Each user has his own directory to keep files

Supports same file names in multiple directory

Master Directory – contains information about user

directories

Information in file label can be stored in directory entry

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 Directory structure
Directory entry


File name


Location information


Protection information


Flags

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 Directory structure
Directory structure provides a hierarchy of directories and
files

It provides a generalized syntax for accessing files

A directory can be considered as a file

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 Directory structure
Directory hierarchies


Files are grouped


Users can create files or directories


All directories can be distinguished with a flag

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 Directory structure
Current and Home directories


Current directory - User's directory at a specific time


Only applicable to terminal / command systems


How about current directory in MS Windows OS?


Home directory – The first directory allocated for user to
access


Every user has separate home directory


Every user starts with his home directory as the current
directory
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 Directory structure
Access paths


A user access his files by providing file name


Another user's file can be accessed as
<user_name> → <file_name>


Access path - an unambiguous way to refer a file


Absolute access path and relative access path


Relative access path – access path related to current
directory


Absolute access paths - path starts from the root
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 Directory structure
Links – A direscted connection in FS between two files

(<from_file>, <to_file>, <link_name>)

Directory mount points – Certain files in FS hierarchy

– mount(<FS_name>, <mount_point_name>)

– unmount(<FS_name>, <mount_point_name>)

Mount point useful when more than one FS exists in the

system

Used in distributed system to access files in a remote

machine
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 Basic file system calls
OPEN


fd = open(pathname, flags, modes);


fd – file descriptor

READ


number = read(fd, buffer, count);

WRITE


number = write(fd, buffer, count);

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 Basic file system calls
FILE AND RECORD LOCKING


For mutually exclusive access


File locking and record locking

LSEEK


To adjust the position of the file


position = lseek(fd, offset, reference);


Reference can be from the beginning of a file, or from the
current position in file or from end of the file

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 Basic file system calls
CLOSE


Closes an open file


close(fd);


When a process exits, the file gets closed

CREAT


fd = creat(pathname, modes);

MKNOD

– Creates special files in the system, pipes, device files and

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 Basic file system calls
MKNOD


Creates special files in the system, pipes, device files and
directories


mknod(pathname, type and permissions, dev);

CHDIR


Changes current directory, moves to another directory


chdir(pathname);

CHROOT

– chroot(pathname); // to change the root directory 29

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 Basic file system calls
CHOWN


Changes owner and group permissions


chown(pathname, owner, group);

CHMOD


Changes modes or access permissions


chmod(pathname, mode);

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 Basic file system calls
STAT / FSTAT


Queries the status of a file


File type owner, access permissions, file size, number of
links, inode number, and file access times


stat(pathname, statbuffer);


fstat(fd, statbuffer);

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 Basic file system calls
PIPES


FIFO – First in First out


To provide synchronization between the processes


pipe(fdptr);


Open, Write and Read

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 Basic file system calls
DUP


Copies a file descriptor to a user file descriptor table


Returns new file descriptor


It works for all types of files


newfd = dup(fd);

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 Basic file system calls
MOUNT and UNMOUNT


To mount and unmount file systems


mount(device pathname, directory pathname, options);


Example: mount(“/dev/dsk1”, “/usr”, 0);


unmount(device pathname);

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 Basic file system calls
LINK


Links a file to a new name


link(source filename, target filename);


Source file – name of an existing file


Target file – New name created


Example: link(“/usr/src/util/sys”, “/usr/include/sys”);

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 Basic file system calls
UNLINK


Removes a directory entry for a file


unlink(pathname);


Example: unlink(“myfile”);


Any further call to “myfile” will be an error


Race condition: Another process may access the file,
which is going to be unlinked from the directory entry


To avoid race condition, the file should be locked first

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 Basic file system calls
RMDIR


Removes a directory after all its contents become empty


No files should be present in the directory


Race condition can occur


To avoid race condition, the directory can be locked

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 File protection
Protection info field in directory entry

Access control list

– (<user_name>, <list_of_access_privileges>)

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 Allocation methods
Contiguous file allocation method – Adapted by early file
systems

Each file as single contiguous area

Application should provide exact area required by each file

Fragmentation of disk space

Later, non contiguous allocation adapted

Each file is given fixed size memory blocks

Dynamic file allocation possible

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 Allocation methods
Linked allocation


File as a linked list of disk blocks


Each disk block has two fields

1. Data field

2. Control information field


Data field – contains file data


Control information field – address of next disk block
allocated to this file


Free list – Group of free disk blocks 40
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Allocation methods

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Allocation methods

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 Allocation methods

Simple to implement


Low overheads for allocation or deallocation


It supports sequential files


Reliability is poor


Correction of one pointer can cause loss of data


Direct access files cannot be accessed efficiently

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 Allocation methods
Indexed allocation


Close resemblance to virtual memory systems


A file is allocated as an integral number of disk blocks of
fixed size


File map table FMT – data structure for each file


Each entry of FMT points to each disk block allocated


Each disk block has data field


Location field of a directory - points to file map tables

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 Allocation methods

DSM – Disk Status Map


Each entry of DSM represents whether disk block is free or
allocated


DSM has single bit entry

Advantages and disadvantages of indexed allocation


Improved reliability


Correction of any link may cause partial damage


Access to sequential file is less efficient


Direct file access is more efficient 45
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 Disk blocks & inodes in UNIX
Every file in UNIX has a unique inode

Inode contains


File owner identifier


File type (character, block, FIFO, etc.)


File access rights


File access times


Number of links to the file


File size
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
Table of disk addresses
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(Location of the file's data)
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 Disk blocks & inodes in UNIX
Kernel converts file path to inode

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 Disk blocks & inodes in UNIX
Inode gets modified, if file content gets modified

Inode gets modified with other actions, like change in

author, group, access permissions, etc.

To process a file, content of inode is copied to an in-core

inode

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 Disk blocks & inodes in UNIX
In-core inode contains the following informations


Status of inode, if locked


If any process waiting for inode


Inode is dirty or modified from original


Content of the file is dirty or modified from the original


The file is a mount point


Device number of device which contains the file


Inode number
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
Reference count J -Mathew
number of instances
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of the file
 Disk blocks & inodes in UNIX
If inode is locked, other processes get denied access

A flag to register that some processes are waiting for inode

A flag to register inode content modified

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 Disk blocks & inodes in UNIX
Accessing inodes


File name and inode number as identifier


An inode will be allocated from free list and locks it


Disk block num = ((inode num – 1) / number of inodes per
block) + start address


Inode offset = ((inode num – 1) modulo (number of inodes
per block)) * size of disk inode

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 Disk blocks & inodes in UNIX
Releasing inodes


Reference count is checked


If count == 0, in-core inode is written back to disk


Kernel places the inode in the free list


Kernel releases all data blocks associated with the file

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 Disk blocks & inodes in UNIX
Allocation of disk blocks


Kernel allocates disk blocks from file system


Direct data blocks and indirect data blocks


Super blocks – an array of free disk blocks


Mkfs –

• Make file system

• Utility program

• Arranges disk blocks as a linked list

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Disk blocks & inodes in UNIX

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 Disk blocks & inodes in UNIX
●
Mkfs – allocates disk blocks which are nearer to the
previous allocated blocks

●
It reduces disk access time

●
No sorting of block numbers done

●
Alloc – algorithm to allocate a disk block

●
Free – algorithm to free a disk block

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 Disk blocks & inodes in UNIX
●
Three major differences between inode allocation and disk
block allocation

1) Kernel can check if an inode is free by inspecting its

content, like file type field. In disk blocks, contents
cannot describe it.

2) Disk block can hold list of free other disk blocks. Inodes
have no space to store a list of inode information.

3) Disk blocks will be consumed quickly than inodes. Hence

access to the disk blocks should be time efficient.

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 Module summary
1. File system

2. Directory structure

3. Basic file system calls

4. File protection

5. Allocation methods

6. Disk blocks and inodes in UNIX

7. Device management

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