Objective
•Basics of Files and Directories
•Linux File Systems
•Linux Kernel
•Kernel Initialization
1
What is a file system?
• Speaking broadly, a file system is the
logical means for an operating system to
store and retrieve data on the computers
hard disks, be they local drives, network-
available volumes, or exported shares in a
storage area network
What is a file system?
• There is some ambiguity in the term “file
system”. The term can be used to mean any
of the following:
- The type of a file system refers to a specific
implementation such as ext2, reiserfs or nfs, each
implementation contains the methods and data
structures that an operating system uses to keep
track of files on a disk or partition
What is a file system?
- An instance of a file system refers to a file
system type residing at a location such as
/dev/hda4
- Additionally a file system can refer to the
methods and data structures that an operating
system uses to keep track of files on a disk or
partition
Long-term Information Storage
1. Must store large amounts of data
2. Information stored must survive the
termination of the process using it
3. Multiple processes must be able to access
the information concurrently
5
File Naming
Typical file extensions.
6
File Structure
• Three kinds of files
– byte sequence
– record sequence
– tree
7
File Types
(a) An executable file (b) An archive 8
File Access
• Sequential access
– read all bytes/records from the beginning
– cannot jump around, could rewind or back up
– convenient when medium was mag tape
• Random access
– bytes/records read in any order
– essential for data base systems
– read can be …
• move file marker (seek), then read or …
• read and then move file marker
9
File Attributes
Possible file attributes 10
File Operations
1. Create 7. Append
2. Delete 8. Seek
3. Open 9. Get attributes
4. Close 10.Set Attributes
5. Read 11.Rename
6. Write
11
Memory-Mapped Files
(a) Segmented process before mapping files
into its address space
(b) Process after mapping
existing file abc into one segment
creating new segment for xyz
12
Directories
Single-Level Directory Systems
• A single level directory system
– contains 4 files
– owned by 3 different people, A, B, and C
13
Two-level Directory Systems
Letters indicate owners of the directories and files
14
Hierarchical Directory Systems
A hierarchical directory system
15
Path Names
A Linux directory tree
16
Directory Operations
1. Create 5. Readdir
2. Delete 6. Rename
3. Opendir 7. Link
4. Closedir 8. Unlink
17
File System Implementation
A possible file system layout
18
Implementing Files (1)
(a) Contiguous allocation of disk space for 7 files
(b) State of the disk after files D and E have been removed
19
Implementing Files (2)
Storing a file as a linked list of disk blocks
20
Implementing Files (3)
Linked list allocation using a file allocation table in RAM
21
Implementing Files (4)
An example i-node
22
Implementing Directories (1)
(a) A simple directory
fixed size entries
disk addresses and attributes in directory entry
(b) Directory in which each entry just refers to an i-node
23
Implementing Directories (2)
• Two ways of handling long file names in directory
– (a) In-line
– (b) In a heap 24
Shared Files (1)
File system containing a shared file
25
Shared Files (2)
(a) Situation prior to linking
(b) After the link is created
(c)After the original owner removes the file
26
File System Reliability (1)
File that has
not changed
• A file system to be dumped
– squares are directories, circles are files
– shaded items, modified since last dump
– each directory & file labeled by i-node number
27
Linux File Systems
Entire Disk
Master Boot Partition Table Disk Partitions
Record
Boot Block Super Block Inode List Data Blocks
A Possible File System Instance Layout
Linux File Systems
• The central structural concepts of a file
system type are:
- Boot Block
- Super Block
- Inode List
- Data Block
Boot Block Super Block Inode List Data Blocks
Linux File Systems
• Boot Block:
- Occupies the beginning of a file system
- Typically residing at the first sector, it may also
contain the bootstrap code that is read into the
machine at boot time
- Although only one boot block is required to boot
the system, every file system may contain a boot
block
Boot Block
Linux File Systems
• Super Block:
- Describes the state of a file system
- How large it is
- How many files it can store
- Where to find free space in the file system
- Additional data that assists the file management
system with operating on the file system
Boot Block Super Block
Linux File Systems
• Super Block:
- Duplicate copies of the super block may reside
through out the file system in case the super block
is corrupted
Boot Block Super Block
Linux File Systems
• Inode List:
- An inode is the internal representation of a file
contains the description of the disk layout of the
file data
- file owner
- permissions
- The inode list contains all of the inodes present
in an instance of a file system
Boot Block Super Block Inode List
Linux File Systems
• Data Blocks:
- Contain the file data in the file system
- Additional administrative data
- An allocated data block can belong to one and
only one file in the file system
Boot Block Super Block Inode List Data Blocks
Linux File Systems
• On a Linux system, a user or user program
sees a single file hierarchy, rooted at /
• Every file and directory can trace its origins
on a tree back to the root directory
Linux File Systems
/
bin boot dev etc home lib mnt proc root sbin tmp usr var
