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
Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 11.2 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
Objectives
To describe the details of implementing local file systems and directory
structures
To describe the implementation of remote file systems
To discuss block allocation and free-block algorithms and trade-offs
Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 11.3 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
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
Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 11.4 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
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 systems.
Figure 12-3(a) refers to opening a file.
Figure 12-3(b) refers to reading a file.
Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 11.7 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
In-Memory File System Structures
Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 11.8 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
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.
Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 11.9 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
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
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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
Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 11.13 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
Contiguous Allocation
Mapping from logical to physical
LA/512
Block to be accessed = ! + starting address
Displacement into block = R
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Contiguous Allocation of Disk Space
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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.
Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 11.16 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
Linked Allocation
Each file is a linked list of disk blocks: blocks may be scattered anywhere on
the disk.
block = pointer
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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
File-allocation table (FAT) – disk-space allocation used by MS-DOS
and OS/2.
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Linked Allocation
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File-Allocation Table
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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 11.23 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:
Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 11.24 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
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:
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Indexed Allocation – Mapping (Cont.)
outer-index
index table file
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Combined Scheme: UNIX (4K bytes per block)
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Free-Space Management
Bit vector (n blocks)
0 1 2 n-1
…
0 block[i] free
bit[i] =
1 block[i] occupied
Block number calculation
(number of bits per word) *
(number of 0-value words) +
offset of first 1 bit
Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 11.28 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
Free-Space Management (Cont.)
Bit map requires extra space
Example:
block size = 212 bytes
disk size = 230 bytes (1 gigabyte)
n = 230/212 = 218 bits (or 32K bytes)
Easy to get contiguous files
Linked list (free list)
Cannot get contiguous space easily
No waste of space
Grouping
Counting
Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 11.29 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
Free-Space Management (Cont.)
Need to protect:
Pointer to free list
Bit map
Must be kept on disk
Copy in memory and disk may differ
Cannot allow for block[i] to have a situation where bit[i] = 1 in
memory and bit[i] = 0 on disk
Solution:
Set bit[i] = 1 in disk
Allocate block[i]
Set bit[i] = 1 in memory
Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 11.30 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
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 11.31 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
Linked Free Space List on Disk
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Recovery
Consistency checking – compares data in directory structure with data
blocks on disk, and tries to fix inconsistencies
Use system programs to back up data from disk to another storage device
(floppy disk, magnetic tape, other magnetic disk, optical)
Recover lost file or disk by restoring data from backup
Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 11.33 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
Log Structured File Systems
Log structured (or journaling) file systems record each update to
the file system as a transaction
All transactions are written to a log
A transaction is considered committed once it is written to the
log
However, the file system may not yet be updated
The transactions in the log are asynchronously written to the file
system
When the file system is modified, the transaction is removed
from the log
If the file system crashes, all remaining transactions in the log must
still be performed
Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 11.34 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
