Chapter 11: File-System Interface

 File Concept
 Access Methods
 Disk and Directory Structure
 Protection

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.1 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 FILE CONCEPTS

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.2 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 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 11.3 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 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 11.4 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 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 11.5 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 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 11.6 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 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 11.7 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 File Types – Name, Extension

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.8 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 File Structure
 None - sequence of words, bytes
 Simple record structure
 Lines
 Fixed length
 Variable length
 Complex Structures
 Formatted document
 Relocatable load file
 Can simulate last two with first method by
inserting appropriate control characters
 Who decides:
 Operating system
 Program

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.9 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Sequential-access File

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.10 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 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 11.11 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Simulation of Sequential Access on Direct-access File

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.12 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 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 11.13 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Example of Index and Relative Files

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.14 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 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 11.15 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 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
 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 11.16 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 A Typical File-system Organization

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.17 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 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 11.18 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 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 11.19 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 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 11.20 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Single-Level Directory
 A single directory for all users

 Naming problem
 Grouping problem

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.21 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 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 11.22 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Tree-Structured Directories

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.23 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Tree-Structured Directories (Cont.)
 Efficient searching

 Grouping Capability

 Current directory (working directory)

 cd /spell/mail/prog
 type list

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.24 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 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 11.25 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Acyclic-Graph Directories
 Have shared subdirectories and files

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.26 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Acyclic-Graph Directories (Cont.)
 Two different names (aliasing)
 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 11.27 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 General Graph Directory

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.28 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 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 11.29 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 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 11.30 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
 Access Lists and Groups
 Mode of access: read, write, execute
 Three classes of users on Unix / Linux
RWX
a) owner access 7  111
RWX
b) group access 6  110
RWX
c) public access 1  001
 Ask manager to create a group (unique name), say G,
and add some users to the group.
 For a particular file (say game) or subdirectory, define
an appropriate access.

Attach a group to a file

chgrp G game

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.31 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne