Distributed File System : –

File Service Architecture

Vidya Academy of Science & Technology, Thrissur

Sivadasan E T
Associate Professor
Department of CSE.
Distributed File System

• The sharing of resources is a key goal for

distributed systems.
• The sharing of stored information is perhaps
the most important aspect of distributed
resource sharing.
Distributed File System

➢ A distributed file system enables

programs to store and access remote files
exactly as they do local ones.

➢ Allowing users to access files from any

computer on a network.
Distributed File System

• Web servers provide a restricted form of data

sharing in which
- Files stored locally in file systems at the
server or in servers on a local network, are
made available to clients throughout the
Internet.
Distributed File System

• The performance and reliability experienced

for access to files stored at a server should be
comparable to that for files stored on local
disks.
Distributed File System - Challenges

• The design of large-scale wide area read-

write file storage systems poses problems of:
- Load balancing,
- Reliability,
- Availability and
- Security,
Distributed File System - Challenges

• A file service enables programs to store and

access remote files exactly as they do local
ones,
➢ Allowing users to access their files from
any computer in an intranet.
Distributed File System - Characteristics

➢ File systems are responsible for the

organization, storage, retrieval, naming,
sharing and protection of files.
➢ They provide a programming interface that
characterizes the file abstraction, freeing
programmers from concern with the details
of storage allocation and layout.
Distributed File System - Characteristics

➢ Files are stored on disks or other non-volatile

storage media.
➢ Files contain both data and attributes.
➢ The data consist of a sequence of data items
(typically 8-bit bytes), accessible by
operations to read and write any portion of
the sequence.
Distributed File System - Characteristics

➢ The attributes are held as a single record

containing information such as:
- The length of the file,
- Timestamps,
- File type,
- Owner’s identity and
- Access control lists.
Distributed File System - Characteristics

A typical attribute record structure is illustrated in Figure.

The shaded attributes are managed by the file system
and are not normally updatable by user programs.
Distributed File System - Characteristics

➢ File systems are designed to store and

manage large numbers of files, with
facilities for creating, naming and deleting
files.
➢ The naming of files is supported by the use of
directories.
Distributed File System - Characteristics

➢ Directories may include the names of other

directories.
➢ Leading to the familiar hierarchic filenaming
scheme and the multi-part pathnames for
files used in UNIX and other operating
systems.
Distributed File System - Characteristics

➢ File systems also take responsibility for:

1. The control of access to files,
2.Restricting access to files according to
users’ authorizations and
3. The type of access requested (reading,
updating, executing and so on).
Distributed File System - Characteristics

➢ The main operations on files(create, open,

close, read, and write etc...) that are
available to applications in UNIX systems.
➢ These are the system calls implemented by
the kernel.
Distributed File System - Characteristics
➢ The file system is responsible for applying
access control for files.
➢ In local file systems such as UNIX, it does so
when each file is opened,
➢ Checking the rights allowed for the user’s
identity in the access control list against the
mode of access requested in the open
system call.
Distributed File System - Characteristics

➢ If the rights match the mode,

- The file is opened and
- The mode is recorded in the open file
state information.
Distributed file system requirements
1. Access transparency : -
- Client programs should be unaware of the
distribution of files.
- A single set of operations is provided for
access to local and remote files.
- Programs written to operate on local files are
able to access remote files without
modification.
Distributed file system requirements

2. Location transparency :- Client programs

should see a uniform file name space.
- Files or groups of files may be relocated
without changing their pathnames, and user
programs see the same name space wherever
they are executed.
Distributed file system requirements
3. Mobility transparency - Neither client
programs nor system administration tables in
client nodes need to be changed when files are
moved.
- This allows file mobility – files or, more
commonly, sets or volumes of files may be
moved, either by system administrators or
automatically.
Distributed file system requirements

4. Performance transparency: - Client

programs should continue to perform
satisfactorily while the load on the service varies
within a specified range.
Distributed file system requirements

5. Scaling transparency:- The service can be

expanded by incremental growth to deal with a
wide range of loads and network sizes.
Distributed file system requirements

6. Concurrent file updates: Changes to a file

by one client should not interfere with the
operation of other clients simultaneously
accessing or changing the same file.
Distributed file system requirements

7. File replication In a file service that supports

replication, a file may be represented by several
copies of its contents at different locations.
Distributed file system requirements

File replication has two benefits : -

– it enables multiple servers to share the load of
providing a service to clients accessing the same
set of files and
- It enhances fault tolerance by enabling clients
to locate another server that holds a copy of the
file when one has failed.
Distributed file system requirements

8. Hardware and operating system

heterogeneity - The service interfaces should
be defined so that client and server software can
be implemented for different operating systems
and computers.
- This requirement is an important aspect of
openness.
Distributed file system requirements

9.Fault tolerance - The central role of the file

service in distributed systems makes it essential
that the service continue to operate in the face of
client and server failures.
Distributed file system requirements

10. Consistency - Conventional file systems

such as that provided in UNIX offer one-copy
update semantics.
Distributed file system requirements
One-copy update semantics
➢ When files are replicated or cached at
different sites,
➢ There is an inevitable delay in the propagation
of modifications made at one site to all of the
other sites that hold copies,
➢ and this may result in some deviation from
one_copy semantics.
Distributed file system requirements

11. Security - Virtually all file systems provide

access-control mechanisms based on the use of
access control lists.
• In distributed file systems, there is a need to
authenticate client requests.
Distributed file system requirements

Security continues…-
➢ So that access control at the server is based
on correct user identities.
➢ Protect the contents of request and reply
messages with digital signatures and (optionally)
encryption of secret data.
Distributed file system requirements

11. Efficiency - A distributed file service should

offer facilities that are of at least the same power.
➢ Generality as those found in conventional file
systems.
➢ Should achieve a comparable level of
performance.
 File Service Architecture

➢ An architecture that offers a clear separation

of the main concerns in providing access to files
is obtained by structuring the file service as three
components :-
• Flat file service
• Directory service
• Client module
File Service Architecture
 File Service Architecture

The flat file service and the directory service

each export an interface:
➢ For use by client programs, and
➢ Their Request Procedure Call (RPC) interfaces,
➢ Taken together, provide a comprehensive set of
operations for access to files.
 File Service Architecture

The client module provides a single

programming interface with operations on files
similar to those found in conventional file
systems.
 File Service Architecture

The design is open in the sense that :-

• Different client modules can be used to
implement different programming interfaces,
• Simulating the file operations of a variety of
different operating systems.
• Optimizing the performance for different client
and server hardware configurations.
 File Service Architecture
Flat file service:
➢ The flat file service is concerned with
implementing operations on the contents of files.
➢ Unique file identifiers (UFIDs) are used to
refer to files in all requests for flat file service
operations.
➢ The division of responsibilities between the
file service and the directory service is based
upon the use of UFIDs.
 File Service Architecture

Flat file service:

➢ UFIDs are long sequences of bits and each
file has a UFID that is unique among all of the
files in a distributed system.
➢ When the flat file service receives a request to
create a file, it generates a new UFID for it and
returns the UFID to the requester.
 File Service Architecture

Directory service: -
➢ The directory service provides a mapping
between text names for files and their UFIDs.

➢ Clients may obtain the UFID of a file by

quoting its text name to the directory service.
 File Service Architecture

Directory service: -
➢ The directory service provides the functions
needed to generate directories, to add new file
names to directories and to obtain UFIDs from
directories.
➢ It is a client of the flat file service; its directory
files are stored in files of the flat file service.
 File Service Architecture

Client module : -
➢ A client module runs in each client computer,
➢ Integrating and extending the operations of
the flat file service and the directory service
under a single application programming interface
that is available to user-level programs in client
computers.
 File Service Architecture
Client module : -
➢ The client module also holds information
about the network locations of the flat file server
and directory server processes.
➢ The client module can play an important role
in achieving satisfactory performance through
the implementation of a cache of recently used
file blocks at the client.
 File Service Architecture

Flat file service interface

➢ This is the RPC interface used by client
modules.
➢ It is not normally used directly by user-level
programs.
 File Service Architecture
The information below contains a definition of the
interface to a flat file service.
 File Service Architecture

Flat file service interface

➢ The most important operations are those for
reading and writing.
➢ Both the Read and the Write operation require
a parameter ‘i’ specifying a position in the file.
 File Service Architecture

Flat file service interface

➢ The Read operation copies the sequence of
‘n’ data items beginning at item ‘i’ from the
specified file into Data, which is then returned to
the client.
 File Service Architecture

Flat file service interface

➢ The Write operation copies the sequence of
data items in ‘Data’ into the specified file
beginning at item ‘i’,
➢ Replacing the previous contents of the file at
the corresponding position and extending the file
if necessary.
 File Service Architecture

Flat file service interface

➢ Create creates a new, empty file and returns
the UFID that is generated.
➢ Delete removes the specified file.
 File Service Architecture
Flat file service interface
➢ GetAttributes and SetAttributes enable clients
to access the attribute record.
➢ GetAttributes is normally available to any
client that is allowed to read the file.
➢ Access to the SetAttributes operation would
normally be restricted to the directory service
that provides access to the file.
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