DISK SCHEDULING PROBLEMS REFER NOTES AND ASSIGNMENT

Disk Management
n Disk Formatting
n Boot Block
n Bad Blocks
Swap-Space Management
 File Concept
 OS provides a uniform logical view (file) of various information storage devices by abstracting from
the physical properties of storage devices
 A file is a collection of related information that is recorded on secondary storage
 Types of file
 Data
Numeric, alphabetic, alphanumeric, or binary
 Program
Source, object, executable
File Structure
 None - sequence of words, bytes such as text file
 Simple record structure
 Lines
 Fixed length record
 Variable length record
 Complex structures
 Formatted document (e.g. html)
 Relocatable load file (e.g. object file)
 Can simulate last two with first method by inserting appropriate control characters
File Attributes
 � A file has several attributes: (vary from one OS to another)
 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

File Operations
 � OS provides various system calls for file operations
 � For example:
 Create
 Write
 Read
 Reposition within file – 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

File Types – Name, Extension

Access Methods
 Sequential Access: information in the file is processed in order
o read next-reads the next portion of the file and�automatically�advances�a�file�pointer
o write next – appends to the end of the file and advances to the end of the newly written
material�(the�new�end�of�file).�
o reset- file can be reset to the beginning, and on some systems, a program may be able to
skip forward or backward n records
read next
write next
reset
skip forward or backward n records
  Direct Access: allow arbitrary blocks to be read or written
read n (n = relative block number)
write n
position to n
read next
write next
rewrite n
Simulation of Sequential Access on a Direct-access File

Example of Index and Relative Files

Directory Structure

A Typical File-system Organization

  Every partition has a file system, which consists of directory and files
 A collection of nodes containing information about all files
 Both the directory structure and the files reside on disk
 Backups of these two structures are kept on tapes

Information in a Directory
 Name
 Type
 Address
 Current length
 Maximum length
 Date last accessed
 Date last updated
 Owner ID
 Protection information
Operations Performed on a Directory
 Search for a file
 Create a file
 Delete a file
 List a directory
 Rename a file
 Traverse the file system
How to Organize a Directory?
 Issues
 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,�…)
 Schemes for defining the logical structure of a directory:
 Single level directory
 Two level directory
 Tree structured directory
 Acyclic graph directory
 General graph directory

Single-Level Directory
 A single directory for all users; easy to support and understand
  Problems
 Naming problem: all files must have unique names
 Grouping problem
Two-Level Directory
As, a single-level directory often leads to confusion of file names among different users.
 The standard solution is to create a separate directory for each user.
 In the two-level directory structure, each user has own user file directory (UFD).
 The U F D s have similar structures, but each lists only the files of a single user. When a
user job starts or a user logs in, the system’s master file directory ( M F D ) is
searched.
 When a user refers to a particular file, only his own U F D is searched.
 Thus, different users may have files with the same name, as long as all the file names
within each U F D are unique.
 To create a file for a user, the operating system searches only that user’s U F D to
ascertain whether another file of that name exists.
 To delete a file, the operating system confines its search to the local U F D ; thus, it cannot
accidentally delete another user’s file that has the same name.

 � A user name and a file name define a path name

 � Advantages and disadvantages
 Can have the same file name for different user
 Efficient searching
 No grouping capability
Tree-Structured Directories

 A tree is the most common directory structure.

 The tree has a root directory, and every file in the system has a unique path name.  A directory (or
subdirectory) contains a set of files or subdirectories.
 All directories have the same internal format. One bit in each directory entry defines the entry as a
file (0) or as a subdirectory (1).
 Special system calls are used to create and delete directories.
 The current directory should contain most of the files that are of current interest to the process.
 When reference is made to a file, the current directory is searched. If a file is needed that is not in the
current directory, then the user usually must either specify a path name or change the current directory to
be the directory holding that file.
 To change directories, a system call is provided that takes a directory name as a parameter and uses
it to redefine the current directory.
 Path names can be of two types: absolute and relative.
-An absolute path name begins at the root and follows a path down to the specified file, giving the directory
names on the path.
A relative path name defines a path from the current directory
Advantages
 Efficient searching
 Grouping Capability
DisAdvantages
 Subdirectories cannot be shared by multiple user

Acyclic-Graph Directories
 Have shared subdirectories and files using acyclic graph
 With a shared file only one actual file exists, so any changes made by one person are immediately
visible to the other
 Deletion:
o The deletion of a link does not need to affect the original file; only the link is removed.
o Another approach to deletion is to preserve the file until all references to it are deleted.
o Another approach keep a count of the number of references.
o When count=0, file is deleted.

File System Mounting

 Just as a file must be opened before it is used, a file system must be mounted before it can be
accessed
 Procedure
 The operating system is given the name of the device, and the location within the file
structure at which to attach the file system (or mount point)
 Typically, a mount point is an empty directory
 The operating system verifies that the device contains a valid file system by asking
the device driver to read the directory
 Finally, the operating system notes in its directory structure that a file system is
mounted at the specified mount point; This scheme enables the operating system to traverse its
directory structure, switching among file systems as appropriate
Example of File System Mounting
Existing Unmounted Partition Mount Point

File Sharing
 Sharing of files on multi-user systems is desirable
 Sharing may be done through a protection scheme
 On distributed systems, files may be shared across a network
 Network File System (NFS) is a common distributed file-sharing method

File Sharing – Multiple Users

 User IDs identify users, allowing permissions and protections to be per-user
 Group IDs allow users to be in groups, permitting group access rights

File Sharing – Remote File Systems

 Uses networking to allow file system access between systems
 Manually via programs like FTP
 Automatically, seamlessly using distributed file systems
 Semi automatically via the world wide web
 � Client-server model allows clients to mount remote file systems from servers
 Server can serve multiple clients
 Client and user-on-client identification is insecure or complicated
 NFS is standard UNIX client-server file sharing protocol
  CIFS is standard Windows protocol
 Standard operating system file calls are translated into remote calls
 Distributed Information Systems (distributed naming services) such as LDAP, DNS, NIS, Active
Directory implement unified access to information needed for remote computing

File Sharing – Failure Modes

 Remote file systems add new failure modes, due to network failure, server failure
 Recovery from failure can involve state information about status of each remote request
 Stateless protocols such as NFS include all information in each request, allowing easy recovery but
less security

File Protection
 File owner/creator should be able to control:
 what can be done
 by whom
 Types of access
 Read
 Write
 Execute
 Append
 Delete
 List
Access Control List
 Various users may need different types of access to a file or directory
 The most general scheme is to associate with each file and directory an access-control list (ACL)
specifying the user name and the types of access allowed for each user
 Advantages
 Enable complex access methodology
 Disadvantages
 Constructing such a list may be a tedious and unrewarding task, especially if we do
not know in advance the list of users in the system
 The directory entry, previously of fixed size, now needs to be of variable size,
resulting in more complicated space management

Access Lists and Groups (UNIX)

 Mode of access: read, write, execute
 Three classes of users
RWX
a) owner access 7  1 1 1
 RWX
b) group access 6  1 1 0
RWX
c) public access 1 0 0 1
 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

owner group public

chmod 761 game


 Attach a group to a file using
chgrp G game