File System Implementation

File System Implementation

 File-System Structure
 File-System Implementation
 Directory Implementation
 Allocation Methods
 Free-Space Management
 File-System Structure

File is a collection of related information.File System resides on Secondary

Storage.

File Systems provide efficient and convenient access to the disk by allowing

data to be stored, located, and retrieved easily.

 A file system poses two quite different design problems. The first problem is
defining how the file system should look to the user.

This task involves defining a file and its attributes, the operations allowed on a file,
and the directory structure for organizing files.

The second problem is creating algorithms and data structures to map the

logical file system onto the physical secondary-storage devices.

 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
 The file system itself is generally composed of many different levels.

 Each level in the design uses the features of lower levels to create new features for
use by higher levels.

 The lowest level, the I/O control, consists of device drivers and interrupt handlers to
transfer information between the main memory and the disk system.
Layered File System
 File System Implementation
Several On Disk and In Memory Structures are used.

On disk Structures

-How to boot an OS stored there, total number of disk blocks,

Number and location of free disk blocks,directory structure,
Individual files.

In-memory structures

- File-system management, Caching

 On Disk Structures
Boot Control block

-Contains information needed to boot an OS

-if the disk has no OS , this block is empty.

Volume Control block

-Contains partition details , no. of blocks in partition ,

size of blocks , Free block count and Free block pointers.

Directory Structure(for each file system)

-Used to Organize files

Per file File Control Block(FCB)

-Contains details about the files

-Unique identifier
A Typical File Control Block
 In-Memory File System Structures
 Mount Table – Information about each mounted volume
 Directory – Structure Cache – Holds directory information of recently
accessed directories
 System wide open file table
Contains a copy of the FCB of each open file.
 Per process open file table – Points to the appropriate entry in the System
wide open file table.
 Buffers
In Memory Structures – Create a New file
 Application program calls new file system

 Logical file system knows the name of the directory

sturctures

 Allocates a new FCB.

 System reads appropriate directory into memory.

 Update the directory with the new file name and FCB
and writes back to disk.
 In Memory Structures –Open an Existing file

 Open() call passes a file name to the logical file system.

 The call first searches the system-wide open – file table to see if the file is
already in use by another process.

 If it is,a per-process open-file table entry is created pointing to the existing

system-wide open-file table entry.

 If the file is not alreay open,the directory structure is searched for the given
file name.
 Parts of the directory structure are cached in memory.

 Once the file is found, The FCB is copied into an entry in the system-wide
open file table in memory.
 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.

In-Memory File System Structures
In Memory Structures – Close a file

When a process closes a file,the per process open file table’s

entry is removed

The count in the system wide open file table entry is

decremented.

When the count becomes zero,the updated metadata is

copied to the directory structure in the disk.
 Directory Implementation
 Linear list of file names with pointer to the data blocks.
 simple to program
 time-consuming to execute
 To create a new file , search the directory if another file with a similar
name exists.
 If no such file , a new entry is added to the end of the directory
 To delete a file , search the directory for that file and release the space
allocated to it.
Disadvantages:
Finding a file requires linear search – makes access slow.
 Hash Table – linear list with hash data structure.
 A linear list stores the directory entries , a hash data structure is also
used.
 Hash table takes a value computed from the file name and returns a
pointer to the the file name in the linear list.
 decreases directory search time
 collisions – situations where two file names hash to the same location
 fixed size
 Allocation Methods
 An allocation method refers to how disk blocks are allocated for files:

 Disk space should be allocated so that disk space is utilized effectively and

files can be accessed quickly.

 Contiguous allocation

 Linked allocation

 Indexed allocation
Contiguous Allocation of Disk Space
 Each file occupies a set of contiguous blocks on the disk

 Simple – only starting location (block #) and length (number of

blocks) are required
 Sequential and Direct Access.
Dis Advantages

 Random access
 External Fragmentation

 Wasteful of space (dynamic storage-allocation problem)

-How to satisfy a request of size n from a list of free holes
(First Fit or Best Fit)
 Difficult to determine how much space is needed for a file.
 Files cannot grow – Can Over estimate the space needed,results in
wastage of Space.
Contiguous Allocation of Disk Space
 Extent-Based Systems
 Many newer file systems (I.e. Veritas File System) use a modified
contiguous allocation scheme.

 Initially , contiguous chunk of space is allocated

 If this is not large enough , another chunk of space(extent) is allocated.

 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.
Linked Allocation

block = pointer
 Linked Allocation (Cont.)
 Solves all problems of contiguous allocation.

 Each file is a linked list of disk blocks: blocks may be scattered

anywhere on the disk.

 Directory entry has a pointer to the first and last blocks of the file

Advantages:
 Simple – need only starting address
 No External Fragmentation
 Size of a file need not be declared when the file is created
 Files can continue to grow as long as free blocks are availble
 Compaction not needed.
Linked Allocation
Dis advantages
 No random access(Only sequential access)
 Space required for pointers

(Each and every disk block has a pointer to the next disk block)
If pointers are lost or damaged?

Variation of linked allocation – File allocation Table (FAT) – Disk space

allocation used by MS DOS

A Section of disk at the beginning of each volume contains this table

File-Allocation Table
 Indexed Allocation
 Solves Direct access problem in linked allocation
 Brings all pointers together into the index block rather than having a pointer in each and every disk block.

 Logical view.

index table
Example of Indexed Allocation
 Indexed Allocation (Cont.)
 I th entry in the index block points to the ith block of the file.

 Random access

 Dynamic access without external fragmentation, but have overhead

of index block.

 Dis advantages
 Suffers from wasted space
More pointer overhead.

When there is a file occupying only two blocks , in linked

allocation , space for only two pointers is wasted , in indexed
allocation , one whole block is wasted.

How large the index block should be?

Mechanisms for index block variants
 Linked scheme – Link together index blocks
An index block will contain addresses of disk blocks as well as address of
next index block

 Two level index

First level index block points to a second level index block
second level index block points to file blocks
Indexed Allocation – Two level index

outer-index

index table file

 Free-Space Management

 To keep track of free disk space

 To reuse the space from deleted files for new files

 Free space list records all free disk blocks

 To create a file , search for the space in the free list

 Remove the space from the free space list

 If file is deleted, add the space to the free - space list

 Implementation of Free-Space Management – Bit vector

 Bit vector (n blocks)

0 1 2 n-1
…

0  block[i] free
bit[i] =
1  block[i] occupied

Say , blocks 2,5,8,22 are free

1101101101111111111111011
 Free-Space Management (Cont.)
 Advantages
 Simple
 Efficient in finding the first free block, m consecutive free blocks

 Dis Advantages
 Requires extra space and is kept in main memory
 Block size = 212 bytes
Disk size = 230 bytes
Number of blocks = 230 / 212 = 218

Number of bits in bit map is 218

 Implementation of Free-Space Management – Linked List

 Link together all the free blocks

 Keep a pointer to the first free block on the disk and cache it in memory

 The first block contains a pointer to the next block and so on

 Cannot get contiguous space easily

 No waste of space

 Traversing the list takes time

Linked Free Space List on Disk
 Implementation of Free-Space Management – Grouping

 Store addresses of n free blocks in the first free block

 Nth block contains the address of another n free blocks

 Addresses of large number of free blocks can be found quickly

 Implementation of Free-Space Management – Counting

 Keep the address of the first free block and the number n of free
contiguous blocks that follow the first block

 Each entry – a disk address and a count