Chapter 11

File-System Interface

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Chapter 11: File-System Interface

 File Concept

 Access Methods

 Disk and Directory Structure

 File-System Mounting

 File Sharing

 Protection

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.2 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Objectives

 To explain the function of file systems

 To describe the interfaces to file systems

 To discuss file-system design tradeoffs, including access methods, file sharing,

file locking, and directory structures

 To explore file-system protection

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.3 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 File Concept

 A file is a named collection of related information that is recorded on

secondary storage.

 From a user’s perspective, a file is the smallest allotment of logical

secondary storage; that is, data cannot be written to secondary storage

unless they are within a file.

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.4 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 File Concept
 Commonly, files represent Types:
• Data
o numeric
o Alphabetic
o Alphanumeric
o binary
• Program (both source and object forms)
 The information in a file is defined by its creator.
 Many different types of information may be stored in a file—source or executable
programs, numeric or text data, photos, music, video, and so on.

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.5 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 File Concept

 A file has a certain defined structure, which depends on its type.

 A text file is a sequence of characters organized into lines (and possibly

pages).

 A source file is a sequence of functions, each of which is further

organized as declarations followed by executable statements.

 An executable file is a series of code sections that the loader can bring

into memory and execute.

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.6 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 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 11.7 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 File Attributes

Name id Location size …

a.txt 6 xyz 4kb

a.txt

b.doc

c.mp3

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.8 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 File info Window on Mac OS X

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.9 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 File Attributes

 The information about all files is kept in the directory structure, which

also resides on secondary storage. Typically, a directory entry consists of

the file’s name and its unique identifier.

 The identifier in turn locates the other file attributes.

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.10 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 File Operations
File is an abstract data type. The operating system can provide system calls to
•Create
•Write – at write pointer location
•Read – at read pointer location
•Reposition within file - seek
•Delete
•Truncate
•Other Operations : appending, renaming, create copy
•Open(Fi)
•Close (Fi) .

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.11 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 File Operations

 A file is an abstract data type. To define a file properly, we need to consider the
operation performed on the file.
 Operating System can provide system calls to create, write, read, reposition,
delete and truncate files.
1. Creating a File: Creation of a file is the first operation. For creating a file two
steps are necessary.
• Required space must be allocated.
• An entry for new file must be made in the directory.
• The directory entry records the name of the file and the location in the file
system.

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.12 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 File Operations

2. Writing a File:
 For file writing operation, we make a system call specifying both the name
of a file and the information to be written into the file.
 System searches the entire directory structure to find the location of the
specified file.
 System keeps a write pointer that keeps track of writing at the location in the
file.
 The system updates write pointer each time whenever a file write operation
occurs.

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.13 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 File Operations
3. Reading a File:
 To perform file read operation, we use a system call that specifies name of
the file and the block of the file to read from it.
 Again the directory is searched for the specified file.
 System keeps a read pointer that keeps track of reading location in the file.
 The system updates read pointer each time whenever a file read operation
occurs
4. Repositioning Within a File
• Repositioning within a file operation does not involve any actual input
output.
• The directory is searched for the appropriate entry and the current file
position is set to a given value.
• It is also known as files seek operation.
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.14 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 File Operations
5. Deleting a File:
 File deletion operation also requires searching of a specified file entry
within the directory structure.
 As soon as the file is deleted, space allocated to that file becomes available
for further use.
6. Truncating a File
 In some cases the user may want to erase the file contents but keep its
attributes as it is. This operation is called truncating a file.
 Instead of delete a file and recreating it with same attributes, this function
allows all attributes to remain unchanged except the file content.
 File length attribute is reset to a length zero and its file space is released.

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.15 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Open Files

 The OS keeps a small table, called the open-file table, containing information
about all open files.
 When a file operation is requested, the file is specified via an index into
this table, so no searching is required.
 When the file is no longer being actively used, it is closed by the process,
and the OS removes its entry from the open-file table.
 Most systems require that the programmer open a file explicitly with
the open() system call before that file can be used.
 The open() operation takes a file name and searches the directory, copying the
directory entry into the open-file table.

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.16 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 File Attributes

Name id Location size …

a.txt
a.txt

b.doc

c.mp3
Open File Table

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.17 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Open Files

 Several processes may open the file where several processes may open the file
simultaneously.
 Typically, the operating system uses two levels of internal tables: a per-process
table and a system-wide table.
 System-wide table: stores process-independent information, such as the
location of the file on disk, access dates, and file size.
 Per-process table: tracks all files that a process has open, Store information
regarding the process’s use of the file Example: the current file pointer for each file
is found here, Access rights to the file and accounting, information.
 Each entry in the per-process table in turn points to a system-wide open-file
table

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.18 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 File Attributes

Name id Location size …

a.txt

b.doc

Open File Table c.mp3

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.19 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Open Files

 Once a file has been opened by one process, the system-wide table includes an

entry for the file. When another process executes an open() call, a new entry is
simply added to the process’s open-file table pointing to the appropriate entry
in the system-wide table.
 Open count: Typically, the open-file table also has an open count associated

with each file to indicate how many processes have the file open. Each close()
decreases this open count, and when the open count reaches zero, the file is no
longer in use, and the file’s entry is removed from the open-file table.

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.20 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Open Files

 In summary, Several pieces of data are needed to manage open files:

 File Pointer: Track the last read–write location per process that has the file
open

 Open-file table: tracks open files

 File-open count: counter of number of times a file is open.

 Disk location of the file: cache of data access information

 Access rights: per-process access mode information

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.21 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Open File Locking
 File locks are provided by some operating systems and file systems allow one process to lock
a file and prevent other processes from gaining access to it.

 Similar to reader-writer locks

 Shared lock similar to reader lock – several processes can acquire concurrently

 Exclusive lock similar to writer lock

 Mandatory or advisory file locking mechanisms:

 Mandatory – access is denied depending on locks held and requested, the operating
system ensures locking integrity.

 Advisory – it is up to software developers to ensure that locks are appropriately

acquired and released. Processes can find status of locks and decide what to do

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.22 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 File Locking Example – Java API
import java.io.*;
import java.nio.channels.*;
public class LockingExample {
public static final boolean EXCLUSIVE = false;
public static final boolean SHARED = true;
public static void main(String arsg[]) throws IOException {
FileLock sharedLock = null;
FileLock exclusiveLock = null;
try {
RandomAccessFile raf = new RandomAccessFile("file.txt", "rw");
// get the channel for the file
FileChannel ch = raf.getChannel();
// this locks the first half of the file - exclusive
exclusiveLock = ch.lock(0, raf.length()/2, EXCLUSIVE);
/** Now modify the data . . . */
// release the lock
exclusiveLock.release();

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.23 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 File Locking Example – Java API (Cont.)

// this locks the second half of the file - shared

sharedLock = ch.lock(raf.length()/2+1, raf.length(),
SHARED);
/** Now read the data . . . */
// release the lock
sharedLock.release();
} catch (java.io.IOException ioe) {
System.err.println(ioe);
}finally {
if (exclusiveLock != null)
exclusiveLock.release();
if (sharedLock != null)
sharedLock.release();
}
}
}

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.24 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 File Types – Name, Extension
• The name is split into two parts—a name and an extension. Examples include
resume.docx, server.c, and ReaderThread.cpp.

 The system uses the extension to

indicate the type of the file and the type
of operations that can be done on that
file. Example: a .com, .exe, or .sh
extension can be executed.
 Extensions are not supported by the

operating system, they can be

considered “hints” to the applications
that operate on them.

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.25 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 File Structure
 File types also can be used to indicate the internal structure of the file. Files have
structures that match the expectations of the programs that read them.

 Further, certain files must conform to a required structure that is understood by the
operating system.

 Some operating systems extend this idea into a set of system-supported file structures,
with sets of special operations for manipulating files with those structures.

 File structure is the organization of the data in secondary storage in such a way that it
can minimize the access time and storage space.

 File structure = file data + accessing operations

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.26 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 File Structure
 Disadvantages of having the operating system support multiple file structures:

 The resulting size of the operating system is cumbersome.

 In addition, it may be necessary to define every file as one of the file types supported
by the operating system. When new applications require information structured in
ways not supported by the operating system, severe problems may result.

 Ex: For example, assume that a system supports two types of files: text files and
executable binary files. Now, if we (as users) want to define an encrypted file we may
find neither file type to be appropriate.

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.27 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 File Structure
 A file have different kind of structure

 None - sequence of words, bytes

 Simple record structure
 Lines of Fixed length
 Lines of Variable length
 Complex Structures
 Formatted document
 Relocatable load file

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.28 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 File Access Methods

File access mechanism refers to the manner in which the records of a file may be
accessed. There are several ways to access files −

1. Sequential access

2. Direct/Random access

3. Indexed sequential access

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.29 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 File Access Methods
1. Sequential Access: With sequential access, the device must move through all information up to the location where
it is attempting to read or write. Based on Tape model.

 Data is accessed one record right after another in an order.

 Reads and writes make up the bulk of the operations on a file.

 Read command cause a pointer to be moved ahead by one or a read operation—read next()—reads the next
portion of the file and automatically advances a file pointer, which tracks the I/O location.

 Similarly, the write operation—write next()—appends to the end of the file and advances to the end of the newly
written material (the new end of file)..

 This mode of access is by far the most common; for example, editors and compilers usually access files in this
fashion.

 A file can be reset to the beginning, and on some systems, a program may be able to skip forward or
backward n records for some integer n—perhaps only for n = 1. Sequential access.

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.30 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Sequential-access File

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.31 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 File Access Methods
2. Direct Access Methods: Another method is direct access (or relative access).

 Allow programs to read and write records rapidly in no particular order.

 The direct-access method is based on a disk model of a file, since disks allow random access to any file block.

 For direct access the file is viewed as a numbered sequence of blocks or records. Thus, we may read block
14, then read block 53, and then write block 7. There are no restrictions on the order of reading or writing
for a direct-access file.

 For the direct-access method, the file operations must be modified to include the block number as a
parameter.

 Thus, we have read(n), where n is the block number, rather than read next(), and write(n) rather than write
next().

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.32 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 File Access Methods
3. Other Access Methods

 These methods generally involve the construction of an index for the file. The index, like
an index in the back of a book, contains pointers to the various blocks.

 To find a record in the file, we first search the index and then use the pointer to access the
file directly and to find the desired record.

 For example, IBM’s indexed sequential-access method (ISAM) uses a small master index
that points to disk blocks of a secondary index

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.33 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 File Access Methods

To find a particular item, we first make a binary search of the master index,
which provides the block number of the secondary index. This block is read
in, and again a binary search is used to find the block containing the desired
record. Finally, this block is searched sequentially. In this way, any record
can

be located from its key by at most two direct-access reads.

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.34 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 File 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

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.35 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Simulation of Sequential Access on Direct-access File

We can easily simulate sequential access on a direct-access file by simply keeping a

variable cp that defines our current position

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.36 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 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 11.37 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Example of Index and Relative Files

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.38 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 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 11.39 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Disk Structure
• Files are stored on random-access storage devices, including hard disks, optical

disks, and solid-state (memory-based) disks.

• A storage device can also be subdivided for finer-grained control. For example, a

disk can be partitioned and each partition can hold a separate file system.
• Storage devices can also be collected together into RAID (Redundant Arrays of

Independent Disks) sets that provide protection from the failure of a single disk.
• Partitioning is useful:
• Limiting the sizes of individual file systems
• Putting multiple file-system types on the same device
• Leaving part of the device available for other uses, such as swap space or
unformatted (raw) disk space.

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.40 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Disk Structure

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.41 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Disk Structure

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.42 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Disk Structure

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.43 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Disk Structure

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.44 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Disk Structure

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.45 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Disk Structure

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.46 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Directory and Disk Structure

 A file system can be created on each of these parts of the disk.

 Any entity containing a file system is generally known as a volume.

 Each volume can be thought of as a virtual disk.

 Volumes can also store multiple operating systems, allowing a system to boot and

run more than one operating system.

 Each volume that contains a file system must also contain information about the

files in the system in a device directory or volume table of contents.

 The device directory (more commonly known simply as the directory) records

information—such as name, location, size, and type—for all files on that volume.

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.47 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 A Typical File-system Organization

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.48 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Typical File-system ON Windows

 File Allocation Table (FAT and FAT32)

 Microsoft New Technology File System (NTFS)
 Microsoft Resilient File System (ReFS). ReFS was introduced on Windows Server 2012

systems.

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.49 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Types of File Systems
 We mostly talk of general-purpose file systems, But systems frequently have many file
systems, some general- and some special- purpose

 Solaris has following file systems

• 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 11.50 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Directory Structure

 A directory is a container that is used to contain folders and files. It organizes files

and folders in a hierarchical manner.

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.51 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Directory Structure
• In a directory structure, we can store the complete file attributes and with

the help of the directory, we can maintain the information related to the
files.

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.52 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Operations Performed on Directory

The operations that are to be performed on a 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 11.53 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 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 11.54 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Single-Level Directory
 This is the simplest directory structure to implement. All files are contained in the
same directory.

 Limitation of single level directory structure is that when number of files increase
or when the system has more than one user, it becomes unmanageable.

 Since all files are in this same directory, the name must be unique.

 Can’t create subdirectories, Ex: the directory called data can have no of files but
can not create more subdirectories.

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.55 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Single-Level Directory
Advantages:

Since it is a single directory, so it is easy to implement, understand and maintain.

If the files are smaller in size, searching will become faster.

The operations like file creation, searching, deletion, updating are very easy in such a directory structure.

Disadvantages:

There may chance of name collision because two files can not have the same name.

Searching will become time taking if the directory is large (High Overhead).

This can not group the same type of files together (Grouping Problem).

Choosing the unique name for every file is a bit complex and limits the number of files in the system because most of the

Operating System limits the number of characters used to construct the file name (Scalability).

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.56 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Two-Level Directory
 In two level directory systems, There is one master directory which contains a separate directory for each user.

 The system doesn't let a user to enter in the other user's directory without permission.

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.57 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Two-Level Directory
Advantages:

We can give full path like /User-name/directory-name/.

Different users can have the same directory as well as the file name.

Searching of files becomes easier due to pathname and user-grouping.

Disadvantages:

A user is not allowed to share files with other users.

Still, it not very scalable, two files of the same type cannot be grouped together in the same user.

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.58 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Tree-Structured Directories

 A two-level directory is a tree of height 2, the natural generalization is to

extend the directory structure to a tree of arbitrary height.

 This generalization allows the user to create their own subdirectories and

to organize their files accordingly.

 In Tree structured directory system, any directory entry can either be a file

or sub directory.
 The similar kind of files can now be grouped in one directory.

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.59 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Tree-Structured Directories

• Most common directory structure.

• This structure has root directory and every file in system has a unique
path name.
• This structure provide efficient searching.
• Naming problem is totally solved.

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.60 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Tree-Structured Directories

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.61 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Tree-Structured Directories (Cont.)
Advantages:

Very scalable, the probability of name collision is less.

Searching becomes very easy, we can use both absolute paths as well as relative path.

Disadvantages:

Every file does not fit into the hierarchical model, files may be saved into multiple

directories.

We can not share files.

Tree-structure directory is not efficient because, in this, if we want to access a file, then it

may go under multiple directories.

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.62 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 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 11.63 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 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 11.64 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Acyclic-Graph Directories (Cont.)

 In the tree-structure directory, the same files cannot exist in the multiple
directories, so sharing the files is the main problem in the tree-structure directory.

 With the help of the acyclic-graph directory, we can provide the sharing of files.

 In the acyclic-graph directory, more than one directory can point to a similar file
or subdirectory.

 An acyclic graph is a graph with no cycle and allows us to share subdirectories

and files

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.65 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Acyclic-Graph Directories (Cont.)

 The same file or subdirectories may be in two different directories. It is a natural

generalization of the tree-structured directory.

 It is used in the situation like when two programmers are working on a joint
project and they need to access files.

 These kinds of directory graphs can be made using links or aliases. We can have
multiple paths for a same file.

 Links can either be symbolic (logical) or hard link (physical).

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.66 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Acyclic-Graph Directories (Cont.)

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.67 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Acyclic-Graph Directories (Cont.)

Advantages:
We can share files.
Searching is easy due to different-different paths.

Disadvantages:
We share the files via linking, in case deleting it may create the problem,
If the link is a soft link then after deleting the file we left with a dangling pointer.
In the case of a hard link, to delete a file we have to delete all the references associated

with it.

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.68 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 General Graph Directory (Cont.)

 The General-Graph directory is another vital type of directory structure.

 In this type of directory structure, within a directory we can create cycle

of the directory where we can derive the various directory with the help of
more than one parent directory.

 The main issue in the general-graph directory is to calculate the total

space or size, taken by the directories and the files

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.69 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 General Graph Directory (Cont.)

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.70 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 General Graph Directory (Cont.)

Advantages
The advantages of general-graph directory are:
1.The General-Graph directory is more flexible than the other directory structure.

2.Cycles are allowed in the general-graph directory.

Disadvantages
The disadvantages of general-graph directory are:
1.In general-graph directory, garbage collection is required.

2.General-graph directory is more costly, among other directory structures.

3.Search algorithms can go into infinite loops.

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.71 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 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 11.72 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 File Sharing

 Sharing of files on a 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

 In a multi-user system

 User IDs identify users, allowing permissions and protections to be per-user

 Group IDs allow users to be in groups, permitting group access rights

 Owner of a file /directory: grant access, has the most control over the file

 Group of a file/directory: subset of users who can share access to the file.

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.73 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 File Sharing – Remote File Systems
 Uses networking to allow communication among remote computers.

 Networking allows the sharing of resources spread across a campus or even

around the world.

 One obvious resource to share is data in the form of files.

 The first implemented method is manually sending via programs like FTP

 The second major method uses a distributed file system (DFS) in which remote
directories are visible from a local machine.

 The third method is the WorldWide Web, is a reversion to the first. A browser is
needed to gain access to the remote files, and separate operations are used to
transfer files. Increasingly, cloud computing is being used for file sharing as well.

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.74 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 File Sharing – Client Server Model
 The machine containing the files is the server, and the machine seeking access to the files is the
client.

 The server declares that a resource is available to clients and specifies exactly which resource
and exactly which clients.

 Server can serve multiple clients, client can use multiple servers.

 Client identification is more difficult. A client can be specified by a network name or other
identifier, such as an IP address, but these can be spoofed, or imitated.

 File operation requests are sent on behalf of the user with id) across the network to the server
via the DFS protocol.

 The server then applies the standard access checks to determine access rights. The request is
either allowed or denied. If it is allowed, a file handle is returned to the client application, and
the application then can perform read, write, and other operations on the file.

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.75 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 File Sharing – Distributed Information Systems
 To make client–server systems easier to manage, distributed information systems, also
known as distributed naming services, provide unified access to the information needed for
remote computing.

 The domain name system (DNS) provides host-name-to-network-address translations for

the entire Internet.

 Before DNS became widespread, files containing the same information were sent via e-mail
or ftp between all networked hosts.

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.76 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 File Sharing – Distributed Information Systems
 The machine containing the files is the server, and the machine seeking access to the files is
the client.

 The server declares that a resource is available to clients and specifies exactly which
resource and exactly which clients.

 Server can serve multiple clients, client can use multiple servers.

 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

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.77 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 File Sharing – Failure Modes

 All file systems have failure modes

 For example corruption of directory structures or other non-user data, called

metadata

 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 v3 include all information in each request, allowing
easy recovery but less security

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.78 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 File Sharing – Consistency Semantics
 Consistency Semantics deals with the consistency between the views of shared files on a
networked system. When one user changes the file, when do other users see the changes?

UNIX Semantics

 The UNIX file system uses the following semantics:

 Writes to an open file are immediately visible to any other user who has the file open.

 One implementation uses a shared location pointer, which is adjusted for all sharing
users.

 The file is associated with a single exclusive physical resource, which may delay some
accesses.

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.79 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 File Sharing – Consistency Semantics
Session Semantics

The Andrew File System, AFS uses the following semantics:

 Writes to an open file are not immediately visible to other users.

 When a file is closed, any changes made become available only to users who open the file
at a later time.

According to these semantics, a file can be associated with multiple ( possibly different ) views.

Almost no constraints are imposed on scheduling accesses. No user is delayed in reading or

writing their personal copy of the file.

AFS file systems may be accessible by systems around the world. Access control is maintained

through ( somewhat ) complicated access control lists, which may grant access to the entire world
( literally ) or to specifically named users accessing the files from specifically named remote
environments.

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.80 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 File Sharing – Consistency Semantics

Immutable-Shared-Files Semantics

Under this system, when a file is declared as shared by its creator, it becomes immutable.

Hence it becomes read-only, and shared access is simple.

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.81 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 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 11.82 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 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 11.83 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Windows 7 Access-Control List Management

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.84 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 A Sample UNIX Directory Listing

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.85 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Allocation Methods

Allocation method provides a way in which the disk will be utilized and the files will
be accessed.
1 .Contiguous Allocation
2. Non Contiguous Allocation
i. Linked Allocation
ii. Indexed Allocation`

The main idea behind these methods is to provide:

• Efficient disk space utilization.
• Fast access to the file blocks.

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.86 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Contiguous Allocation

• If the blocks are allocated to the file in such a way that all the logical blocks of the
file get the contiguous physical block in the hard disk then such allocation
scheme is Known as contiguous allocation.
• In this scheme, each file occupies a contiguous set of blocks on the disk. For
example, if a file requires n blocks and is given a block b as the starting location,
then the blocks assigned to the file will be: b, b+1, b+2,……b+n-1.
• This means that given the starting block address and the length of the file (in
terms of blocks required), we can determine the blocks occupied by the file.
• The directory entry for a file with contiguous allocation contains Address of
starting block Length of the allocated portion.

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.87 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Contiguous Allocation

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.88 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Contiguous Allocation

Advantages
1.Both the Sequential and Direct Accesses are supported by this. For direct access, the
address of the kth block of the file which starts at block b can easily be obtained as (b+k).
2.It is simple to implement.
3.We will get Excellent read performance.

Disadvantages
1.This method suffers from both internal and external fragmentation. This makes it inefficient
in terms of memory utilization.
2.Increasing file size is difficult because it depends on the availability of contiguous memory
at a particular instance.

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.89 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Linked Allocation

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.90 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Linked Allocation

Advantages:
•This is very flexible in terms of file size. File size can be increased easily since the system

does not have to look for a contiguous chunk of memory.

•This method does not suffer from external fragmentation. This makes it relatively better in

terms of memory utilization.

Disadvantages:
•Because the file blocks are distributed randomly on the disk, a large number of seeks are

needed to access every block individually. This makes linked allocation slower.
•It does not support random or direct access. We can not directly access the blocks of a file. A

block k of a file can be accessed by traversing k blocks sequentially (sequential access ) from
the starting block of the file via block pointers.
•Pointers required in the linked allocation incur some extra overhead.

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.91 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Indexed Allocation

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.92 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Indexed Allocation

Advantages:
This supports direct access to the blocks occupied by the file and therefore provides

fast access to the file blocks.

It overcomes the problem of external fragmentation.

Disadvantages:
The pointer overhead for indexed allocation is greater than linked allocation.

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.93 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Inode (Index Node)

The inode (index node) is a

data structure in a Unix-
style file system that
describes a file-system
object such as a file or a
directory.
Each inode stores the
attributes and disk block
locations of the object's
data.
Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.94 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Inode (Index Node)

Key Components of an Inode

1. File Metadata:
1. File type (regular file, directory, symbolic link, etc.)
2. Permissions (read, write, execute)
3. Owner (user ID and group ID)
4. Size
5. Timestamps (creation, last access, modification)
2. Block Pointers:
1. Direct pointers: Point directly to the data blocks.
2. Indirect pointers:
1. Single indirect: Points to a block containing more block pointers.
2. Double indirect: Points to a block containing single indirect block pointers.
3. Triple indirect: Points to a block containing double indirect block pointers.

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.95 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Inode (Index Node)

An indirect block is a block that

contains an array of pointers.
Instead of pointing directly to
data blocks, these pointers in
the indirect block point to other
blocks that, in turn, contain
pointers to data blocks.

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.96 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Inode (Index Node)
Inode
│
├── Direct Pointers (e.g., 0-11)
│ └── Data Blocks
│
├── Single Indirect Pointer
│ └── Block of Pointers to Data Blocks
│ └── Data Blocks
│
├── Double Indirect Pointer
│ └── Block of Pointers to Single Indirect Blocks
│ └── Block of Pointers to Data Blocks
│ └── Data Blocks
│
└── Triple Indirect Pointer
└── Block of Pointers to Double Indirect Blocks
└── Block of Pointers to Single Indirect Blocks
└── Block of Pointers to Data Blocks
└── Data Blocks

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.97 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Inode (Index Node)

The index node (inode) of a Unix-like file system has 12 direct, one
single-indirect and one double-indirect pointer The disk block size is
4 kB and the disk block addresses 32-bits long. The maximum
possible file size is (rounded off to 1 decimal place) __________ GB.

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.98 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Inode (Index Node)

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.99 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Inode (Index Node)

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition 11.100 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 End of Chapter 11

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013