Chapter 11: File System Implementation
Chapter 11: File System Implementation
File-System Structure File-System Implementation Directory Implementation Allocation Methods Free-Space Management Efficiency and Performance Recovery Log-Structured File Systems NFS Example: WAFL File System
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Objectives
To describe the details of implementing local file systems and
directory structures
To describe the implementation of remote file systems
To discuss block allocation and free-block algorithms and trade-offs
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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
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Layered File System
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A Typical File Control Block
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In-Memory File System Structures
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.
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In-Memory File System Structures
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Virtual File Systems
Virtual File Systems (VFS) provide an object-oriented way of
implementing file systems.
VFS allows the same system call interface (the API) to be used for
different types of file systems.
The API is to the VFS interface, rather than any specific type of file
system.
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Schematic View of Virtual File System
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Directory Implementation
Linear list of file names with pointer to the data blocks.
simple to program time-consuming to execute
Hash Table linear list with hash data structure.
decreases directory search time collisions situations where two file names hash to the same location fixed size
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Allocation Methods
An allocation method refers to how disk blocks are allocated for
files:
Contiguous allocation
Linked allocation Indexed allocation
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Contiguous Allocation
Each file occupies a set of contiguous blocks on the disk Simple only starting location (block #) and length (number
of blocks) are required
Random access
Wasteful of space (dynamic storage-allocation problem)
Files cannot grow
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Contiguous Allocation
Mapping from logical to physical
Q
LA/512 R
Block to be accessed = ! + starting address Displacement into block = R
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Contiguous Allocation of Disk Space
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Extent-Based Systems
Many newer file systems (I.e. Veritas File System) use a modified
contiguous allocation scheme
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.
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Linked Allocation
Each file is a linked list of disk blocks: blocks may be scattered
anywhere on the disk.
block
pointer
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Linked Allocation (Cont.)
Simple need only starting address Free-space management system no waste of space No random access Mapping
Q
LA/511 R
Block to be accessed is the Qth block in the linked chain of blocks representing the file. Displacement into block = R + 1 File-allocation table (FAT) disk-space allocation used by MS-DOS and OS/2.
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Linked Allocation
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File-Allocation Table
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Indexed Allocation
Brings all pointers together into the index block. Logical view.
index table
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Example of Indexed Allocation
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Indexed Allocation (Cont.)
Need index table Random access Dynamic access without external fragmentation, but have
overhead of index block. Mapping from logical to physical in a file of maximum size of 256K words and block size of 512 words. We need only 1 block for index table. Q
LA/512
R Q = displacement into index table R = displacement into block
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Indexed Allocation Mapping (Cont.)
Mapping from logical to physical in a file of unbounded
length (block size of 512 words). Linked scheme Link blocks of index table (no limit on size).
Q1
LA / (512 x 511)
R1
Q1 = block of index table R1 is used as follows:
Q2
R1 / 512 R2
Q2 = displacement into block of index table R2 displacement into block of file:
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Indexed Allocation Mapping (Cont.)
Two-level index (maximum file size is 5123)
Q1 LA / (512 x 512) R1
Q1 = displacement into outer-index R1 is used as follows:
Q2
R1 / 512 R2
Q2 = displacement into block of index table R2 displacement into block of file:
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Indexed Allocation Mapping (Cont.)
outer-index
index table
file
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Combined Scheme: UNIX (4K bytes per block)
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Free-Space Management
Bit vector (n blocks)
0 1
n-1
bit[i] =
0 1 block[i] free block[i] occupied
Block number calculation (number of bits per word) * (number of 0-value words) + offset of first 1 bit
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Free-Space Management (Cont.)
Bit map requires extra space
Example: block size = 212 bytes disk size = 230 bytes (1 gigabyte) n = 230/212 = 218 bits (or 32K bytes)
Easy to get contiguous files Linked list (free list)
Cannot get contiguous space easily No waste of space
Grouping Counting
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Free-Space Management (Cont.)
Need to protect:
Pointer to free list Bit map Must be kept on disk Copy in memory and disk may differ Cannot allow for block[i] to have a situation where bit[i] = 1 in memory and bit[i] = 0 on disk
Solution: Set bit[i] = 1 in disk Allocate block[i] Set bit[i] = 1 in memory
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Directory Implementation
Linear list of file names with pointer to the data blocks
simple to program time-consuming to execute decreases directory search time collisions situations where two file names hash to the same location fixed size
Hash Table linear list with hash data structure
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Linked Free Space List on Disk
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Efficiency and Performance
Efficiency dependent on:
disk allocation and directory algorithms types of data kept in files directory entry
Performance
disk cache separate section of main memory for frequently used blocks
free-behind and read-ahead techniques to optimize sequential access
improve PC performance by dedicating section of memory as virtual disk, or RAM disk
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Page Cache
A page cache caches pages rather than disk blocks using virtual
memory techniques
Memory-mapped I/O uses a page cache
Routine I/O through the file system uses the buffer (disk) cache This leads to the following figure
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I/O Without a Unified Buffer Cache
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Unified Buffer Cache
A unified buffer cache uses the same page cache to cache both
memory-mapped pages and ordinary file system I/O
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I/O Using a Unified Buffer Cache
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Recovery
Consistency checking compares data in directory structure with
data blocks on disk, and tries to fix inconsistencies
Use system programs to back up data from disk to another storage
device (floppy disk, magnetic tape, other magnetic disk, optical)
Recover lost file or disk by restoring data from backup
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Log Structured File Systems
Log structured (or journaling) file systems record each update to
the file system as a transaction
All transactions are written to a log
A transaction is considered committed once it is written to the log However, the file system may not yet be updated
The transactions in the log are asynchronously written to the file
system
When the file system is modified, the transaction is removed from the log
If the file system crashes, all remaining transactions in the log must
still be performed
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The Sun Network File System (NFS)
An implementation and a specification of a software system for
accessing remote files across LANs (or WANs)
The implementation is part of the Solaris and SunOS operating
systems running on Sun workstations using an unreliable datagram protocol (UDP/IP protocol and Ethernet
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NFS (Cont.)
Interconnected workstations viewed as a set of independent
machines with independent file systems, which allows sharing among these file systems in a transparent manner
A remote directory is mounted over a local file system directory The mounted directory looks like an integral subtree of the local file system, replacing the subtree descending from the local directory Specification of the remote directory for the mount operation is nontransparent; the host name of the remote directory has to be provided Files in the remote directory can then be accessed in a transparent manner Subject to access-rights accreditation, potentially any file system (or directory within a file system), can be mounted remotely on top of any local directory
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NFS (Cont.)
NFS is designed to operate in a heterogeneous environment of
different machines, operating systems, and network architectures; the NFS specifications independent of these media
This independence is achieved through the use of RPC primitives
built on top of an External Data Representation (XDR) protocol used between two implementation-independent interfaces
The NFS specification distinguishes between the services provided
by a mount mechanism and the actual remote-file-access services
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Three Independent File Systems
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Mounting in NFS
Mounts
Cascading mounts
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NFS Mount Protocol
Establishes initial logical connection between server and client Mount operation includes name of remote directory to be mounted and
name of server machine storing it
Mount request is mapped to corresponding RPC and forwarded to mount server running on server machine
Export list specifies local file systems that server exports for mounting, along with names of machines that are permitted to mount them
Following a mount request that conforms to its export list, the server
returns a file handlea key for further accesses
File handle a file-system identifier, and an inode number to identify
the mounted directory within the exported file system
The mount operation changes only the users view and does not affect
the server side
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NFS Protocol
Provides a set of remote procedure calls for remote file operations.
The procedures support the following operations: searching for a file within a directory
reading a set of directory entries manipulating links and directories accessing file attributes reading and writing files NFS servers are stateless; each request has to provide a full set of arguments (NFS V4 is just coming available very different, stateful) Modified data must be committed to the servers disk before results are returned to the client (lose advantages of caching) The NFS protocol does not provide concurrency-control mechanisms
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Three Major Layers of NFS Architecture
UNIX file-system interface (based on the open, read, write, and
close calls, and file descriptors)
Virtual File System (VFS) layer distinguishes local files from
remote ones, and local files are further distinguished according to their file-system types
The VFS activates file-system-specific operations to handle local requests according to their file-system types Calls the NFS protocol procedures for remote requests
NFS service layer bottom layer of the architecture
Implements the NFS protocol
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Schematic View of NFS Architecture
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NFS Path-Name Translation
Performed by breaking the path into component names and
performing a separate NFS lookup call for every pair of component name and directory vnode
To make lookup faster, a directory name lookup cache on the
clients side holds the vnodes for remote directory names
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NFS Remote Operations
Nearly one-to-one correspondence between regular UNIX system
calls and the NFS protocol RPCs (except opening and closing files)
NFS adheres to the remote-service paradigm, but employs
buffering and caching techniques for the sake of performance
File-blocks cache when a file is opened, the kernel checks with
the remote server whether to fetch or revalidate the cached attributes
Cached file blocks are used only if the corresponding cached attributes are up to date
File-attribute cache the attribute cache is updated whenever new
attributes arrive from the server
Clients do not free delayed-write blocks until the server confirms
that the data have been written to disk
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Example: WAFL File System
Used on Network Appliance Filers distributed file system
appliances
Write-anywhere file layout
Serves up NFS, CIFS, http, ftp
Random I/O optimized, write optimized
NVRAM for write caching
Similar to Berkeley Fast File System, with extensive modifications
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The WAFL File Layout
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Snapshots in WAFL
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End of Chapter 11
