UNIX File and Directory

Caching
How UNIX Optimizes File System
Performance and Presents Data to
User Processes Using a Virtual File
System

V-NODE Layer

V-node in-memory interface to the disk consist of:

File system independent functions dealing with:

Hierarchical naming;

Locking;

Quotas;

Attribute management and protection.

Object (file) creation and deletion, read and write, changes in space allocation:

These functions refer to file-store internals specific to the file system:

Physical organization of data on device;

For local data files, these functions refer to v-node refers to UNIX-specific structure
called i-node (index node) that has all necessary information to access the actual data
store.

Actual File I/O

CPU cannot access the file data directly.

Must be first brought to the main memory.

How to do this efficiently?

Read/Write mapping using in-memory system file/directory buffer cache.

Memory mapped files INODE lists, Directories, Regular files.

Then fed from memory to data pipeline in CPU.

Virtual INODES (In Memory)

Relation between logical and

physical data views

Program I/O - Virtual to Real

File Read/Write Memory Mapping

File data is made available to applications via a pre-allocated main memory region - the
buffer cache.

The file systems transfers data between the buffer cache and disk in granularity of disk
blocks.
The data is explicitly copied from/to buffer cache to/from the user application address space
(process).

A file (or a portion thereof) is mapped into a contiguous region of the process virtual memory.

Mapping operation is very efficient: just marking a block.

The access to file is governed by the virtual memory subsystem.

Advantages:
reduce copying
no need for a pre-allocated buffer cache in the main memory

Disadvantages:
less or no control over the actual disk writing: the file data becomes volatile
A mapped area must fit the virtual address space

Read/Write Mapping
Kernel
Main Memory

File C

File A

File B

Buffer Cache

Reading data (Disk block=1K)

User

Kernel

Buffer Cache

Buf
ptr

File C
1324

3172

UNSIGNED CHAR BUF[8192];

UNSIGNED CHAR *PTR=BUF+126;
FD = OPEN(C,);
SEEK(FD,1324);
READ(FD,PTR,1848);

// 1324=1024+300
// 724+1024+100=1848

Writing data (Disk block=1K)

User

Kernel

Buffer Cache

Buf
ptr

File C
1324

3172

Unallocat
ed
region

UNSIGNED CHAR BUF[8192];

UNSIGNED CHAR *PTR=BUF+126;
FD = OPEN(C,);
SEEK(FD,1324);
WRITE(FD,PTR,1848);

// 1324=1024+300
// 724+1024+100=1848

Buffer Cache management

All disk I/O goes through the buffer cache. Both data and metadata (e.g., i-node, directories)
are cached using LRU replacement

Dirty (modified) marker to indicate whether write-back is needed for data blocks.

Advantages:
- Hiding disk access the user program. Block size, memory alignment, memory allocation in
multiples of the block size, etc
- Disk blocks are cached
- Block aggregation for small transfers (locality)
- Block re-use across processes
- Transient data might be never written to disk

Disadvantages:
- Extra copying: Disk->buffer cache->user space
- Vulnerability to failures
- Does not care about the user data blocks
- Control data blocks (metadata) are the real problem
INODES, pointer blocks, directories can be in cache when a failure occurs
As a result the file system internal state might be corrupted
fsck required, resulting in long (re-)boot times

File System Reliability and

Recovery

File system data consists of file control data (metadata), user data

Failures can cause data loss and corruption for cached metadata or user data

Power failure during the sector write may corrupt physically the data stored in the sector

Lost or corruption of the metadata might lead to a more massive user data loss.
File systems must care about the metadata more than about the user data
The Operating System cares about the file system data (e.g. metadata)
Users must care about their data themselves (e.g., backups)

Caching affects the WRITE process reliability.

Is it guaranteed that the requested data is indeed written on disk?
What if cache blocks are the metadata blocks versus user data?

Solutions:
write-through: writes bypass cache
write-back: dirty blocks are written asynchronously [bracket processes]

Data Reliability in UNIX

User data writes based on write-back policy:

User data is written back to disk periodically
Program commands like sync and fsync are used for forced write of the dirty blocks.

Metadata writes are based on write-through policy. Updates are written to disk immediately
bypassing cache.
Problem:
- Some data is not written in-place. Can go back to the last consistent version
- Some data is replicated like UNIX superblock.
- File system goes through consistency check/repair cycle at the boot time as specified in
/etc/fstab options (see manpage on fsck, fstab).
- Write-through negatively affects performance

Solution: maintain a sequential log of metadata updates, a Journal: e.g. IBMs Journal File
System (JFS) in AIX

Journal File System (JFS)

Metadata operations logged (journaled):

create,link,mkdir,truncate,allocating, write,
each operation may involve several metadata updates (transaction)

Once operation is logged it returns, write ahead logging

The disk writes are performed asynchronously. Block aggregation possible.

A cursor (pointer) is maintained. The cursor is advanced once the updated blocks associated
with the transaction are written to disk (hardened). Hardened transaction records can be
deleted from the journal.

Upon recovery: Re-do all the operations starting from the last cursor position.

Advantages:
Asynchronous metadata write
Fast recovery: depends on the Journal size and not on the file-system size

Disadvantages
extra write
space wasted by journal (insignificant)