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Linux Cross Reference
Linux/fs/sysv/INTRO

Version: ~ [ 2.4.0 ] ~
Architecture: ~ [ i386 ] ~ [ alpha ] ~ [ m68k ] ~ [ mips ] ~ [ ppc ] ~ [ sparc ] ~ [ sparc64 ] ~

  1 This is the implementation of the SystemV/Coherent filesystem for Linux.
  2 It grew out of separate filesystem implementations
  3 
  4     Xenix FS      Doug Evans <dje@cygnus.com>  June 1992
  5     SystemV FS    Paul B. Monday <pmonday@eecs.wsu.edu> March-June 1993
  6     Coherent FS   B. Haible <haible@ma2s2.mathematik.uni-karlsruhe.de> June 1993
  7 
  8 and was merged together in July 1993.
  9 
 10 These filesystems are rather similar. Here is a comparison with Minix FS:
 11 
 12 * Linux fdisk reports on partitions
 13   - Minix FS     0x81 Linux/Minix
 14   - Xenix FS     ??
 15   - SystemV FS   ??
 16   - Coherent FS  0x08 AIX bootable
 17 
 18 * Size of a block or zone (data allocation unit on disk)
 19   - Minix FS     1024
 20   - Xenix FS     1024 (also 512 ??)
 21   - SystemV FS   1024 (also 512 and 2048)
 22   - Coherent FS   512
 23 
 24 * General layout: all have one boot block, one super block and
 25   separate areas for inodes and for directories/data.
 26   On SystemV Release 2 FS (e.g. Microport) the first track is reserved and
 27   all the block numbers (including the super block) are offset by one track.
 28 
 29 * Byte ordering of "short" (16 bit entities) on disk:
 30   - Minix FS     little endian  0 1
 31   - Xenix FS     little endian  0 1
 32   - SystemV FS   little endian  0 1
 33   - Coherent FS  little endian  0 1
 34   Of course, this affects only the file system, not the data of files on it!
 35 
 36 * Byte ordering of "long" (32 bit entities) on disk:
 37   - Minix FS     little endian  0 1 2 3
 38   - Xenix FS     little endian  0 1 2 3
 39   - SystemV FS   little endian  0 1 2 3
 40   - Coherent FS  PDP-11         2 3 0 1
 41   Of course, this affects only the file system, not the data of files on it!
 42 
 43 * Inode on disk: "short", 0 means non-existent, the root dir ino is:
 44   - Minix FS                            1
 45   - Xenix FS, SystemV FS, Coherent FS   2
 46 
 47 * Maximum number of hard links to a file:
 48   - Minix FS     250
 49   - Xenix FS     ??
 50   - SystemV FS   ??
 51   - Coherent FS  >=10000
 52 
 53 * Free inode management:
 54   - Minix FS                             a bitmap
 55   - Xenix FS, SystemV FS, Coherent FS
 56       There is a cache of a certain number of free inodes in the super-block.
 57       When it is exhausted, new free inodes are found using a linear search.
 58 
 59 * Free block management:
 60   - Minix FS                             a bitmap
 61   - Xenix FS, SystemV FS, Coherent FS
 62       Free blocks are organized in a "free list". Maybe a misleading term,
 63       since it is not true that every free block contains a pointer to
 64       the next free block. Rather, the free blocks are organized in chunks
 65       of limited size, and every now and then a free block contains pointers
 66       to the free blocks pertaining to the next chunk; the first of these
 67       contains pointers and so on. The list terminates with a "block number"
 68       0 on Xenix FS and SystemV FS, with a block zeroed out on Coherent FS.
 69 
 70 * Super-block location:
 71   - Minix FS     block 1 = bytes 1024..2047
 72   - Xenix FS     block 1 = bytes 1024..2047
 73   - SystemV FS   bytes 512..1023
 74   - Coherent FS  block 1 = bytes 512..1023
 75 
 76 * Super-block layout:
 77   - Minix FS
 78                     unsigned short s_ninodes;
 79                     unsigned short s_nzones;
 80                     unsigned short s_imap_blocks;
 81                     unsigned short s_zmap_blocks;
 82                     unsigned short s_firstdatazone;
 83                     unsigned short s_log_zone_size;
 84                     unsigned long s_max_size;
 85                     unsigned short s_magic;
 86   - Xenix FS, SystemV FS, Coherent FS
 87                     unsigned short s_firstdatazone;
 88                     unsigned long  s_nzones;
 89                     unsigned short s_fzone_count;
 90                     unsigned long  s_fzones[NICFREE];
 91                     unsigned short s_finode_count;
 92                     unsigned short s_finodes[NICINOD];
 93                     char           s_flock;
 94                     char           s_ilock;
 95                     char           s_modified;
 96                     char           s_rdonly;
 97                     unsigned long  s_time;
 98                     short          s_dinfo[4]; -- SystemV FS only
 99                     unsigned long  s_free_zones;
100                     unsigned short s_free_inodes;
101                     short          s_dinfo[4]; -- Xenix FS only
102                     unsigned short s_interleave_m,s_interleave_n; -- Coherent FS only
103                     char           s_fname[6];
104                     char           s_fpack[6];
105     then they differ considerably:
106         Xenix FS
107                     char           s_clean;
108                     char           s_fill[371];
109                     long           s_magic;
110                     long           s_type;
111         SystemV FS
112                     long           s_fill[12 or 14];
113                     long           s_state;
114                     long           s_magic;
115                     long           s_type;
116         Coherent FS
117                     unsigned long  s_unique;
118     Note that Coherent FS has no magic.
119 
120 * Inode layout:
121   - Minix FS
122                     unsigned short i_mode;
123                     unsigned short i_uid;
124                     unsigned long  i_size;
125                     unsigned long  i_time;
126                     unsigned char  i_gid;
127                     unsigned char  i_nlinks;
128                     unsigned short i_zone[7+1+1];
129   - Xenix FS, SystemV FS, Coherent FS
130                     unsigned short i_mode;
131                     unsigned short i_nlink;
132                     unsigned short i_uid;
133                     unsigned short i_gid;
134                     unsigned long  i_size;
135                     unsigned char  i_zone[3*(10+1+1+1)];
136                     unsigned long  i_atime;
137                     unsigned long  i_mtime;
138                     unsigned long  i_ctime;
139 
140 * Regular file data blocks are organized as
141   - Minix FS
142                7 direct blocks
143                1 indirect block (pointers to blocks)
144                1 double-indirect block (pointer to pointers to blocks)
145   - Xenix FS, SystemV FS, Coherent FS
146               10 direct blocks
147                1 indirect block (pointers to blocks)
148                1 double-indirect block (pointer to pointers to blocks)
149                1 triple-indirect block (pointer to pointers to pointers to blocks)
150 
151 * Inode size, inodes per block
152   - Minix FS        32   32
153   - Xenix FS        64   16
154   - SystemV FS      64   16
155   - Coherent FS     64    8
156 
157 * Directory entry on disk
158   - Minix FS
159                     unsigned short inode;
160                     char name[14/30];
161   - Xenix FS, SystemV FS, Coherent FS
162                     unsigned short inode;
163                     char name[14];
164 
165 * Dir entry size, dir entries per block
166   - Minix FS     16/32    64/32
167   - Xenix FS     16       64
168   - SystemV FS   16       64
169   - Coherent FS  16       32
170 
171 * How to implement symbolic links such that the host fsck doesn't scream:
172   - Minix FS     normal
173   - Xenix FS     kludge: as regular files with  chmod 1000
174   - SystemV FS   ??
175   - Coherent FS  kludge: as regular files with  chmod 1000
176 
177 
178 Notation: We often speak of a "block" but mean a zone (the allocation unit)
179 and not the disk driver's notion of "block".
180 
181 
182 Bruno Haible  <haible@ma2s2.mathematik.uni-karlsruhe.de>

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