File sharing is very desirable for users who want to collaborate and to reduce the effort required to achieve a computing goal. Therefore, user-oriented operating systems must accommodate the need to share files in spite of the inherent difficulties Multiple Users To implement sharing and protection, the system must maintain more file and directory attributes … Read more
The mount procedure is straightforward. The operating system is given the name of the device and the mount point—the location within the file structure where the file system is to be attached. Some operating systems require that a file system type be provided, while others inspect the structures of the device and determine the type … Read more
A storage device can be used in its entirety for a file system. It can also be subdivided for finer-grained control. For example, a disk can be partitioned into quarters, and each quarter can hold a separate file system. Storage devices can also be collected together into RAID sets that provide protection from the failure … Read more
Files store information. When it is used, this information must be accessed and read into computer memory. The information in the file can be accessed in several ways. Some systems provide only one access method for files. while others support many access methods, and choosing the right one for a particular application is a major … Read more
This point brings us to one of the disadvantages of having the operating system support multiple file structures: the resulting size of the operating system is cumbersome. If the operating system defines five different file structures, it needs to contain the code to support these file structures. In addition, it may be necessary to define … Read more
The system uses the extension to indicate the type of the file and the type of operations that can be done on that file. Only a file with a .com, .exe, or .sh extension can be executed, for instance. The .com and .exe files are two forms of binary executable files, whereas the .sh file … Read more
In the Java API, acquiring a lock requires first obtaining the FileChannel for the file to be locked. The lock() method of the FileChannel is used to acquire the lock. The API of the lock() method is FileLock lock(long begin, long end, boolean shared) where begin and end are the beginning and ending positions of … Read more
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. Commonly, files represent programs (both source and object forms) and data. … Read more
Information residing in stable storage is never lost. To implement such storage, we need to replicate the required information on multiple storage devices (usually disks) with independent failure modes. We also need to coordinate the writing of updates in a way that guarantees that a failure during an update will not leave all the copies … Read more
Disk drives have continued to get smaller and cheaper, so it is now economically feasible to attach many disks to a computer system. Having a large number of disks in a system presents opportunities for improving the rate at which data can be read or written, if the disks are operated in parallel. Furthermore, this … Read more