![]() The EXT2 filesystem was quite successful. It was used in Linux distributions for many years, and it was the first filesystem I encountered when I started using Red Hat Linux 5.0 back in about 1997. I found very little published information about the EXT filesystem that can be verified, apparently because it had significant problems and was quickly superseded by the EXT2 filesystem. The primary structural changes were to the metadata of the filesystem, which was based on the Unix filesystem (UFS), which is also known as the Berkeley Fast File System (FFS). The original EXT filesystem (Extended) was written by Rémy Card and released with Linux in 1992 to overcome some size limitations of the Minix filesystem. If you'd like to learn more, there is an excellent PDF with a detailed description of the Minix filesystem structure and a quick overview of the inode pointer structure on Wikipedia. The Minix filesystem inodes supported nine data blocks, seven direct and two indirect. In Minix and the EXT1-3 filesystems, this is a list of data zones or blocks. The inode also contains data that points to the location of the file's data on the hard drive. This includes the file's size the user IDs of the file's user and group owners the file mode (i.e., the access permissions) and three timestamps specifying the time and date that: the file was last accessed, last modified, and the data in the inode was last modified. What is an inode? Short for index-node, an inode is a 256-byte block on the disk and stores data about the file. If the bit is zero, the zone or inode is free and available for use, but if the bit is one, the data zone or inode is in use. A data zone, in which the data is actually stored.įor both types of bitmaps, one bit represents one specific data zone or one specific inode.A zone bitmap to keep track of the used and free data zones.Each inode contains information about one file, including the locations of the data blocks, i.e., zones belonging to the file. The inodes, which have their own space on the disk.An inode bitmap block, which determines which inodes are used and which are free.The first block in each partition is a superblock that contains the metadata that defines the other filesystem structures and locates them on the physical disk assigned to the partition.The boot block includes a very small boot record and a partition table. A boot sector in the first sector of the hard drive on which it is installed.Minix has the following structures, most of which are located in the partition where the filesystem is generated: Its code was freely available and appropriately licensed to allow Torvalds to include it in his first version of Linux. Minix was a Unix-like operating system written for educational purposes. Tanenbaum and was a part of Tanenbaum's Minix operating system. So he simply included the Minix filesystem, which had been written by Andrew S. When writing the original Linux kernel, Linus Torvalds needed a filesystem but didn't want to write one then. Free online course: RHEL Technical Overview.Understanding the EXT4 filesystem is much easier if we look at the history and technical evolution of the EXT filesystem family from its Minix roots. EXT filesystem historyĪlthough written for Linux, the EXT filesystem has its roots in the Minix operating system and the Minix filesystem, which predate Linux by about five years, being first released in 1987. This article concentrates on the first item in the list and explores the metadata structures that provide the logical framework for data storage in an EXT filesystem. Implementation: The software to implement the above.API: System function calls to manipulate filesystem objects like directories and files.Security model: A scheme for defining access rights.Namespace: A naming and organizational methodology that provides rules for naming and structuring data.Data storage: The primary function of any filesystem is to be a structured place to store and retrieve data.I want to go into more detail about the specifics of the EXT filesystems, but first, let's answer the question, "What is a filesystem?" A filesystem is all of the following: In previous articles about Linux filesystems, I wrote an introduction to Linux filesystems and about some higher-level concepts such as everything is a file.
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