Introduction to distributed file systems

Distributed File Systems
 File system provides an abstract view of
secondary storage and is responsible for global
naming, file access, and overall file organization.
These functions are handled by the name service,
the file service, and the directory service.
 File service is the specification of what the file
system offers to its clients.
 File server is a process that runs on some
machine and helps implement the file service.

File Types
 Library files: Generally routines available for use within a user’s program. Such files use
extensions such as lib or dll.
 Program files: Programs written by users. Such files use extensions that indicate the particular
programming language utilized through their extensions, such as c, cpp, p, or pas.
 Object-code files: Unlinked compiled programs generally in machine language. Such files use
extensions such as o or obj.
 Compressed files: Files that have been compressed for storage. Such files use extensions such
as Z, zip, or gz.
 Archive files: Related files that have been grouped into a single file for storage. Such files use
extensions such as tar or arc.
 Graphic files: Binary or ASCII files for printing or viewing. Such files use extensions such as
dvi, ps, gif, or jpeg.
 Sound files: Binary files containing sound data. Such files use extensions such as midi or wav.
 Index files: Index files frequently contain indexing information for other mainframes. Such
files use the extension idx.
 Document files: Files created by a word processor or to be translated by a type-setting
program. Such files use extensions such as doc, wp, tex.

Location Transparency
 If the location of a file is communicated, then the
name may include the location, machine, and file
name, such as
myuniversity.edu:/violet/book/chapter8.
 If your distributed system wishes to provide
location transparency, then you must provide
name transparency through global naming just
like 1-800 numbers in telephone system.

 A global name space requires the following types
of resolution:
• Name resolution-maps human-friendly, symbolic
file names to computer file names.
• Location resolution-involves mapping global
names to a location. This may be solved by a
centralized solution or a distributed solution.

 The centralized solutions create a critical element and
a system bottleneck.
 A distributed solution may involve all locations
maintaining a complete location resolution table. This
approach is not scalable. Therefore, any massive
distributed system requires a distributed solution with
multiple location resolution servers. Each server is
responsible for a particular subset of names. A server
location mapping table is consulted to identify what
server within the system is responsible for what set of
names.

 There are two dominating approaches to
segmenting names to the various servers.
1. Provide Hash function to the name
Server 1 contains names A-B; Server 2 contains names
C-D; Server 3 contains names Y-Z;
2. Divide the responsibility based on file
types

File Storage
 Structured files represent data in terms of
records.
Structured file: Record 1
Record 2
Record 3
…
Record N
 Unstructured file: a continuous stream of bytes.

File Attributes
 File name (including file type extension)
 File size
 Type of file ownership (individual or group)
 Name of file owner(s)
 Date of file creation
 Date of last file access
 Date of last modification
 Version number
 Relevant protection information

File Protection Modes
• Read to the file
• Write to the file
• Truncate the file
• Append to the file
• Execute the file
 There are two dominating types of file
protection: access lists and capabilities.

Access lists
 Access list associates with each file a list of
users who may access the file and how.
• File 0: (John, *, RWX)
• File 1: (John, staff, R_ _)
• …
• File 3: (*, student, R_ _)

Capability list
 Each user has a kind of ticket, called a
capability, for each object to which it has
access.
 Process 0
Type Rights Object
File R_ _ Pointer to File 3
File RWX Pointer to File 4
File RW_ Pointer to File 5
Printer _W_ Pointer to Printer 1
0
1
2
3

File Modification Notification
 Single processor
A
a b
c
a b
B
Original file
1. Write “c”
2. Read gets “abc”
On a single processor,
when a READ follows
a WRITE, the value
returned by the READ
is the value just written.

 Distributed system
a b
a b c
A
Client 1
a b
B
Client 2
File Server
a b
1. Read “ab”
2. Write “c”
3. Read gets “ab”
In a distributed system with
caching, obsolete values may
be returned. If client 1 modifies
the file in its cache, it must
inform client 2.

There are two groups of notification methods.
 Immutable: modifications are not allowed. With no
modification allowed, no damage can occur to the data and
no notification needs to take place.
 Mutable: or changeable files: three basic approaches.
 Immediate notification: with immediate notification, each and every operation to a
file is instantaneously visible to every participant holding a copy of the file. This
method is very difficult and impractical to implement in a distributed environment
 Notification on close: with notification on close, other participants are only
notified of file modifications when a participant closes a file and thereby
terminates their access to the file.
 Notification on transaction completion: A transaction is a fixed set of operation.
When this fixed set of operations is completed, members of the system are
notified

File service implementation
 File service implementations may be based
on remote access or remote copy and may
be stateful or stateless.

Remote access model
Client Server
Requests from client
to access remote file
File stays on server

Remote copy model
Client Server
Old file
New file
1.File moved to
client
2. Accesses are done
on client
3. When client is
done, file is returned
to server

 A Stateful server maintains information about all
clients that are utilizing the server to access a file.
 A stateless server maintains no client
information. Each and every request from a client
must include very specific request information,
such as file name, operation, and exact position in
the file. The client maintains the state
information.

Advantages of stateful and
stateless servers
Advantages of stateless servers Advantages of stateful servers
Fault tolerance Shorter request messages
No OPEN/CLOSE calls needed Better performance
No server space wasted on tables Readahead possible
No limits on number of open files Idempotency easier
No problem if a client crashes File locking possible

Places to store files
Client’s main memory Client’s disk Server’s main memory Server’s disk

 There are four potential places to store files:
• The server’s disk
• The server’s main memory
• The client’s disk
• The client’s main memory
 The most straightforward place to store all files is on the server’s disk. There
is plenty of space there and the files are then accessible to all clients.
Furthermore, with only one copy of each file, no consistency problems arise.
 The problem with using the server’s disk is performance. Before a client can
read a file, the file must first be transferred from the server’s disk to the
server’s main memory, and then again over the network to the client’s main
memory. Both transfers take time.
 A considerable performance gain can be achieved by caching the most
recently used files in the server’s main memory.

 To eliminate network traffic, put the cache
in client’s main memory.
 There are three options to where to put it:


1.Put the cache within each
process
 Advantage: extremely low overhead
 Disadvantage: only effective if individual
processes open and close files repeatedly.
 A database manager process might fit
this, but in the usual program development
environment, most processes only read
each file once, so caching within the
library wins nothing.

Put the cache in the kernel
 Advantage: the cache survives the process more
than compensates. E.g. suppose a two-pass
compiler runs as two processes. Pass one writes
an intermediate file read by pass two. After the
pass one process terminates, the intermediate file
will probably be in the cache, so no server calls
will have to be made when the pass two process
reads it in.
 Disadvantage: a kernel call is needed in all cases.

Put the cache in a separate
user-level cache manager
process
 Advantage: it keeps the kernel free of file system code, is
easier to program because it is completely isolated, and is more
flexible.
 Disadvantage: when the kernel manages the cache, it can
dynamically decide how much memory to reserve for programs and
how much for the cache. With a user-level cache manager running on
a machine with virtual memory, it is conceivable that the kernel could
decide to page out some or all of the cache to a disk, so that a so-
called “cache hit” requires one or more pages to be brought in. This
defeats the idea of client caching completely. However, if it is
possible for the cache manager to allocate and lock in memory some
number of pages, that helps.

 In summary, if the network is slow and
RPCs are fast, it is good to use cache.
Otherwise, there is no gain using cache.

Cache Consistency
 Solution 1: Write through
 Solution 2: Delayed write
 Solution 3: Write-on-Close
 Solution 4: Centralized control
algorithm
 Solution 5: Use immutable files

Write through
 When a cache entry (file or block) is modified,
the new value is kept in the cache, but is also
immediately sent to the server.
 Problem (1): a process A reads file f and then terminates, but f is kept
in the cache of the machine. A process B modifies the same file and
write through to the server. A new process in A wants to read f and
gets the old version.
 Solution: the cache manager should check with server whether the
file in the cache is an up-to-date one or not.
 Problem (2): it helps on reads, the network traffic for writes is the
same as if there were no caching at all.

Delayed write
 Instead of going to the server the instant
the write is done, the client just makes a
note that a file has been updated. Once
every 30 sec or so, all the file updates are
gathered together and sent to the server at
once.

Write-on-Close
 Only write a file back to the server after it
has been closed.

Centralized control algorithm
 When a file is opened, the machine opening it
sends a message to the file server to announce
this fact. The file server keeps track of who has
which file open, and whether it is open for
reading, writing, or both.
 If for reading, Ok. If for writing, all other access
must be prevented until the file is closed. It is
UNIX semantics, but not robust and scales poorly
(when a client tries to open an already opened
file, the request can either be denied or queued).

Use immutable files
 Cache it on machine A. Without worrying
about that machine B will change it.

File Replication
 Why file replication?
1. To increase reliability by having independent backups of each file. If
one server goes down, or is even lost permanently, no data are lost.
2. To allow file access to occur even if one file server is down. A
server crash should not bring the entire system down until the server
can be rebooted.
3. To split the workload over multiple servers. As the system grows in
size, having all the files on one server can become a performance
bottleneck. By having files replicated on two or more servers, the
least heavily loaded one can be used

There are three ways replication can be done.
 Explicit file replication
This is for the programmer to control the entire process.
 Lazy replication
Only one copy of each file is created, on some server. Later, the server
itself makes replicas on other servers automatically, without the
programmer’s knowledge.
 Group communication
All WRITE system calls are simultaneously transmitted to all the servers
at once, so extra copies are made at the same time the original is made.

Update Protocols
 Centralized solution
 Distributed solutions

Centralized solution
 A centralized solution involves the designation
of one file server as the primary server for a set of
files. All requests to update data are handled
through this primary server. When the primary
server is down, updates may not take place but
the files are still available via the secondary
servers for reading.
 Disadvantage: if the primary is down, no updates
can be performed.

Distributed solutions
 The first solution utilizes group communication.
Whenever a given participant changes the contents of
a file, it communicates the write commands to all
participants.
 The second solution involves voting and the
association of version numbers. A client requests
permission to modify a file from the various servers.
Permission is achieved by a majority of the servers
agreeing on the latest version along with the
stipulation that no server has communicated the
existence of any version number that is higher.

 Voting (proposed by Gifford)
The basic idea is to require clients to request and
acquire the permission of multiple servers before
either reading or writing a replicated file.
 If client wants to read, acquire N/2+1 (majority)
servers.
 If client wants to write, acquire N/2+1 servers.

 Gifford’s scheme is more general.
Nr+Nw>N
A B C D
E F G H
I J K L
A B C D
E F G H
I J K L
A B C D
E F G H
I J K L
Nr =3, Nw =10
Nr = 7, Nw = 6
Nr = 1, Nw = 12

Directory Structures
 Hierarchical directory structure: allows
directories and subdirectories. A subdirectory
may only have one parent directory.
This allows users to organize their files easily but makes it difficult
for multiple users to share files.
 Acyclic directory structure: allows an acyclic
graph structure which lets a directory to have
multiple parent directories.
This provides for easy file sharing but complicates directory
management. E.g. Unix system

Owner = C
Count = 1
Owner = B
Count = 1
Owner = C
Count = 2
C’s directory B’s directory B’s directory
C’s directory

A
0
B C
D E
2 1
1 1
Machine 1
Machine 2

All clients have the same view
Root
A D
F
C
B E
Client 1, Client 2 have the same view

Different clients have different
view
Root
A D
F
C
B E
Root
A
B
C
D
F
E
Client 1 Client 2

Directory Operations
 Create a directory
 Delete a directory
 Rename a directory
 List a directory’s contents
 Manage a directory’s access permissions
 Changing a directory’s access permissions
 Move a directory within the overall directory
structure
 Traverse the entire directory structure

Trends in distributed file
systems
 New Hardware
• Memory price is cheaper and cheaper
• Optical disk
• Very fast fiber optic networks
 Scalability
 Wide area networking
 Mobile users
 Fault Tolerance
 Multimedia

Introduction to distributed file systems

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