Next: 3.2.3 Mounting Filesystems
Up: 3.2 Managing File Systems
Previous: 3.2.1.0.1 Journaling File Systems
Contents
These are a few popular filesystems used in Linux. Ext2fs (Second
Extended filesystem) - Linux calls this "ext2" This
is de facto filesystem for Linux created by Remy Card, Wayne Davidson
and others. Ext2fs provides good performance (especially when reading
large files), long filenames, a set of management tools, UNIX-type
security, low fragmentation, and read-ahead to name a few.
- Ext2fs'
- maximum size is 8GB, and can have maxinum filesize of Xgb.
Ext2fs is still under development (it doesn't mean that it is unstable
but means that there are things that can be improved or implemented),
and it's planned to include easy restoration of deleted file, Access
Control List (for security), and automatic file compression. Some
beta-quality variants of Ext2fs include Encrypted Ext2fs and journaling
Ext2fs.
- Ext3
- The ext3 filesystem is a journaling extension to the standard
ext2 filesystem on Linux. Journaling results in massively reduced
time spent recovering a filesystem after a crash, and is therefore
in high demand in environments where high availability is important,
not only to improve recovery times on single machines but also to
allow a crashed machine's filesystem to be recovered on another machine
when we have a cluster of nodes with a shared disk. Maximum file system
size 4 Terabytes, Maximum file size 2 Gigabytes.
- DOS
- FAT - Linux calls these "msdos, umsdos, vfat"
There are three variants: MSDOS, UMSDOS, and VFAT. Their core is based
on the FAT filesystem. MSDOS is a traditional DOS file system with
14 character filename contraint, and is the most simple variant of
FAT filesystem. UMSDOS, which was not widely used and likely won't
be, is a method of storing long filenames without making any change
to the FAT structure itself. It's running on FAT also. VFAT is the
latest filesystem used by Windows 95/98 to store long filenames. Linux
supports FAT32(next FAT) implicitly. This filesystem does not have
automatic defragmentation and wastes some space in management, but
has high-recovery ratio (even recovers deleted files). Gotta loose
FAT. :)
- ISO9660
- (cd-rom filesystem) - Linux calls this "iso9660"
International Standard Organization (ISO) created this standard to
use on CD-ROMs and every CD that stores data uses this. Microsoft
implemented Joliet Extension so that a CD can hold music and video
while still being compatible with regular CD player (i.e. BackStreet
Boy's album -'EveryBody' ).
- JFS
- provides fast file system restart in the event of a system crash.
Using database journaling techniques, JFS can restore a file system
to a consistent state in a matter of seconds or minutes, versus hours
or days with non-journaled file systems. IBM's journaled file system
technology, currently used in IBM enterprise servers, is designed
for high-throughput server environments, key to running intranet and
other high-performance e-business file servers. Maximum file system
size is 4 to 32 petabytes, depending no the block size. Maximum files
size also depends upon block size, from 512 Terabytes to 4 petabytes
- NTFS
- (NT filesystem) - Linux calls this "ntfs"
Used by Windows NT, Linux only can do read-only access to this filesystem
at this moment - one of the reasons is that the security features
Windows NT has that are not compatible with Unix/Linux. Windows NT
can have two filesystems: FAT and NTFS. If NT is running on FAT, Linux
can access the NT partition as a FAT/VFAT filesystem.
- NFS
- (Network Filesystem) - Linux calls this "nfs"
Network filesystem was developed by Sun Microsystems and still widely
used to access remote filesystems. A great amount of research and
details are involved in this, since a network is inherently unreliable,
Transfering files take time, there are security, encryption, authentication
problems and other challenges. Linux supports nfs, but it is still
incomplete compared to some other operating systems. This is something
most single user system administrators don't have to worry about.
- proc
- the /proc directory contains files that are not part of any
filesystem associated with your hard disks, CD-ROM, or any other physical
storage device connected to your system (except, arguably, your RAM).
Rather, these files are part of a virtual filesystem, enabled or disabled
in the Linux kernel when it is compiled.
- Reiserfs
- is a filesystem using a plug-in based object oriented variant
on classical balanced tree algorithms. ReiserFS has fast journaling,
which means that you don't spend your life waiting for fsck. ReiserFS
does meta-data journaling, enabling fast crash recovery without the
expense of full data journaling. maximum file system size 16 Terabytes.
Maximum files size 210 petabytes.
- Smbfs
- is a filesystem which understands the SMB protocol. This is
the protocol Windows for Workgroups, Windows NT or LAN Manager use
to talk to each other. It was inspired by samba, the program by Andrew
Tridgell that turns any unix site into a file server for DOS or Windows
clients.
- XFS
- SGI's XFS filesystem for Linux is a high-performance journaling
filesystem that provides rapid recovery from system crashes and the
ability to support extremely large disk farms. XFS is licensed under
the GPL Maximum files system size 18K petabytes, maximum file size
9K petabytes
Next: 3.2.3 Mounting Filesystems
Up: 3.2 Managing File Systems
Previous: 3.2.1.0.1 Journaling File Systems
Contents
