File systems
Related articles
From Wikipedia:
- In computing, a file system (or filesystem) is used to control how data is stored and retrieved. Without a file system, information placed in a storage medium would be one large body of data with no way to tell where one piece of information stops and the next begins. By separating the data into pieces and giving each piece a name, the information is easily isolated and identified.
- Taking its name from the way paper-based information systems are named, each group of data is called a "file". The structure and logic rules used to manage the groups of information and their names is called a "file system".
Individual drive partitions can be setup using one of the many different available filesystems. Each has its own advantages, disadvantages, and unique idiosyncrasies. A brief overview of supported filesystems follows; the links are to Wikipedia pages that provide much more information.
Contents
Types of file systems
See filesystems(5) for a general overview, and w:Comparison_of_file_systems for a detailed feature comparison. File systems supported by the kernel are listed in /proc/filesystems
.
File system | Creation command | Userspace utilities | Archiso [1] | Kernel documentation [2] | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Btrfs | mkfs.btrfs(8) | btrfs-progs | Yes | btrfs.txt | Stability status |
VFAT | mkfs.vfat(8) | dosfstools | Yes | vfat.txt | |
exFAT | mkfs.exfat(8) | exfat-utils | Optional | N/A (FUSE-based) | |
F2FS | mkefs.f2fs(8) | f2fs-tools | Yes | f2fs.txt | Flash-based devices |
ext3 | mke2fs(8) | e2fsprogs | Yes (base) | ext3.txt | |
ext4 | mke2fs(8) | e2fsprogs | Yes (base) | ext4.txt | |
HFS | mkfs.hfsplus(8) | hfsprogs | Optional | hfs.txt | macOS file system |
JFS | mkfs.jfs(8) | jfsutils | Yes (base) | jfs.txt | |
NILFS2 | mkfs.nilfs2(8) | nilfs-utils | Yes | nilfs2.txt | |
NTFS | mkfs.ntfs(8) | ntfs-3g | Yes | N/A (FUSE-based) | Windows file system |
Reiser4 | mkfs.reiser4(8) | reiser4progsAUR | No | ||
ReiserFS | mkfs.reiserfs(8) | reiserfsprogs | Yes (base) | ||
XFS | mkfs.xfs(8) | xfsprogs | Yes (base) |
xfs.txt |
|
ZFS | zfs-linuxAUR | No | N/A (OpenZFS port) |
Journaling
All the above filesystems with the exception of ext2, FAT16/32, use journaling. Journaling provides fault-resilience by logging changes before they are committed to the filesystem. In the event of a system crash or power failure, such file systems are faster to bring back online and less likely to become corrupted. The logging takes place in a dedicated area of the filesystem.
Not all journaling techniques are the same. Ext3 and ext4 offer data-mode journaling, which logs both data and meta-data, as well as possibility to journal only meta-data changes. Data-mode journaling comes with a speed penalty and is not enabled by default. In the same vein, Reiser4 offers so-called "transaction models", which include pure journaling (equivalent to ext4's data-mode journaling), pure Copy-on-Write approach (equivalent to btrfs' default) and a combined approach which heuristically alternates between the two former. It should be noted that reiser4 does not provide an equivalent to ext4's default journaling behavior (meta-data only).
The other filesystems provide ordered-mode journaling, which only logs meta-data. While all journaling will return a filesystem to a valid state after a crash, data-mode journaling offers the greatest protection against corruption and data loss. There is a compromise in system performance, however, because data-mode journaling does two write operations: first to the journal and then to the disk. The trade-off between system speed and data safety should be considered when choosing the filesystem type.
FUSE-based file systems
Filesystem in Userspace (FUSE) is a mechanism for Unix-like operating systems that lets non-privileged users create their own file systems without editing kernel code. This is achieved by running file system code in user space, while the FUSE kernel module provides only a "bridge" to the actual kernel interfaces.
Some FUSE-based file systems:
- adbfs-git — Mount an Android device filesystem.
- fuseiso — Mount an ISO as a regular user.
- vdfuse — Mounting VirtualBox disk images (VDI/VMDK/VHD).
- xbfuse-git — Mount an Xbox (360) ISO.
- xmlfs — Represent an XML file as a directory structure for easy access.
- EncFS — EncFS is a userspace stackable cryptographic file-system.
- gitfs — gitfs is a FUSE file system that fully integrates with git.
See Wikipedia:Filesystem in Userspace#Example uses for more.
Stackable file systems
- eCryptfs — The Enterprise Cryptographic Filesystem is a package of disk encryption software for Linux. It is implemented as a POSIX-compliant filesystem-level encryption layer, aiming to offer functionality similar to that of GnuPG at the operating system level.
- overlayfs — OverlayFS is a filesystem service for Linux which implements a union mount for other file systems.
- Unionfs — Unionfs is a filesystem service for Linux, FreeBSD and NetBSD which implements a union mount for other file systems.
Other file systems
- SquashFS — SquashFS is a compressed read only filesystem. SquashFS compresses files, inodes and directories, and supports block sizes up to 1 MB for greater compression.
Identify existing file systems
To identify existing file systems, you can use lsblk:
$ lsblk -f
NAME FSTYPE LABEL UUID MOUNTPOINT sdb └─sdb1 vfat Transcend 4A3C-A9E9
An existing file system, if present, will be shown in the FSTYPE
column. If mounted, it will appear in the MOUNTPOINT
column.
Create a file system
File systems are usually created on a partition, inside logical containers such as LVM, RAID and dm-crypt, or on a regular file (see w:Loop device). This section describe the partition case.
Before continuing, identify the device where the file system will be created and whether or not it is mounted. For example:
$ lsblk -f
NAME FSTYPE LABEL UUID MOUNTPOINT sda ├─sda1 C4DA-2C4D ├─sda2 ext4 5b1564b2-2e2c-452c-bcfa-d1f572ae99f2 /mnt └─sda3 56adc99b-a61e-46af-aab7-a6d07e504652
Mounted file systems must be unmounted before proceeding. In the above example an existing filesystem is on /dev/sda2
and is mounted at /mnt
. It would be unmounted with:
# umount /dev/sda2
To find just mounted file systems, see #Listing mounted file systems.
To create a new file system, use mkfs(8). See #Types of file systems for the exact type, as well as userspace utilities you may wish to install for a particular file system.
For example, to create a new file system of type ext4 (common for Linux data partitions) on /dev/sda1
, run:
# mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda1
The new file system can now be mounted to a directory of choice.
Mount a filesystem
To manually mount a filesystem on a device (e.g., a partition) use mount(8):
# mount /dev/sda1 /mnt
This attaches the filesystem on /dev/sda1
at the directory /mnt
, making the contents of the filesystem visible. Any data that existed at /mnt
before this action is made invisible until the device is unmounted.
fstab contains information on how devices should be automatically mounted if present. See the fstab article for more information on how to modify this behavior.
If a device is specified in /etc/fstab
and only the device or mount point is given on the command line, that information will be used in mounting. For example, if /etc/fstab
contains a line indicating that /dev/sda1
should be mounted to /mnt
, then the following will automatically mount the device to that location:
# mount /dev/sda1
Or
# mount /mnt
mount contains several options, many of which depend on the file system specified. The options can be changed, either by:
- using flags on the command line with mount
- editing fstab
- creating udev rules
- compiling the kernel yourself
- or using filesystem-specific mount scripts (located at
/usr/bin/mount.*
).
See these related articles and the article of the filesystem of interest for more information.
List mounted file systems
To list all mounted file systems, use findmnt(8):
$ findmnt
findmnt takes a variety of arguments which can filter the output and show additional information. For example, it can take a device or mount point as an argument to show only information on what is specified:
$ findmnt /dev/sda1
findmnt gathers information from /etc/fstab
, /etc/mtab
, and /proc/self/mounts
.
Umount a file system
To unmount a file system use umount(8). Either the device containting the file system or the mount point can be specified:
# umount /dev/sda1
Or
# umount /mnt