A distributed file system is a client/server-based application that allows clients to access and process data stored on the server

as if it were on their own computer. When a user accesses a file on the server, the server sends the user a copy of the file, which is cachedon the user's computer while the data is being processed and is then returned to the server. Ideally, a distributed file system organizes file and directory services of individual servers into a global directory in such a way that remote data access is not locationspecific but is identical from any client. All files are accessible to all users of the global file system and organization is hierarchical and directory-based. ince more than one client may access the same data simultaneously, the server must have a mechanism in place !such as maintaining information about the times of access" to organize updates so that the client always receives the most current version of data and that data conflicts do not arise. #istributed file systems typically use file or database replication !distributing copies of data on multiple servers" to protect against data access failures.
Modern definition A distributed system is an information-processing system that contains a number of independent computers that cooperate with one another over a communications network in order to achieve a specific objective. Aspects: Computers are inked to one another over a communications network that enab es an e!change of messages between computers. "bjective of this message e!change is to achieve a cooperation between computers for the purpose of attaining a common goa . #iews $hysica view: computers as nodes of the communications network a ong with detai s about the communications network itse f %ogica view: app ications aspects interpreted as a set of cooperating processes ogica distribution is independent of the physica one: eg: processes do not necessari y have to be inked over a network but instead can a be found on one computer.

&imp ifying 'nfrastructure Comp e!ity with (indows )istributed *i e &ystem

File hierarchy

Unix has a hierarchical tree-like filestore. The filestore contains files and directories, as illustrated in the diagram below. An illustration of a fragment of the Unix filestore hierarchy. The top-level directory is known as the root. Beneath the root are several system directories. The root is designated by the / character. The directories below the root are designated by the pathnames
/bin /etc /usr

!onfusingly, the / character is also used as a separator in pathnames. "o, from the figure above, the directory lnp5jb can be referred to by the pathname /bin/home/sunserv1_b/lnp5jb. #istorically, user directories were often kept in the directory /usr. #owever, it is often desirable to organise user directories in a different manner. Users have their own directory in which they can create and delete files, and create their own sub-directories. $or example
/user/ei/eib035

belongs to someone whoe has the username eib%&'. "ome typical system directories below the root directory /bin contains many of the programs which will be executed by users /etc files used by system administrators /dev hardware peripheral devices /lib system libraries /usr normally contains applications software /home home directories for different systems

&imp ifying 'nfrastructure Comp e!ity with (indows )istributed *i e &ystem

The memory management subsystem is one of the most important parts of the operating system. "ince the early days of computing, there has been a need for more memory than exists physically in a system. "trategies have been developed to overcome this limitation and the most successful of these is virtual memory. (irtual memory makes the system appear to have more memory than it actually has by sharing it between competing processes as they need it. (irtual memory does more than )ust make your computer*s memory go further. The memory management subsystem provides Large Address Spaces -he operating system makes the system appear as if it has a arger amount of memory than it actua y has. -he virtua memory can be many times arger than the physica memory in the system. Protection /ach process in the system has its own virtua address space. -hese virtua address spaces are comp ete y separate from each other and so a process running one app ication cannot affect another. A so. the hardware virtua memory mechanisms a ow areas of memory to be protected against writing. -his protects code and data from being overwritten by rogue app ications. Memory Mapping Memory mapping is used to map image and data fi es into a processes address space. 'n memory mapping. the contents of a fi e are inked direct y into the virtua address space of a process. Fair Physical Memory Allocation -he memory management subsystem a ows each running process in the system a fair share of the physica memory of the system. Shared Virtual Memory A though virtua memory a ows processes to have separate 0virtua 1 address spaces. there are times when you need processes to share memory. *or e!amp e there cou d be severa processes in the system running the bash command she . 2ather than have severa copies of bash. one in each processes virtua address space. it is better to have on y one copy in physica memory and a of the processes running bash share it. )ynamic ibraries are another common e!amp e of e!ecuting code shared between severa processes.

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"hared memory can also be used as an +nter ,rocess !ommunication -+,!. mechanism, with two or more processes exchanging information via memory common to all of them. /inux supports the Unix T "ystem ( shared memory +,!.
0

3.1 An Abstract Model of Virtual Memory

*igure 3.+: Abstract mode of #irtua to $hysica address mapping Before considering the methods that /inux uses to support virtual memory it is useful to consider an abstract model that is not cluttered by too much detail. As the processor executes a program it reads an instruction from memory and decodes it. +n decoding the instruction it may need to fetch or store the contents of a location in memory. The processor then executes the instruction and moves onto the next instruction in the program. +n this way the processor is always accessing memory either to fetch instructions or to fetch and store data. +n a virtual memory system all of these addresses are virtual addresses and not physical addresses. These virtual addresses are converted into physical addresses by the processor based on information held in a set of tables maintained by the operating system.

&imp ifying 'nfrastructure Comp e!ity with (indows )istributed *i e &ystem

To make this translation easier, virtual and physical memory are divided into handy si1ed chunks called pages. These pages are all the same si1e, they need not be but if they were not, the system would be very hard to administer. /inux on Alpha A2, systems uses 3 4byte pages and on +ntel x35 systems it uses 6 4byte pages. 7ach of these pages is given a uni8ue number9 the page frame number -,$:.. +n this paged model, a virtual address is composed of two parts9 an offset and a virtual page frame number. +f the page si1e is 6 4bytes, bits ;; % of the virtual address contain the offset and bits ;< and above are the virtual page frame number. 7ach time the processor encounters a virtual address it must extract the offset and the virtual page frame number. The processor must translate the virtual page frame number into a physical one and then access the location at the correct offset into that physical page. To do this the processor uses page tables. $igure &.; shows the virtual address spaces of two processes, process X and process Y, each with their own page tables. These page tables map each processes virtual pages into physical pages in memory. This shows that process X's virtual page frame number % is mapped into memory in physical page frame number ; and that process Y's virtual page frame number ; is mapped into physical page frame number 6. 7ach entry in the theoretical page table contains the following information

#a id f ag. -his indicates if this page tab e entry is va id. -he physica page frame number that this entry is describing. Access contro information. -his describes how the page may be used. Can it be written to5 )oes it contain e!ecutab e code5

&imp ifying 'nfrastructure Comp e!ity with (indows )istributed *i e &ystem