FILE SYSTEM MANAGEMENT

• US 20120185518A1
• Filed: 01/13/2012
• Published: 07/19/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 01/14/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Inventors: Giampaolo, Dominic B., Cisler, Pavel, Weiss, Eric, McIntyre, Kristen A.
• Granted Patent: US 8,984,029 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/821
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/16 File or folder operations, e.g. details of user interfaces specifically adapted to file systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/1794 Details of file format conversion
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/3213 using tickets or tokens, e.g. Kerberos network architectures or network communication protocols for entities authentication using tickets in a packet data network H04L63/0807

Abstract

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for file system management. In one aspect, a method includes receiving a request at a kernel to perform a file operation on a particular file; identifying a flag bit associated with the file; invoking user space file handler to perform particular action when the flag bit is set; determining whether notification that action has been performed by file handler is received; and allowing the file operation on the file when notification is received.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving a request at a kernel to perform a file operation on a particular file;

identifying a flag bit associated with the file;

invoking user space file handler to perform particular action when the flag bit is set;

determining whether notification that action has been performed by file handler is received; and

allowing the file operation on the file when notification is received.

2. The method of claim 1, where invoking the user space file handler includes holding the operation and setting a time for the file handler to perform the action without setting any resource locks.

3. The method of claim 2, where expiration of the set time without a request for further time results in the kernel performing the file operation.

4. The method of claim 1, where the file operation is a read file operation and the file hander requests the file data from a network location.

5. The method of claim 1, where the file operation is a modify file operation and the file handler copies the file prior to performing the modify file operation being performed.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

identifying i-node information for the file, where the i-node information includes one or more flag bits.

7. The method of claim 6, further comprising:

when the flag bit is set, accessing extended attribute information associated with the file to identify special file handling operation to be performed by file handler.

10. The system of claim 2, where expiration of the set time without a request for further time results in the kernel performing the file operation.

8. A system comprising:

one or more computing devices operable to perform operations comprising;

receiving a request at a kernel to perform a file operation on a particular file;

identifying a flag bit associated with the file;

invoking user space file handler to perform particular action when the flag bit is set;

determining whether notification that action has been performed by file handler is received; and

allowing the file operation on the file when notification is received.

9. The system of claim 8, where invoking the user space file handler includes holding the operation and setting a time for the file handler to perform the action without setting any resource locks.

11. The system of claim 8, where the file operation is a read file operation and the file hander requests the file data from a network location.

12. The system of claim 8, where the file operation is a modify file operation and the file handler copies the file prior to performing the modify file operation being performed.

13. The system of claim 8, further operable to perform operations comprising:

identifying i-node information for the file, where the i-node information includes one or more flag bits.

14. The system of claim 13, further operable to perform operations comprising:

when the flag bit is set, accessing extended attribute information associated with the file to identify special file handling operation to be performed by file handler.

15. A computer storage medium encoded with a computer program, the program comprising instructions that when executed by data processing apparatus cause the data processing apparatus to perform operations comprising:

receiving a request at a kernel to perform a file operation on a particular file;

identifying a flag bit associated with the file;

invoking user space file handler to perform particular action when the flag bit is set;

determining whether notification that action has been performed by file handler is received; and

allowing the file operation on the file when notification is received.

16. The computer storage medium of claim 15, where invoking the user space file handler includes holding the operation and setting a time for the file handler to perform the action without setting any resource locks.

17. The computer storage medium of claim 16, where expiration of the set time without a request for further time results in the kernel performing the file operation.

18. The computer storage medium of claim 15, where the file operation is a read file operation and the file hander requests the file data from a network location.

19. The computer storage medium of claim 15, where the file operation is a modify file operation and the file handler copies the file prior to performing the modify file operation being performed.

20. The computer storage medium of claim 15, further operable to cause the data processing apparatus to perform operations comprising:

identifying i-node information for the file, where the i-node information includes one or more flag bits.

21. The computer storage medium of claim 20, further operable to cause the data processing apparatus to perform operations comprising:

when the flag bit is set, accessing extended attribute information associated with the file to identify special file handling operation to be performed by file handler.

22. A method comprising:

receiving a request at a kernel to perform a file operation on a particular file;

determining whether a prior operation has been performed on the file within a specified time period;

invoking user space file handler to perform particular action when no prior operation has been performed within the time period;

determining whether notification that action has been performed by file handler is received; and

allowing the file operation on the file when notification is received.

23. The method of claim 22, wherein the request is a file modification and the particular action is to perform a copy of the file.

24. The method of claim 22, wherein the specified time period is one of a sequence of fixed time windows, wherein the action is performed on the file once during each window.