Last Updated on December 6, 2020 by Vikash Ekka
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| Understanding Linux File System |
File System in Linux
A Linux file name may have any characters or letters, Maximum length for the filename is 256 characters.
The file name can use space, underscore, minus, period, and comma. The filename cannot use question marks, asterisks, and slashes. The file extension is not compulsory. We can create files with file extension or without the file extension. To create a hidden file, start its name with a dot. If the file name has spaces, it needs to be quoted (“) before we can access it on command prompt. On the desktop, we can use it without quotes.
A file system is a way of organizing files on your partition. Besides file-based storage, file systems usually include directories and access control
The Linux file system is classified as,
Local File System consists of popular file systems like, ext2, ext3, ext4. xfs and udf.
The remote File system consists of NFS and SAMBA,
Ext2 is like a UNIX file system (introduced in 1993), it has the concepts of block, inodes, and directories. It was developed to overcome the limitation of the original ext file system
Ext2 recommended flash drives, drives
Maximum individual size is up to 2TB
Overall ext2 file system size can be from 2TB to 32 TB.
Ext3 system (the introduced the year 2001) enhanced with journaling and security capabilities. Journaling allows the faster search and system recovery supports ACL (Access control lists).
Whenever a system crashes, the possibility of system corruption less because of journaling.
Maximum individual size 2TB
Overall ext3 system size can be from 2TB to 32TB
You can convert a ext2 file system to ext3 file system directly
ext2 and ext3 were used in Red Hat Linux machines till RHEL version 5.
EXT4 (the introduced the year 2004) was the default system Red Hat Linux version
It supports an individual size of 16TB.
Overall ext4 file system size 1 Exabyte (EB).
Ext4 file system gives the option to turn off the journaling feature.
You can mount ext3 file system as ext4 file system without upgrading it.
XFS is a high-performance file system, it is the default file system in RHEL version 7
Various unique features in XFS are:
Scalable and supports parallel Input or Output.
Supported in all the major distributions of Linux.
Individual file size is 16TB
Overall size of the XFS file system is 18 EB
UDF (Universal Disk Format) is the default used by optical media
The other Linux supported file systems are:
GFS, that is used in Linux clusters
BTRFS (pronounced as Better FS) is an open-source file system used in Linux or Solaris Machines. BTRFS is popular among developers due to their requirement to expand the file system functionality, and also to include features like data deduplication, pooling, and snapshots.