How does Linux deal with Inodes on FAT filesystem?

[simdlx]

Hi,

the FAT filesystem is a design from Microsoft and the whole Windows Universe. As you probably know, FAT does not support Indos like ext3 or other UNIX/LINUX filesystem. The Linux kernel provide a FAT filesystem driver but I've problems to understand the code and need help for answering the following questions:

• Inodes must be generated on the fly by file access. When exactly does this happened?
• How Linux does Linux generate the Inodes?
• How does the kernel FAT driver manage the file descriptors?

Thank you very much for your help.

 

[DevynCJohnson]

Here is some information that may help. I do not have enough time to investigate and answer this myself, so these may help in the mean time.

• VFAT src - http://svn.dd-wrt.com/browser/src/linux/universal/linux-4.1/fs/fat
• inode.c - http://svn.dd-wrt.com/browser/src/linux/universal/linux-4.1/fs/fat/inode.c
• fat.h - http://svn.dd-wrt.com/browser/src/linux/universal/linux-4.1/fs/fat/fat.h
• file.c - http://svn.dd-wrt.com/browser/src/linux/universal/linux-4.1/fs/fat/file.c

This is supplemental info for others that read this thread.

• General Filesystem info - http://www.linux.org/threads/filesystem-article-index.6028/
• Intro to Inodes - http://www.linux.org/threads/intro-to-inodes.4130/
• FAT - http://www.linux.org/threads/file-allocation-table-fat.4472/

 

[simdlx]

Thank you very much for this link compilation. This helped a lot.