Check out the new USENIX Web site.

USENIX Home . About USENIX . Events . membership . Publications . Students
4th USENIX Conference on File and Storage Technologies—Abstract

Pp. 1–15 of the Proceedings

A Logic of File Systems

Muthian Sivathanu, Google Inc.; Andrea C. Arpaci-Dusseau, Remzi H. Arpaci-Dusseau, and Somesh Jha, University of Wisconsin, Madison

Abstract

Years of innovation in file systems have been highly successful in improving their performance and functionality, but at the cost of complicating their interaction with the disk. A variety of techniques exist to ensure consistency and integrity of file system data, but the precise set of correctness guarantees provided by each technique is often unclear, making them hard to compare and reason about. The absence of a formal framework has hampered detailed verification of file system correctness.

We present a logical framework for modeling the interaction of a file system with the storage system, and show how to apply the logic to represent and prove correctness properties. We demonstrate that the logic provides three main benefits. First, it enables reasoning about existing file system mechanisms, allowing developers to employ aggressive performance optimizations without fear of compromising correctness. Second, the logic simplifies the introduction and adoption of new file system functionality by facilitating rigorous proof of their correctness. Finally, the logic helps reason about smart storage systems that track semantic information about the file system.

A key aspect of the logic is that it enables incremental modeling, significantly reducing the barrier to entry in terms of its actual use by file system designers. In general, we believe that our framework transforms the hitherto esoteric and error-prone "art" of file system design into a readily understandable and formally verifiable process.

  • View the full text of this paper in PDF.
    Click here if you have forgotten your password Until December 2006, you will need your USENIX membership identification in order to access the full papers. The Proceedings are published as a collective work, © 2005 by the USENIX Association. All Rights Reserved. Rights to individual papers remain with the author or the author's employer. Permission is granted for the noncommercial reproduction of the complete work for educational or research purposes. USENIX acknowledges all trademarks within this paper.

  • If you need the latest Adobe Acrobat Reader, you can download it from Adobe's site.
To become a USENIX Member, please see our Membership Information.

?Need help? Use our Contacts page.

Last changed: 15 Nov. 2005 jel
Technical Program
FAST '05 Home
USENIX home