<!DOCTYPE Article PUBLIC "-//Davenport//DTD DocBook V3.0//EN">
<Article>
<ArtHeader>
<Title>EXT2ED - The Extended-2 filesystem editor - Design and implementation</Title>
<AUTHOR
>
<FirstName>Programmed by Gadi Oxman, with the guide of Avner Lottem</FirstName>
</AUTHOR
>
<PubDate>v0.1, August 3 1995</PubDate>
</ArtHeader>
<Sect1>
<Title>About EXT2ED documentation</Title>
<Para>
The EXT2ED documentation consists of three parts:
<ItemizedList>
<ListItem>
<Para>
The ext2 filesystem overview.
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
The EXT2ED user's guide.
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
The EXT2ED design and implementation.
</Para>
</ListItem>
</ItemizedList>
</Para>
<Para>
This document is not the user's guide. If you just intend to use EXT2ED, you
may not want to read it.
</Para>
<Para>
However, if you intend to browse and modify the source code, this document is
for you.
</Para>
<Para>
In any case, If you intend to read this article, I strongly suggest that you
will be familiar with the material presented in the other two articles as well.
</Para>
</Sect1>
<Sect1>
<Title>Preface</Title>
<Para>
In this document I will try to explain how EXT2ED is constructed.
At this time of writing, the initial version is finished and ready
for distribution; It is fully functional. However, this was not always the
case.
</Para>
<Para>
At first, I didn't know much about Unix, much less about Unix filesystems,
and even less about Linux and the extended-2 filesystem. While working
on this project, I gradually acquired knowledge about all of the above
subjects. I can think of two ways in which I could have made my project:
<OrderedList>
<ListItem>
<Para>
The "Engineer" way
Learn the subject thoroughly before I get to the programming itself.
Then, I could easily see the entire picture and select the best
course of action, taking all the factors into account.
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
The "Explorer - Progressive" way.
Jump immediately into the cold water - Start programming and
learning the material in parallel.
</Para>
</ListItem>
</OrderedList>
</Para>
<Para>
I guess that the above dilemma is typical and appears all through science and
technology.
</Para>
<Para>
However, I didn't have the luxury of choice when I started my project -
Linux is a relatively new (and great!) operating system. The extended-2
filesystem is even newer - Its first release lies somewhere in 1993 - Only
passed two years until I started working on my project.
</Para>
<Para>
The situation I found myself at the beginning was that I didn't have a fully
detailed document which describes the ext2 filesystem. In fact, I didn't
have any ext2 document at all. When I asked Avner about documentation, he
suggested two references:
<ItemizedList>
<ListItem>
<Para>
A general Unix book - THE DESIGN OF THE UNIX OPERATING SYSTEM, by
Maurice J. Bach.
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
The kernel sources.
</Para>
</ListItem>
</ItemizedList>
I read the relevant parts of the book before I started my project - It is a
bit old now, but the principles are still the same. However, I needed
more than just the principles.
</Para>
<Para>
The kernel sources are a rare bonus! You don't get everyday the full
sources of the operating system. There is so much that can be learned from
them, and it is the ultimate source - The exact answer how the kernel
works is there, with all the fine details. At the first week I started to
look at random at the relevant parts of the sources. However, it is difficult
to understand the global picture from direct reading of over one hundred
page sources. Then, I started to do some programming. I didn't know
yet what I was looking for, and I started to work on the project like a kid
who starts to build a large puzzle.
</Para>
<Para>
However, this was exactly the interesting part! It is frustrating to know
it all from advance - I think that the discovery itself, bit by bit, is the
key to a true learning and understanding.
</Para>
<Para>
Now, in this document, I am trying to present the subject. Even though I
developed EXT2ED progressively, I now can see the entire subject much
brighter than I did before, and though I do have the option of presenting it
only in the "engineer" way. However, I will not do that.
</Para>
<Para>
My presentation will be mixed - Sometimes I will present a subject with an
incremental perspective, and sometimes from a "top down" view. I'll leave
you to decide if my presentation choice was wise :-)
</Para>
<Para>
In addition, you'll notice that the sections tend to get shorter as we get
closer to the end. The reason is simply that I started to feel that I was
repeating myself so I decided to present only the new ideas.
</Para>
</Sect1>
<Sect1>
<Title>Getting started ...</Title>
<Para>
Getting started is almost always the most difficult task. Once you get
started, things start "running" ...
</Para>
<Sect2>
<Title>Before the actual programming</Title>
<Para>
From mine talking with Avner, I understood that Linux, like any other Unix
system, provides accesses to the entire disk as though it were a general
file - Accessing the device. It is surely a nice idea. Avner suggested two
ways of action:
<ItemizedList>
<ListItem>
<Para>
Opening the device like a regular file in the user space.
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
Constructing a device driver which will run in the kernel space and
provide hooks for the user space program. The advantage is that it
will be a part of the kernel, and would be able to use the ext2
kernel functions to do some of the work.
</Para>
</ListItem>
</ItemizedList>
I chose the first way. I think that the basic reason was simplicity - Learning
the ext2 filesystem was complicated enough, and adding to it the task of
learning how to program in the kernel space was too much. I still don't know
how to program a device driver, and this is perhaps the bad part, but
concerning the project in a back-perspective, I think that the first way is
superior to the second; Ironically, because of the very reason I chose it -
Simplicity. EXT2ED can now run entirely in the user space (which I think is
a point in favor, because it doesn't require the user to recompile its
kernel), and the entire hard work is mine, which fitted nicely into the
learning experience - I didn't use other code to do the job (aside from
looking at the sources, of-course).
</Para>
</Sect2>
<Sect2>
<Title>Jumping into the cold water</Title>
<Para>
I didn't know almost anything of the structure of the ext2 filesystem.
Reading the sources was not enough - I needed to experiment. However, a tool
for experiments in the ext2 filesystem was exactly my project! - Kind of a
paradox.
</Para>
<Para>
I started immediately with constructing a simple <Literal remap="tt">hex editor</Literal> - It would
open the device as a regular file, provide means of moving inside the
filesystem with a simple <Literal remap="tt">offset</Literal> method, and just show a
<Literal remap="tt"> hex dump</Literal> of the contents at this point. Programming this was trivially
simple of-course. At this point, the user-interface didn't matter to me - I
wanted a fast way to interact. As a result, I chose a simple command line
parser. Of course, there where no windows at this point.
</Para>
<Para>
A hex editor is nice, but is not enough. It indeed enabled me to see each part
of the filesystem, but the format of the viewed data was difficult to
analyze. I wanted to see the data in a more intuitive way.
</Para>
<Para>
At this point of time, the most helpful file in the sources was the ext2
main include file - <Literal remap="tt">/usr/include/linux/ext2_fs.h</Literal>. Among its contents
there were various structures which I assumed they are disk images - Appear
exactly like that on the disk.
</Para>
<Para>
I wanted a <Literal remap="tt">quick</Literal> way to get going. I didn't have the patience to learn
each of the structures use in the code. Rather, I wanted to see them in action,
so that I could explore the connections between them - Test my assumptions,
and reach other assumptions.
</Para>
<Para>
So after the <Literal remap="tt">hex editor</Literal>, EXT2ED progressed into a tool which has some
elements of a compiler. I programmed EXT2ED to <Literal remap="tt">dynamically read the kernel
ext2 main include file in run time</Literal>, and process the information. The goal
was to <Literal remap="tt">imply a structure-definition on the current offset at the
filesystem</Literal>. EXT2ED would then display the structure as a list of its
variables names and contents, instead of a meaningless hex dump.
</Para>
<Para>
The format of the include file is not very complicated - The structures
are mostly <Literal remap="tt">flat</Literal> - Didn't contain a lot of recursive structure; Only a
global structure definition, and some variables. There were cases of
structures inside structures, I treated them in a somewhat non-elegant way - I
made all the structures flat, and expanded the arrays. As a result, the parser
was very simple. After all, this was not an exercise in compiling, and I
wanted to quickly get some results.
</Para>
<Para>
To handle the task, I constructed the <Literal remap="tt">struct_descriptor</Literal> structure.
Each <Literal remap="tt">struct_descriptor instance</Literal> contained information which is needed
in order to format a block of data according to the C structure contained in
the kernel source. The information contained:
<ItemizedList>
<ListItem>
<Para>
The descriptor name, used to reference to the structure in EXT2ED.
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
The name of each variable.
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
The relative offset of the each variable in the data block.
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
The length, in bytes, of each variable.
</Para>
</ListItem>
</ItemizedList>
Since I didn't want to limit the number of structures, I chose a simple
double linked list to store the information. One variable contained the
<Literal remap="tt">current structure type</Literal> - A pointer to the relevant
<Literal remap="tt">struct_descriptor</Literal>.
</Para>
<Para>
Now EXT2ED contained basically three command line operations:
<ItemizedList>
<ListItem>
<Para>
setdevice
Used to open a device for reading only. Write access was postponed
to a very advanced state in the project, simply because I didn't
know a thing of the filesystem structure, and I believed that
making actual changes would do nothing but damage :-)
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
setoffset
Used to move in the device.
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
settype
Used to imply a structure definition on the current place.
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
show
Used to display the data. It displayed the data in a simple hex dump
if there was no type set, or in a nice formatted way - As a list of
the variable contents, if there was.
</Para>
</ListItem>
</ItemizedList>
</Para>
<Para>
Command line analyzing was primitive back then - A simple switch, as far as
I can remember - Nothing alike the current flow control, but it was enough
at the time.
</Para>
<Para>
At the end, I had something to start working with. It knew to format many
structures - None of which I understood - and provided me, without too much
work, something to start with.
</Para>
</Sect2>
</Sect1>
<Sect1>
<Title>Starting to explore</Title>
<Para>
With the above tool in my pocket, I started to explore the ext2 filesystem
structure. From the brief reading in Bach's book, I got familiar to some
basic concepts - The <Literal remap="tt">superblock</Literal>, for example. It seems that the
superblock is an important part of the filesystem. I decided to start
exploring with that.
</Para>
<Para>
I realized that the superblock should be at a fixed location in the
filesystem - Probably near the beginning. There can be no other way -
The kernel should start at some place to find it. A brief looking in
the kernel sources revealed that the superblock is signed by a special
signature - A <Literal remap="tt">magic number</Literal> - EXT2_SUPER_MAGIC (0xEF53 - EF probably
stands for Extended Filesystem). I quickly found the superblock at the
fixed offset 1024 in the filesystem - The <Literal remap="tt">s_magic</Literal> variable in the
superblock was set exactly to the above value.
</Para>
<Para>
It seems that starting with the <Literal remap="tt">superblock</Literal> was a good bet - Just from
the list of variables, one can learn a lot. I didn't understand all of them
at the time, but it seemed that the following keywords were repeating themselves
in various variables:
<ItemizedList>
<ListItem>
<Para>
block
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
inode
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
group
</Para>
</ListItem>
</ItemizedList>
At this point, I started to explore the block groups. I will not detail here
the technical design of the ext2 filesystem. I have written a special
article which explains just that, in the "engineering" way. Please refer to it
if you feel that you are lacking knowledge in the structure of the ext2
filesystem.
</Para>
<Para>
I was exploring the filesystem in this way for some time, along with reading
the sources. This lead naturally to the next step.
</Para>
</Sect1>
<Sect1>
<Title>Object specific commands</Title>
<Para>
What has become clear is that the above way of exploring is not powerful
enough - I found myself doing various calculations manually in order to pass
between related structures. I needed to replace some tasks with an automated
procedure.
</Para>
<Para>
In addition, it also became clear that (of-course) each key object in the
filesystem has its special place in regard to the overall ext2 filesystem
design, and needs a <Literal remap="tt">fine tuned handling</Literal>. It is at this point that the
structure definitions <Literal remap="tt">came to life</Literal> - They became <Literal remap="tt">object
definitions</Literal>, making EXT2ED <Literal remap="tt">object oriented</Literal>.
</Para>
<Para>
The actual meaning of the breathtaking words above, is that each structure
now had a list of <Literal remap="tt">private commands</Literal>, which ended up in
<Literal remap="tt">calling special fine-tuned C functions</Literal>. This approach was
found to be very powerful and is <Literal remap="tt">the heart of EXT2ED even now</Literal>.
</Para>
<Para>
In order to implement the above concepts, I added the structure
<Literal remap="tt">struct_commands</Literal>. The role of this structure is to group together a
group of commands, which can be later assigned to a specific type. Each
structure had:
<ItemizedList>
<ListItem>
<Para>
A list of command names.
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
A list of pointers to functions, which binds each command to its
special fine-tuned C function.
</Para>
</ListItem>
</ItemizedList>
In order to relate a list of commands to a type definition, each
<Literal remap="tt">struct_descriptor</Literal> structure (explained earlier) was added a private
<Literal remap="tt">struct_commands</Literal> structure.
</Para>
<Para>
Follows the current definitions of <Literal remap="tt">struct_descriptor</Literal> and of
<Literal remap="tt">struct_command</Literal>:
<ProgramListing>
struct struct_descriptor {
unsigned long length;
unsigned char name [60];
unsigned short fields_num;
unsigned char field_names [MAX_FIELDS][80];
unsigned short field_lengths [MAX_FIELDS];
unsigned short field_positions [MAX_FIELDS];
struct struct_commands type_commands;
struct struct_descriptor *prev,*next;
};
typedef void (*PF) (char *);
struct struct_commands {
int last_command;
char *names [MAX_COMMANDS_NUM];
char *descriptions [MAX_COMMANDS_NUM];
PF callback [MAX_COMMANDS_NUM];
};
</ProgramListing>
</Para>
</Sect1>
<Sect1 id="flow-control">
<Title>Program flow control</Title>
<Para>
Obviously the above approach lead to a major redesign of EXT2ED. The
main engine of the resulting design is basically the same even now.
</Para>
<Para>
I redesigned the program flow control. Up to now, I analyzed the user command
line with the simple switch method. Now I used the far superior callback
method.
</Para>
<Para>
I divided the available user commands into two groups:
<OrderedList>
<ListItem>
<Para>
General commands.
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
Type specific commands.
</Para>
</ListItem>
</OrderedList>
As a result, at each point in time, the user was able to enter a
<Literal remap="tt">general command</Literal>, selectable from a list of general commands which was
always available, or a <Literal remap="tt">type specific command</Literal>, selectable from a list of
commands which <Literal remap="tt">changed in time</Literal> according to the current type that the
user was editing. The special <Literal remap="tt">type specific command</Literal> "knew" how to
handle the object in the best possible way - It was "fine tuned" for the
object's place in the ext2 filesystem design.
</Para>
<Para>
In order to implement the above idea, I constructed a global variable of
type <Literal remap="tt">struct_commands</Literal>, which contained the <Literal remap="tt">general commands</Literal>.
The <Literal remap="tt">type specific commands</Literal> were accessible through the <Literal remap="tt">struct
descriptors</Literal>, as explained earlier.
</Para>
<Para>
The program flow was now done according to the following algorithm:
<OrderedList>
<ListItem>
<Para>
Ask the user for a command line.
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
Analyze the user command - Separate it into <Literal remap="tt">command</Literal> and
<Literal remap="tt">arguments</Literal>.
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
Trace the list of known objects to match the command name to a type.
If the type is found, call the callback function, with the arguments
as a parameter. Then go back to step (1).
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
If the command is not type specific, try to find it in the general
commands, and call it if found. Go back to step (1).
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
If the command is not found, issue a short error message, and return
to step (1).
</Para>
</ListItem>
</OrderedList>
Note the <Literal remap="tt">order</Literal> of the above steps. In particular, note that a command
is first assumed to be a type-specific command and only if this fails, a
general command is searched. The "<Literal remap="tt">side-effect</Literal>" (main effect, actually)
is that when we have two commands with the <Literal remap="tt">same name</Literal> - One that is a
type specific command, and one that is a general command, the dispatching
algorithm will call the <Literal remap="tt">type specific command</Literal>. This allows
<Literal remap="tt">overriding</Literal> of a command to provide <Literal remap="tt">fine-tuned</Literal> operation.
For example, the <Literal remap="tt">show</Literal> command is overridden nearly everywhere,
to accommodate for the different ways in which different objects are displayed,
in order to provide an intuitive fine-tuned display.
</Para>
<Para>
The above is done in the <Literal remap="tt">dispatch</Literal> function, in <Literal remap="tt">main.c</Literal>. Since
it is a very important function in EXT2ED, and it is relatively short, I will
list it entirely here. Note that a redesign was made since then - Another
level was added between the two described, but I'll elaborate more on this
later. However, the basic structure follows the explanation described above.
<ProgramListing>
int dispatch (char *command_line)
{
int i,found=0;
char command [80];
parse_word (command_line,command);
if (strcmp (command,"quit")==0) return (1);
/* 1. Search for type specific commands FIRST - Allows overriding of a general command */
if (current_type != NULL)
for (i=0;i<=current_type->type_commands.last_command && !found;i++) {
if (strcmp (command,current_type->type_commands.names [i])==0) {
(*current_type->type_commands.callback [i]) (command_line);
found=1;
}
}
/* 2. Now search for ext2 filesystem general commands */
if (!found)
for (i=0;i<=ext2_commands.last_command && !found;i++) {
if (strcmp (command,ext2_commands.names [i])==0) {
(*ext2_commands.callback [i]) (command_line);
found=1;
}
}
/* 3. If not found, search the general commands */
if (!found)
for (i=0;i<=general_commands.last_command && !found;i++) {
if (strcmp (command,general_commands.names [i])==0) {
(*general_commands.callback [i]) (command_line);
found=1;
}
}
if (!found) {
wprintw (command_win,"Error: Unknown command\n");
refresh_command_win ();
}
return (0);
}
</ProgramListing>
</Para>
</Sect1>
<Sect1>
<Title>Source files in EXT2ED</Title>
<Para>
The project was getting large enough to be split into several source
files. I split the source as much as I could into self-contained
source files. The source files consist of the following blocks:
<ItemizedList>
<ListItem>
<Para>
<Literal remap="tt">Main include file - ext2ed.h</Literal>
This file contains the definitions of the various structures,
variables and functions used in EXT2ED. It is included by all source
files in EXT2ED.
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
<Literal remap="tt">Main block - main.c</Literal>
<Literal remap="tt">main.c</Literal> handles the upper level of the program flow control.
It contains the <Literal remap="tt">parser</Literal> and the <Literal remap="tt">dispatcher</Literal>. Its task is
to ask the user for a required action, and to pass control to other
lower level functions in order to do the actual job.
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
<Literal remap="tt">Initialization - init.c</Literal>
The init source is responsible for the various initialization
actions which need to be done through the program. For example,
auto detection of an ext2 filesystem when selecting a device and
initialization of the filesystem-specific structures described
earlier.
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
<Literal remap="tt">Disk activity - disk.c</Literal>
<Literal remap="tt">disk.c</Literal> is handles the lower level interaction with the
device. All disk activity is passed through this file - The various
functions through the source code request disk actions from the
functions in this file. In this way, for example, we can easily block
the write access to the device.
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
<Literal remap="tt">Display output activity - win.c</Literal>
In a similar way to <Literal remap="tt">disk.c</Literal>, the user-interface functions and
most of the interaction with the <Literal remap="tt">ncurses library</Literal> are done
here. Nothing will be actually written to a specific window without
calling a function from this file.
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
<Literal remap="tt">Commands available through dispatching - *_com.c </Literal>
The above file name is generic - Each file which ends with
<Literal remap="tt">_com.c</Literal> contains a group of related commands which can be
called through <Literal remap="tt">the dispatching function</Literal>.
Each object typically has its own file. A separate file is also
available for the general commands.
</Para>
</ListItem>
</ItemizedList>
The entire list of source files available at this time is:
<ItemizedList>
<ListItem>
<Para>
blockbitmap_com.c
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
dir_com.c
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
disk.c
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
ext2_com.c
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
file_com.c
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
general_com.c
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
group_com.c
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
init.c
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
inode_com.c
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
inodebitmap_com.c
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
main.c
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
super_com.c
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
win.c
</Para>
</ListItem>
</ItemizedList>
</Para>
</Sect1>
<Sect1>
<Title>User interface</Title>
<Para>
The user interface is text-based only and is based on the following
libraries:
</Para>
<Para>
<ItemizedList>
<ListItem>
<Para>
The <Literal remap="tt">ncurses</Literal> library, developed by <Literal remap="tt">Zeyd Ben-Halim</Literal>.
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
The <Literal remap="tt">GNU readline</Literal> library.
</Para>
</ListItem>
</ItemizedList>
</Para>
<Para>
The user interaction is command line based - The user enters a command
line, which consists of a <Literal remap="tt">command</Literal> and of <Literal remap="tt">arguments</Literal>. This fits
nicely with the program flow control described earlier - The <Literal remap="tt">command</Literal>
is used by <Literal remap="tt">dispatch</Literal> to select the right function, and the
<Literal remap="tt">arguments</Literal> are interpreted by the function itself.
</Para>
<Sect2>
<Title>The ncurses library</Title>
<Para>
The <Literal remap="tt">ncurses</Literal> library enables me to divide the screen into "windows".
The main advantage is that I treat the "window" in a virtual way, asking
the ncurses library to "write to a window". However, the ncurses
library internally buffers the requests, and nothing is actually passed to the
terminal until an explicit refresh is requested. When the refresh request is
made, ncurses compares the current terminal state (as known in the last time
that a refresh was done) with the new to be shown state, and passes to the
terminal the minimal information required to update the display. As a
result, the display output is optimized behind the scenes by the
<Literal remap="tt">ncurses</Literal> library, while I can still treat it in a virtual way.
</Para>
<Para>
There are two basic concepts in the <Literal remap="tt">ncurses</Literal> library:
<ItemizedList>
<ListItem>
<Para>
A window.
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
A pad.
</Para>
</ListItem>
</ItemizedList>
A window can be no bigger than the actual terminal size. A pad, however, is
not limited in its size.
</Para>
<Para>
The user screen is divided by EXT2ED into three windows and one pad:
<ItemizedList>
<ListItem>
<Para>
Title window.
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
Status window.
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
Main display pad.
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
Command window.
</Para>
</ListItem>
</ItemizedList>
</Para>
<Para>
The <Literal remap="tt">title window</Literal> is static - It just displays the current version
of EXT2ED.
</Para>
<Para>
The user interaction is done in the <Literal remap="tt">command window</Literal>. The user enters a
<Literal remap="tt">command line</Literal>, feedback is usually displayed there, and then relevant
data is usually displayed in the main display and in the status window.
</Para>
<Para>
The <Literal remap="tt">main display</Literal> is using a <Literal remap="tt">pad</Literal> instead of a window because
the amount of information which is written to it is not known in advance.
Therefor, the user treats the main display as a "window" into a bigger
display and can <Literal remap="tt">scroll vertically</Literal> using the <Literal remap="tt">pgdn</Literal> and <Literal remap="tt">pgup</Literal>
commands. Although the <Literal remap="tt">pad</Literal> mechanism enables me to use horizontal
scrolling, I have not utilized this.
</Para>
<Para>
When I need to show something to the user, I use the ncurses <Literal remap="tt">wprintw</Literal>
command. Then an explicit refresh command is required. As explained before,
the refresh commands is piped through <Literal remap="tt">win.c</Literal>. For example, to update
the command window, <Literal remap="tt">refresh_command_win ()</Literal> is used.
</Para>
</Sect2>
<Sect2>
<Title>The readline library</Title>
<Para>
Avner suggested me to integrate the GNU <Literal remap="tt">readline</Literal> library in my project.
The <Literal remap="tt">readline</Literal> library is designed specifically for programs which use
command line interface. It provides a nice package of <Literal remap="tt">command line editing
tools</Literal> - Inserting, deleting words, and the whole package of editing tools
which are normally available in the <Literal remap="tt">bash</Literal> shell (Refer to the readline
documentation for details). In addition, I utilized the <Literal remap="tt">history</Literal>
feature of the readline library - The entered commands are saved in a
<Literal remap="tt">command history</Literal>, and can be called later by whatever means that the
readline package provides. Command completion is also supported - When the
user enters a partial command name, EXT2ED will provide the readline library
with the possible completions.
</Para>
</Sect2>
</Sect1>
<Sect1>
<Title>Possible support of other filesystems</Title>
<Para>
The entire ext2 layer is provided through specific objects. Given another
set of objects, support of other filesystem can be provided using the same
dispatching mechanism. In order to prepare the surface for this option, I
added yet another layer to the two-layer structure presented earlier. EXT2ED
commands now consist of three layers:
<ItemizedList>
<ListItem>
<Para>
The general commands.
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
The ext2 general commands.
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
The ext2 object specific commands.
</Para>
</ListItem>
</ItemizedList>
The general commands are provided by the <Literal remap="tt">general_com.c</Literal> source file,
and are always available. The two other levels are not present when EXT2ED
loads - They are dynamically added by <Literal remap="tt">init.c</Literal> when EXT2ED detects an
ext2 filesystem on the device.
</Para>
<Para>
The abstraction levels presented above helps to extend EXT2ED to fully
support a new filesystem, with its own specific type commands.
</Para>
<Para>
Even without any source code modification, the user is free to add structure
definitions in a separate file (specified in the configuration file),
which will be added to the list of available objects. The added objects will
consist only of variables, of-course, and will be used through the more
primitive <Literal remap="tt">setoffset</Literal> and <Literal remap="tt">settype</Literal> commands.
</Para>
</Sect1>
<Sect1>
<Title>On the implementation of the various commands</Title>
<Para>
This section points out some typical programming style that I used in many
places at the code.
</Para>
<Sect2>
<Title>The explicit use of the dispatch function</Title>
<Para>
The various commands are reached by the user through the <Literal remap="tt">dispatch</Literal>
function. This is not surprising. The fact that can be surprising, at least in
a first look, is that <Literal remap="tt">you'll find the dispatch call in many of my
own functions!</Literal>.
</Para>
<Para>
I am in fact using my own implemented functions to construct higher
level operations. I am heavily using the fact that the dispatching mechanism
is object oriented ant that the <Literal remap="tt">overriding</Literal> principle takes place and
selects the proper function to call when several commands with the same name
are accessible.
</Para>
<Para>
Sometimes, however, I call the explicit command directly, without passing
through <Literal remap="tt">dispatch</Literal>. This is typically done when I want to bypass the
<Literal remap="tt">overriding</Literal> effect.
</Para>
<Para>
This is used, for example, in the interaction between the global cd command
and the dir object specific cd command. You will see there that in order
to implement the "entire" cd command, the type specific cd command uses both
a dispatching mechanism to call itself recursively if a relative path is
used, or a direct call of the general cd handling function if an explicit path
is used.
</Para>
</Sect2>
<Sect2>
<Title>Passing information between handling functions</Title>
<Para>
Typically, every source code file which handles one object type has a global
structure specifically designed for it which is used by most of the
functions in that file. This is used to pass information between the various
functions there, and to physically provide the link to other related
objects, typically for initialization use.
</Para>
<Para>
For example, in order to edit a file, information about the
inode is needed - The file command is available only when editing an
inode. When the file command is issued, the handling function (found,
according to the source division outlined above, in inode_com.c) will
store the necessary information about the inode in a specific structure
of type struct_file_info which will be available for use by the file_com.c
functions. Only then it will set the type to file. This is also the reason
that a direct asynchronous set of the object type to a file through a settype
command will fail - The above data structure will not be initialized
properly because the user never was at the inode of the file.
</Para>
</Sect2>
<Sect2>
<Title>A very simplified overview of a typical command handling function</Title>
<Para>
This is a very simplified overview. Detailed information will follow
where appropriate.
</Para>
<Sect3>
<Title>The prototype of a typical handling function</Title>
<Para>
<OrderedList>
<ListItem>
<Para>
I chose a unified <Literal remap="tt">naming convention</Literal> for the various object
specific commands. It is perhaps best showed with an example:
The prototype of the handling function of the command <Literal remap="tt">next</Literal> of
the type <Literal remap="tt">file</Literal> is:
<Screen>
extern void type_file___next (char *command_line);
</Screen>
For other types and commands, the words <Literal remap="tt">file</Literal> and <Literal remap="tt">next</Literal>
should be replaced accordingly.
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
The ext2 general commands syntax is similar. For example, the ext2
general command <Literal remap="tt">super</Literal> results in calling:
<Screen>
extern void type_ext2___super (char *command_line);
</Screen>
Those functions are available in <Literal remap="tt">ext2_com.c</Literal>.
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
The general commands syntax is even simpler - The name of the
handling function is exactly the name of the commands. Those
functions are available in <Literal remap="tt">general_com.c</Literal>.
</Para>
</ListItem>
</OrderedList>
</Para>
</Sect3>
<Sect3>
<Title>"Typical" algorithm</Title>
<Para>
This section can't of-course provide meaningful information - Each
command is handled differently, but the following frame is typical:
<OrderedList>
<ListItem>
<Para>
Parse command line arguments and analyze them. Return with an error
message if the syntax is wrong.
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
"Act accordingly", perhaps making use of the global variable available
to this type.
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
Use some <Literal remap="tt">dispatch / direct </Literal> calls in order to pass control to
other lower-level user commands.
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
Sometimes <Literal remap="tt">dispatch</Literal> to the object's <Literal remap="tt">show</Literal> command to
display the resulting data to the user.
</Para>
</ListItem>
</OrderedList>
I told you it is meaningless :-)
</Para>
</Sect3>
</Sect2>
</Sect1>
<Sect1>
<Title>Initialization overview</Title>
<Para>
In this section I will discuss some aspects of the various initialization
routines available in the source file <Literal remap="tt">init.c</Literal>.
</Para>
<Sect2>
<Title>Upon startup</Title>
<Para>
Follows the function <Literal remap="tt">main</Literal>, appearing of-course in <Literal remap="tt">main.c</Literal>:
<ProgramListing>
int main (void)
{
if (!init ()) return (0); /* Perform some initial initialization */
/* Quit if failed */
parser (); /* Get and parse user commands */
prepare_to_close (); /* Do some cleanup */
printf ("Quitting ...\n");
return (1); /* And quit */
}
</ProgramListing>
</Para>
<Para>
The two initialization functions, which are called by <Literal remap="tt">main</Literal>, are:
<ItemizedList>
<ListItem>
<Para>
init
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
prepare_to_close
</Para>
</ListItem>
</ItemizedList>
</Para>
<Sect3>
<Title>The init function</Title>
<Para>
<Literal remap="tt">init</Literal> is called from <Literal remap="tt">main</Literal> upon startup. It initializes the
following tasks / subsystems:
<OrderedList>
<ListItem>
<Para>
Processing of the <Literal remap="tt">user configuration file</Literal>, by using the
<Literal remap="tt">process_configuration_file</Literal> function. Failing to complete the
configuration file processing is considered a <Literal remap="tt">fatal error</Literal>,
and EXT2ED is aborted. I did it this way because the configuration
file has some sensitive user options like write access behavior, and
I wanted to be sure that the user is aware of them.
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
Registration of the <Literal remap="tt">general commands</Literal> through the use of
the <Literal remap="tt">add_general_commands</Literal> function.
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
Reset of the object memory rotating lifo structure.
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
Reset of the device parameters and of the current type.
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
Initialization of the windows subsystem - The interface between the
ncurses library and EXT2ED, through the use of the <Literal remap="tt">init_windows</Literal>
function, available in <Literal remap="tt">win.c</Literal>.
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
Initialization of the interface between the readline library and
EXT2ED, through <Literal remap="tt">init_readline</Literal>.
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
Initialization of the <Literal remap="tt">signals</Literal> subsystem, through
<Literal remap="tt">init_signals</Literal>.
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
Disabling write access. Write access needs to be explicitly enabled
using a user command, to prevent accidental user mistakes.
</Para>
</ListItem>
</OrderedList>
When <Literal remap="tt">init</Literal> is finished, it dispatches the <Literal remap="tt">help</Literal> command in order
to show the available commands to the user. Note that the ext2 layer is still
not added; It will be added if and when EXT2ED will detect an ext2
filesystem on a device.
</Para>
</Sect3>
<Sect3>
<Title>The prepare_to_close function</Title>
<Para>
The <Literal remap="tt">prepare_to_close</Literal> function reverses some of the actions done
earlier in EXT2ED and freeing the dynamically allocated memory.
Specifically, it:
<OrderedList>
<ListItem>
<Para>
Closes the open device, if any.
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
Removes the first level - Removing the general commands, through
the use of <Literal remap="tt">free_user_commands</Literal>, with a pointer to the
general_commands structure as a parameter.
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
Removes of the second level - Removing the ext2 ext2 general
commands, in much the same way.
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
Removes of the third level - Removing the objects and the object
specific commands, by using <Literal remap="tt">free_struct_descriptors</Literal>.
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
Closes the window subsystem, and deattaches EXT2ED from the ncurses
library, through the use of the <Literal remap="tt">close_windows</Literal> function,
available in <Literal remap="tt">win.c</Literal>.
</Para>
</ListItem>
</OrderedList>
</Para>
</Sect3>
</Sect2>
<Sect2>
<Title>Registration of commands</Title>
<Para>
Addition of a user command is done through the <Literal remap="tt">add_user_command</Literal>
function. The prototype is:
<Screen>
void add_user_command (struct struct_commands *ptr,char *name,char
*description,PF callback);
</Screen>
The function receives a pointer to a structure of type
<Literal remap="tt">struct_commands</Literal>, a desired name for the command which will be used by
the user to identify the command, a short description which is utilized by the
<Literal remap="tt">help</Literal> subsystem, and a pointer to a C function which will be called if
<Literal remap="tt">dispatch</Literal> decides that this command was requested.
</Para>
<Para>
The <Literal remap="tt">add_user_command</Literal> is a <Literal remap="tt">low level function</Literal> used in the three
levels to add user commands. For example, addition of the <Literal remap="tt">ext2
general commands is done by:</Literal>
<ProgramListing>
void add_ext2_general_commands (void)
{
add_user_command (&ext2_commands,"super","Moves to the superblock of the filesystem",type_ext2___super);
add_user_command (&ext2_commands,"group","Moves to the first group descriptor",type_ext2___group);
add_user_command (&ext2_commands,"cd","Moves to the directory specified",type_ext2___cd);
}
</ProgramListing>
</Para>
</Sect2>
<Sect2>
<Title>Registration of objects</Title>
<Para>
Registration of objects is based, as explained earlier, on the "compilation"
of an external user file, which has a syntax similar to the C language
<Literal remap="tt">struct</Literal> keyword. The primitive parser I have implemented detects the
definition of structures, and calls some lower level functions to actually
register the new detected object. The parser's prototype is:
<Screen>
int set_struct_descriptors (char *file_name)
</Screen>
It opens the given file name, and calls, when appropriate:
<ItemizedList>
<ListItem>
<Para>
add_new_descriptor
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
add_new_variable
</Para>
</ListItem>
</ItemizedList>
<Literal remap="tt">add_new_descriptor</Literal> is a low level function which adds a new descriptor
to the doubly linked list of the available objects. It will then call
<Literal remap="tt">fill_type_commands</Literal>, which will add specific commands to the object,
if the object is known.
</Para>
<Para>
<Literal remap="tt">add_new_variable</Literal> will add a new variable of the requested length to the
specified descriptor.
</Para>
</Sect2>
<Sect2>
<Title>Initialization upon specification of a device</Title>
<Para>
When the general command <Literal remap="tt">setdevice</Literal> is used to open a device, some
initialization sequence takes place, which is intended to determine two
factors:
<ItemizedList>
<ListItem>
<Para>
Are we dealing with an ext2 filesystem ?
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
What are the basic filesystem parameters, such as its total size and
its block size ?
</Para>
</ListItem>
</ItemizedList>
This questions are answered by the <Literal remap="tt">set_file_system_info</Literal>, possibly
using some <Literal remap="tt">help from the user</Literal>, through the configuration file.
The answers are placed in the <Literal remap="tt">file_system_info</Literal> structure, which is of
type <Literal remap="tt">struct_file_system_info</Literal>:
<ProgramListing>
struct struct_file_system_info {
unsigned long file_system_size;
unsigned long super_block_offset;
unsigned long first_group_desc_offset;
unsigned long groups_count;
unsigned long inodes_per_block;
unsigned long blocks_per_group; /* The name is misleading; beware */
unsigned long no_blocks_in_group;
unsigned short block_size;
struct ext2_super_block super_block;
};
</ProgramListing>
</Para>
<Para>
Autodetection of an ext2 filesystem is usually recommended. However, on a damaged
filesystem I can't assure a success. That's were the user comes in - He can
<Literal remap="tt">override</Literal> the auto detection procedure and force an ext2 filesystem, by
selecting the proper options in the configuration file.
</Para>
<Para>
If auto detection succeeds, the second question above is automatically
answered - I get all the information I need from the filesystem itself. In
any case, default parameters can be supplied in the configuration file and
the user can select the required behavior.
</Para>
<Para>
If we decide to treat the filesystem as an ext2 filesystem, <Literal remap="tt">registration of
the ext2 specific objects</Literal> is done at this point, by calling the
<Literal remap="tt">set_struct_descriptors</Literal> outlined earlier, with the name of the file
which describes the ext2 objects, and is basically based on the ext2 sources
main include file. At this point, EXT2ED can be fully used by the user.
</Para>
<Para>
If we do not register the ext2 specific objects, the user can still provide
object definitions in a separate file, and will be able to use EXT2ED in a
<Literal remap="tt">limited form</Literal>, but more sophisticated than a simple hex editor.
</Para>
</Sect2>
</Sect1>
<Sect1>
<Title>main.c</Title>
<Para>
As described earlier, <Literal remap="tt">main.c</Literal> is used as a front-head to the entire
program. <Literal remap="tt">main.c</Literal> contains the following elements:
</Para>
<Sect2>
<Title>The main routine</Title>
<Para>
The <Literal remap="tt">main</Literal> routine was displayed above. Its task is to pass control to
the initialization routines and to the parser.
</Para>
</Sect2>
<Sect2>
<Title>The parser</Title>
<Para>
The parser consists of the following functions:
<ItemizedList>
<ListItem>
<Para>
The <Literal remap="tt">parser</Literal> function, which reads the command line from the
user and saves it in readline's history buffer and in the internal
last-command buffer.
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
The <Literal remap="tt">parse_word</Literal> function, which receives a string and parses
the first word from it, ignoring whitespaces, and returns a pointer
to the rest of the string.
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
The <Literal remap="tt">complete_command</Literal> function, which is used by the readline
library for command completion. It scans the available commands at
this point and determines the possible completions.
</Para>
</ListItem>
</ItemizedList>
</Para>
</Sect2>
<Sect2>
<Title>The dispatcher</Title>
<Para>
The dispatcher was already explained in the flow control section - section
<XRef LinkEnd="flow-control">. Its task is to pass control to the proper command
handling function, based on the command line's command.
</Para>
</Sect2>
<Sect2>
<Title>The self-sanity control</Title>
<Para>
This is not fully implemented.
</Para>
<Para>
The general idea was to provide a control system which will supervise the
internal work of EXT2ED. Since I am pretty sure that bugs exist, I have
double checked myself in a few instances, and issued an <Literal remap="tt">internal
error</Literal> warning if I reached the conclusion that something is not logical.
The internal error is reported by the function <Literal remap="tt">internal_error</Literal>,
available in <Literal remap="tt">main.c</Literal>.
</Para>
<Para>
The self sanity check is compiled only if the compile time option
<Literal remap="tt">DEBUG</Literal> is selected.
</Para>
</Sect2>
</Sect1>
<Sect1>
<Title>The windows interface</Title>
<Para>
Screen handling and interfacing to the <Literal remap="tt">ncurses</Literal> library is done in
<Literal remap="tt">win.c</Literal>.
</Para>
<Sect2>
<Title>Initialization</Title>
<Para>
Opening of the windows is done in <Literal remap="tt">init_windows</Literal>. In
<Literal remap="tt">close_windows</Literal>, we just close our windows. The various window lengths
with an exception to the <Literal remap="tt">show pad</Literal> are defined in the main header file.
The rest of the display will be used by the <Literal remap="tt">show pad</Literal>.
</Para>
</Sect2>
<Sect2>
<Title>Display output</Title>
<Para>
Each actual refreshing of the terminal monitor is done by using the
appropriate refresh function from this file: <Literal remap="tt">refresh_title_win</Literal>,
<Literal remap="tt">refresh_show_win</Literal>, <Literal remap="tt">refresh_show_pad</Literal> and
<Literal remap="tt">refresh_command_win</Literal>.
</Para>
<Para>
With the exception of the <Literal remap="tt">show pad</Literal>, each function simply calls the
<Literal remap="tt">ncurses refresh command</Literal>. In order to provide to <Literal remap="tt">scrolling</Literal> in
the <Literal remap="tt">show pad</Literal>, some information about its status is constantly updated
by the various functions which display output in it. <Literal remap="tt">refresh_show_pad</Literal>
passes this information to <Literal remap="tt">ncurses</Literal> so that the correct part of the pad
is actually copied to the display.
</Para>
<Para>
The above information is saved in a global variable of type <Literal remap="tt">struct
struct_pad_info</Literal>:
</Para>
<Para>
<ProgramListing>
struct struct_pad_info {
int display_lines,display_cols;
int line,col;
int max_line,max_col;
int disable_output;
};
</ProgramListing>
</Para>
</Sect2>
<Sect2>
<Title>Screen redraw</Title>
<Para>
The <Literal remap="tt">redraw_all</Literal> function will just reopen the windows. This action is
necessary if the display gets garbled from some reason.
</Para>
</Sect2>
</Sect1>
<Sect1>
<Title>The disk interface</Title>
<Para>
All the disk activity with regard to the filesystem passes through the file
<Literal remap="tt">disk.c</Literal>. This is done that way to provide additional levels of safety
concerning the disk access. This way, global decisions considering the disk
can be easily accomplished. The benefits of this isolation will become even
clearer in the next sections.
</Para>
<Sect2>
<Title>Low level functions</Title>
<Para>
Read requests are ultimately handled by <Literal remap="tt">low_read</Literal> and write requests
are handled by <Literal remap="tt">low_write</Literal>. They just receive the length of the data
block, the offset in the filesystem and a pointer to the buffer and pass the
request to the <Literal remap="tt">fread</Literal> or <Literal remap="tt">fwrite</Literal> standard library functions.
</Para>
</Sect2>
<Sect2>
<Title>Mounted filesystems</Title>
<Para>
EXT2ED design assumes that the edited filesystem is not mounted. Even if
a <Literal remap="tt">reasonably simple</Literal> way to handle mounted filesystems exists, it is
probably <Literal remap="tt">too complicated</Literal> :-)
</Para>
<Para>
Write access to a mounted filesystem will be denied. Read access can be
allowed by using a configuration file option. The mount status is determined
by reading the file /etc/mtab.
</Para>
</Sect2>
<Sect2>
<Title>Write access</Title>
<Para>
Write access is the most sensitive part in the program. This program is
intended for <Literal remap="tt">editing filesystems</Literal>. It is obvious that a small mistake
in this regard can make the filesystem not usable anymore.
</Para>
<Para>
The following safety measures are added, of-course, to the general Unix
permission protection - The user can always disable write access on the
device file itself.
</Para>
<Para>
Considering the user, the following safety measures were taken:
<OrderedList>
<ListItem>
<Para>
The filesystem is <Literal remap="tt">never</Literal> opened with write-access enables.
Rather, the user must explicitly request to enable write-access.
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
The user can <Literal remap="tt">disable</Literal> write access entirely by using a
<Literal remap="tt">configuration file option</Literal>.
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
Changes are never done automatically - Whenever the user makes
changes, they are done in memory. An explicit <Literal remap="tt">writedata</Literal>
command should be issued to make the changes active in the disk.
</Para>
</ListItem>
</OrderedList>
Considering myself, I tried to protect against my bugs by:
<ItemizedList>
<ListItem>
<Para>
Opening the device in read-only mode until a write request is
issued by the user.
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
Limiting <Literal remap="tt">actual</Literal> filesystem access to two functions only -
<Literal remap="tt">low_read</Literal> for reading, and <Literal remap="tt">low_write</Literal> for writing. Those
functions were programmed carefully, and I added the self
sanity checks there. In addition, this is the only place in which I
need to check the user options described above - There can be no
place in which I can "forget" to check them.
Note that The disabling of write-access through the configuration file
is double checked here only as a <Literal remap="tt">self-sanity</Literal> check - If
<Literal remap="tt">DEBUG</Literal> is selected, since write enable should have been refused
and write-access is always disabled at startup, hence finding
<Literal remap="tt">here</Literal> that the user has write access disabled through the
configuration file clearly indicates that I have a bug somewhere.
</Para>
</ListItem>
</ItemizedList>
</Para>
<Para>
The following safety measure can provide protection against <Literal remap="tt">both</Literal> user
mistakes and my own bugs:
<ItemizedList>
<ListItem>
<Para>
I added a <Literal remap="tt">logging option</Literal>, which logs every actual write
access to the disk in the lowest level - In <Literal remap="tt">low_write</Literal> itself.
The logging has nothing to do with the current type and the various
other higher level operations of EXT2ED - It is simply a hex dump of
the contents which will be overwritten; Both the original contents
and the new written data.
In that case, even if the user makes a mistake, the original data
can be retrieved.
Even If I have a bug somewhere which causes incorrect data to be
written to the disk, the logging option will still log exactly the
original contents at the place were data was incorrectly overwritten.
(This assumes, of-course, that <Literal remap="tt">low-write</Literal> and the <Literal remap="tt">logging
itself</Literal> work correctly. I have done my best to verify that this is
indeed the case).
The <Literal remap="tt">logging</Literal> option is implemented in the <Literal remap="tt">log_changes</Literal>
function.
</Para>
</ListItem>
</ItemizedList>
</Para>
</Sect2>
<Sect2>
<Title>Reading / Writing objects</Title>
<Para>
Usually <Literal remap="tt">(not always)</Literal>, the current object data is available in the
global variable <Literal remap="tt">type_data</Literal>, which is of the type:
<ProgramListing>
struct struct_type_data {
long offset_in_block;
union union_type_data {
char buffer [EXT2_MAX_BLOCK_SIZE];
struct ext2_acl_header t_ext2_acl_header;
struct ext2_acl_entry t_ext2_acl_entry;
struct ext2_old_group_desc t_ext2_old_group_desc;
struct ext2_group_desc t_ext2_group_desc;
struct ext2_inode t_ext2_inode;
struct ext2_super_block t_ext2_super_block;
struct ext2_dir_entry t_ext2_dir_entry;
} u;
};
</ProgramListing>
The above union enables me, in the program, to treat the data as raw data or
as a meaningful filesystem object.
</Para>
<Para>
The reading and writing, if done to this global variable, are done through
the functions <Literal remap="tt">load_type_data</Literal> and <Literal remap="tt">write_type_data</Literal>, available in
<Literal remap="tt">disk.c</Literal>.
</Para>
</Sect2>
</Sect1>
<Sect1>
<Title>The general commands</Title>
<Para>
The <Literal remap="tt">general commands</Literal> are handled in the file <Literal remap="tt">general_com.c</Literal>.
</Para>
<Sect2>
<Title>The help system</Title>
<Para>
The help command is handled by the function <Literal remap="tt">help</Literal>. The algorithm is as
follows:
</Para>
<Para>
<OrderedList>
<ListItem>
<Para>
Check the command line arguments. If there is an argument, pass
control to the <Literal remap="tt">detailed_help</Literal> function, in order to provide
help on the specific command.
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
If general help was requested, display a list of the available
commands at this point. The three levels are displayed in reverse
order - First the commands which are specific to the current type
(If a current type is defined), then the ext2 general commands (If
we decided that the filesystem should be treated like an ext2
filesystem), then the general commands.
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
Display information about EXT2ED - Current version, general
information about the project, etc.
</Para>
</ListItem>
</OrderedList>
</Para>
</Sect2>
<Sect2>
<Title>The setdevice command</Title>
<Para>
The <Literal remap="tt">setdevice</Literal> commands result in calling the <Literal remap="tt">set_device</Literal>
function. The algorithm is:
</Para>
<Para>
<OrderedList>
<ListItem>
<Para>
Parse the command line argument. If it isn't available report the
error and return.
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
Close the current open device, if there is one.
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
Open the new device in read-only mode. Update the global variables
<Literal remap="tt">device_name</Literal> and <Literal remap="tt">device_handle</Literal>.
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
Disable write access.
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
Empty the object memory.
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
Unregister the ext2 general commands, using
<Literal remap="tt">free_user_commands</Literal>.
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
Unregister the current objects, using <Literal remap="tt">free_struct_descriptors</Literal>
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
Call <Literal remap="tt">set_file_system_info</Literal> to auto-detect an ext2 filesystem
and set the basic filesystem values.
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
Add the <Literal remap="tt">alternate descriptors</Literal>, supplied by the user.
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
Set the device offset to the filesystem start by dispatching
<Literal remap="tt">setoffset 0</Literal>.
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
Show the new available commands by dispatching the <Literal remap="tt">help</Literal>
command.
</Para>
</ListItem>
</OrderedList>
</Para>
</Sect2>
<Sect2>
<Title>Basic maneuvering</Title>
<Para>
Basic maneuvering is done using the <Literal remap="tt">setoffset</Literal> and the <Literal remap="tt">settype</Literal>
user commands.
</Para>
<Para>
<Literal remap="tt">set_offset</Literal> accepts some alternative forms of specifying the new
offset. They all ultimately lead to changing the <Literal remap="tt">device_offset</Literal>
global variable and seeking to the new position. <Literal remap="tt">set_offset</Literal> also
calls <Literal remap="tt">load_type_data</Literal> to read a block ahead of the new position into
the <Literal remap="tt">type_data</Literal> global variable.
</Para>
<Para>
<Literal remap="tt">set_type</Literal> will point the global variable <Literal remap="tt">current_type</Literal> to the
correct entry in the double linked list of the known objects. If the
requested type is <Literal remap="tt">hex</Literal> or <Literal remap="tt">none</Literal>, <Literal remap="tt">current_type</Literal> will be
initialized to <Literal remap="tt">NULL</Literal>. <Literal remap="tt">set_type</Literal> will also dispatch <Literal remap="tt">show</Literal>,
so that the object data will be re-formatted in the new format.
</Para>
<Para>
When editing an ext2 filesystem, it is not intended that those commands will
be used directly, and it is usually not required. My implementation of the
ext2 layer, on the other hand, uses this lower level commands on countless
occasions.
</Para>
</Sect2>
<Sect2>
<Title>The display functions</Title>
<Para>
The general command version of <Literal remap="tt">show</Literal> is handled by the <Literal remap="tt">show</Literal>
function. This command is overridden by various objects to provide a display
which is better suited to the object.
</Para>
<Para>
The general show command will format the data in <Literal remap="tt">type_data</Literal> according
to the structure definition of the current type and show it on the <Literal remap="tt">show
pad</Literal>. If there is no current type, the data will be shown as a simple hex
dump; Otherwise, the list of variables, along with their values will be shown.
</Para>
<Para>
A call to <Literal remap="tt">show_info</Literal> is also made - <Literal remap="tt">show_info</Literal> will provide
<Literal remap="tt">general statistics</Literal> on the <Literal remap="tt">show_window</Literal>, such as the current
block, current type, current offset and current page.
</Para>
<Para>
The <Literal remap="tt">pgup</Literal> and <Literal remap="tt">pgdn</Literal> general commands just update the
<Literal remap="tt">show_pad_info</Literal> global variable - We just increment
<Literal remap="tt">show_pad_info.line</Literal> with the number of lines in the screen -
<Literal remap="tt">show_pad_info.display_lines</Literal>, which was initialized in
<Literal remap="tt">init_windows</Literal>.
</Para>
</Sect2>
<Sect2>
<Title>Changing data</Title>
<Para>
Data change is done in memory only. An update to the disk if followed by an
explicit <Literal remap="tt">writedata</Literal> command to the disk. The <Literal remap="tt">write_data</Literal>
function simple calls the <Literal remap="tt">write_type_data</Literal> function, outlined earlier.
</Para>
<Para>
The <Literal remap="tt">set</Literal> command is used for changing the data.
</Para>
<Para>
If there is no current type, control is passed to the <Literal remap="tt">hex_set</Literal> function,
which treats the data as a block of bytes and uses the
<Literal remap="tt">type_data.offset_in_block</Literal> variable to write the new text or hex string
to the correct place in the block.
</Para>
<Para>
If a current type is defined, the requested variable is searched in the
current object, and the desired new valued is entered.
</Para>
<Para>
The <Literal remap="tt">enablewrite</Literal> commands just sets the global variable
<Literal remap="tt">write_access</Literal> to <Literal remap="tt">1</Literal> and re-opens the filesystem in read-write
mode, if possible.
</Para>
<Para>
If the current type is NULL, a hex-mode is assumed - The <Literal remap="tt">next</Literal> and
<Literal remap="tt">prev</Literal> commands will just update <Literal remap="tt">type_data.offset_in_block</Literal>.
</Para>
<Para>
If the current type is not NULL, the The <Literal remap="tt">next</Literal> and <Literal remap="tt">prev</Literal> command
are usually overridden anyway. If they are not overridden, it will be assumed
that the user is editing an array of such objects, and they will just pass
to the next / prev element by dispatching to <Literal remap="tt">setoffset</Literal> using the
<Literal remap="tt">setoffset type + / - X</Literal> syntax.
</Para>
</Sect2>
</Sect1>
<Sect1>
<Title>The ext2 general commands</Title>
<Para>
The ext2 general commands are contained in the <Literal remap="tt">ext2_general_commands</Literal>
global variable (which is of type <Literal remap="tt">struct struct_commands</Literal>).
</Para>
<Para>
The handling functions are implemented in the source file <Literal remap="tt">ext2_com.c</Literal>.
I will include the entire source code since it is relatively short.
</Para>
<Sect2>
<Title>The super command</Title>
<Para>
The super command just "brings the user" to the main superblock and set the
type to ext2_super_block. The implementation is trivial:
</Para>
<Para>
<ProgramListing>
void type_ext2___super (char *command_line)
{
char buffer [80];
super_info.copy_num=0;
sprintf (buffer,"setoffset %ld",file_system_info.super_block_offset);dispatch (buffer);
sprintf (buffer,"settype ext2_super_block");dispatch (buffer);
}
</ProgramListing>
It involves only setting the <Literal remap="tt">copy_num</Literal> variable to indicate the main
copy, dispatching a <Literal remap="tt">setoffset</Literal> command to reach the superblock, and
dispatching a <Literal remap="tt">settype</Literal> to enable the superblock specific commands.
This last command will also call the <Literal remap="tt">show</Literal> command of the
<Literal remap="tt">ext2_super_block</Literal> type, through dispatching at the general command
<Literal remap="tt">settype</Literal>.
</Para>
</Sect2>
<Sect2>
<Title>The group command</Title>
<Para>
The group command will bring the user to the specified group descriptor in
the main copy of the group descriptors. The type will be set to
<Literal remap="tt">ext2_group_desc</Literal>:
<ProgramListing>
void type_ext2___group (char *command_line)
{
long group_num=0;
char *ptr,buffer [80];
ptr=parse_word (command_line,buffer);
if (*ptr!=0) {
ptr=parse_word (ptr,buffer);
group_num=atol (buffer);
}
group_info.copy_num=0;group_info.group_num=0;
sprintf (buffer,"setoffset %ld",file_system_info.first_group_desc_offset);dispatch (buffer);
sprintf (buffer,"settype ext2_group_desc");dispatch (buffer);
sprintf (buffer,"entry %ld",group_num);dispatch (buffer);
}
</ProgramListing>
The implementation is as trivial as the <Literal remap="tt">super</Literal> implementation. Note
the use of the <Literal remap="tt">entry</Literal> command, which is a command of the
<Literal remap="tt">ext2_group_desc</Literal> object, to pass to the correct group descriptor.
</Para>
</Sect2>
<Sect2>
<Title>The cd command</Title>
<Para>
The <Literal remap="tt">cd</Literal> command performs the usual cd function. The path to the global
cd command is a path from <Literal remap="tt">/</Literal>.
</Para>
<Para>
<Literal remap="tt">This is one of the best examples of the power of the object oriented
design and of the dispatching mechanism. The operation is complicated, yet the
implementation is surprisingly short!</Literal>
</Para>
<Para>
<ProgramListing>
void type_ext2___cd (char *command_line)
{
char temp [80],buffer [80],*ptr;
ptr=parse_word (command_line,buffer);
if (*ptr==0) {
wprintw (command_win,"Error - No argument specified\n");
refresh_command_win ();return;
}
ptr=parse_word (ptr,buffer);
if (buffer [0] != '/') {
wprintw (command_win,"Error - Use a full pathname (begin with '/')\n");
refresh_command_win ();return;
}
dispatch ("super");dispatch ("group");dispatch ("inode");
dispatch ("next");dispatch ("dir");
if (buffer [1] != 0) {
sprintf (temp,"cd %s",buffer+1);dispatch (temp);
}
}
</ProgramListing>
</Para>
<Para>
Note the number of the dispatch calls!
</Para>
<Para>
<Literal remap="tt">super</Literal> is used to get to the superblock. <Literal remap="tt">group</Literal> to get to the
first group descriptor. <Literal remap="tt">inode</Literal> brings us to the first inode - The bad
blocks inode. A <Literal remap="tt">next</Literal> is command to pass to the root directory inode,
a <Literal remap="tt">dir</Literal> command "enters" the directory, and then we let the <Literal remap="tt">object
specific cd command</Literal> to take us from there (The object is <Literal remap="tt">dir</Literal>, so
that <Literal remap="tt">dispatch</Literal> will call the <Literal remap="tt">cd</Literal> command of the <Literal remap="tt">dir</Literal> type).
Note that a symbolic link following could bring us back to the root directory,
thus the innocent calls above treats nicely such a recursive case!
</Para>
<Para>
I feel that the above is <Literal remap="tt">intuitive</Literal> - I was expressing myself "in the
language" of the ext2 filesystem - (Go to the inode, etc), and the code was
written exactly in this spirit!
</Para>
<Para>
I can write more at this point, but I guess I am already a bit carried
away with the self compliments :-)
</Para>
</Sect2>
</Sect1>
<Sect1>
<Title>The superblock</Title>
<Para>
This section details the handling of the superblock.
</Para>
<Sect2>
<Title>The superblock variables</Title>
<Para>
The superblock object is <Literal remap="tt">ext2_super_block</Literal>. The definition is just
taken from the kernel ext2 main include file - /usr/include/linux/ext2_fs.h.
<FOOTNOTE>
<Para>
Those lines of source are copyrighted by <Literal remap="tt">Remy Card</Literal> - The author of the
ext2 filesystem, and by <Literal remap="tt">Linus Torvalds</Literal> - The first author of the Linux
operating system. Please cross reference the section Acknowledgments for the
full copyright.
</Para>
</FOOTNOTE>
<ProgramListing>
struct ext2_super_block {
__u32 s_inodes_count; /* Inodes count */
__u32 s_blocks_count; /* Blocks count */
__u32 s_r_blocks_count; /* Reserved blocks count */
__u32 s_free_blocks_count; /* Free blocks count */
__u32 s_free_inodes_count; /* Free inodes count */
__u32 s_first_data_block; /* First Data Block */
__u32 s_log_block_size; /* Block size */
__s32 s_log_frag_size; /* Fragment size */
__u32 s_blocks_per_group; /* # Blocks per group */
__u32 s_frags_per_group; /* # Fragments per group */
__u32 s_inodes_per_group; /* # Inodes per group */
__u32 s_mtime; /* Mount time */
__u32 s_wtime; /* Write time */
__u16 s_mnt_count; /* Mount count */
__s16 s_max_mnt_count; /* Maximal mount count */
__u16 s_magic; /* Magic signature */
__u16 s_state; /* File system state */
__u16 s_errors; /* Behavior when detecting errors */
__u16 s_pad;
__u32 s_lastcheck; /* time of last check */
__u32 s_checkinterval; /* max. time between checks */
__u32 s_creator_os; /* OS */
__u32 s_rev_level; /* Revision level */
__u16 s_def_resuid; /* Default uid for reserved blocks */
__u16 s_def_resgid; /* Default gid for reserved blocks */
__u32 s_reserved[0]; /* Padding to the end of the block */
__u32 s_reserved[1]; /* Padding to the end of the block */
.
.
.
__u32 s_reserved[234]; /* Padding to the end of the block */
};
</ProgramListing>
</Para>
<Para>
Note that I <Literal remap="tt">expanded</Literal> the array due to my primitive parser
implementation. The various fields are described in the <Literal remap="tt">technical
document</Literal>.
</Para>
</Sect2>
<Sect2>
<Title>The superblock commands</Title>
<Para>
This section explains the commands available in the <Literal remap="tt">ext2_super_block</Literal>
type. They all appear in <Literal remap="tt">super_com.c</Literal>
</Para>
<Sect3>
<Title>The show command</Title>
<Para>
The <Literal remap="tt">show</Literal> command is overridden here in order to provide more
information than just the list of variables. A <Literal remap="tt">show</Literal> command will end
up in calling <Literal remap="tt">type_super_block___show</Literal>.
</Para>
<Para>
The first thing that we do is calling the <Literal remap="tt">general show command</Literal> in
order to display the list of variables.
</Para>
<Para>
We then add some interpretation to the various lines to make the data
somewhat more intuitive (Expansion of the time variables and the creator
operating system code, for example).
</Para>
<Para>
We also display the <Literal remap="tt">backup copy number</Literal> of the superblock in the status
window. This copy number is saved in the <Literal remap="tt">super_info</Literal> global variable -
<Literal remap="tt">super_info.copy_num</Literal>. Currently, this is the only variable there ...
but this type of internal variable saving is typical through my
implementation.
</Para>
</Sect3>
<Sect3>
<Title>The backup copies handling commands</Title>
<Para>
The <Literal remap="tt">current copy number</Literal> is available in <Literal remap="tt">super_info.copy_num</Literal>. It
was initialized in the ext2 command <Literal remap="tt">super</Literal>, and is used by the various
superblock routines.
</Para>
<Para>
The <Literal remap="tt">gocopy</Literal> routine will pass to another copy of the superblock. The
new device offset will be computed with the aid of the variables in the
<Literal remap="tt">file_system_info</Literal> structure. Then the routine will <Literal remap="tt">dispatch</Literal> to
the <Literal remap="tt">setoffset</Literal> and the <Literal remap="tt">show</Literal> routines.
</Para>
<Para>
The <Literal remap="tt">setactivecopy</Literal> routine will just save the current superblock data
in a temporary variable of type <Literal remap="tt">ext2_super_block</Literal>, and will dispatch
<Literal remap="tt">gocopy 0</Literal> to pass to the main superblock. Then it will place the saved
data in place of the actual data.
</Para>
<Para>
The above two commands can be used if the main superblock is corrupted.
</Para>
</Sect3>
</Sect2>
</Sect1>
<Sect1>
<Title>The group descriptors</Title>
<Para>
The group descriptors handling mechanism allows the user to take a tour in
the group descriptors table, stopping at each point, and examining the
relevant inode table, block allocation map or inode allocation map through
dispatching to the relevant objects.
</Para>
<Para>
Some information about the group descriptors is available in the global
variable <Literal remap="tt">group_info</Literal>, which is of type <Literal remap="tt">struct_group_info</Literal>:
</Para>
<Para>
<ProgramListing>
struct struct_group_info {
unsigned long copy_num;
unsigned long group_num;
};
</ProgramListing>
</Para>
<Para>
<Literal remap="tt">group_num</Literal> is the index of the current descriptor in the table.
</Para>
<Para>
<Literal remap="tt">copy_num</Literal> is the number of the current backup copy.
</Para>
<Sect2>
<Title>The group descriptor's variables</Title>
<Para>
<ProgramListing>
struct ext2_group_desc
{
__u32 bg_block_bitmap; /* Blocks bitmap block */
__u32 bg_inode_bitmap; /* Inodes bitmap block */
__u32 bg_inode_table; /* Inodes table block */
__u16 bg_free_blocks_count; /* Free blocks count */
__u16 bg_free_inodes_count; /* Free inodes count */
__u16 bg_used_dirs_count; /* Directories count */
__u16 bg_pad;
__u32 bg_reserved[3];
};
</ProgramListing>
</Para>
<Para>
The first three variables are used to provide the links to the
<Literal remap="tt">blockbitmap, inodebitmap and inode</Literal> objects.
</Para>
</Sect2>
<Sect2>
<Title>Movement in the table</Title>
<Para>
Movement in the group descriptors table is done using the <Literal remap="tt">next, prev and
entry</Literal> commands. Note that the first two commands <Literal remap="tt">override</Literal> the
general commands of the same name. The <Literal remap="tt">next and prev</Literal> command are just
calling the <Literal remap="tt">entry</Literal> function to do the job. I will show <Literal remap="tt">next</Literal>,
for example:
</Para>
<Para>
<ProgramListing>
void type_ext2_group_desc___next (char *command_line)
{
long entry_offset=1;
char *ptr,buffer [80];
ptr=parse_word (command_line,buffer);
if (*ptr!=0) {
ptr=parse_word (ptr,buffer);
entry_offset=atol (buffer);
}
sprintf (buffer,"entry %ld",group_info.group_num+entry_offset);
dispatch (buffer);
}
</ProgramListing>
The <Literal remap="tt">entry</Literal> function is also simple - It just calculates the offset
using the information in <Literal remap="tt">group_info</Literal> and in <Literal remap="tt">file_system_info</Literal>,
and uses the usual <Literal remap="tt">setoffset / show</Literal> pair.
</Para>
</Sect2>
<Sect2>
<Title>The show command</Title>
<Para>
As usual, the <Literal remap="tt">show</Literal> command is overridden. The implementation is
similar to the superblock's show implementation - We just call the general
show command, and add some information in the status window - The contents of
the <Literal remap="tt">group_info</Literal> structure.
</Para>
</Sect2>
<Sect2>
<Title>Moving between backup copies</Title>
<Para>
This is done exactly like the superblock case. Please refer to explanation
there.
</Para>
</Sect2>
<Sect2>
<Title>Links to the available friends</Title>
<Para>
From a group descriptor, one typically wants to reach an <Literal remap="tt">inode</Literal>, or
one of the <Literal remap="tt">allocation bitmaps</Literal>. This is done using the <Literal remap="tt">inode,
blockbitmap or inodebitmap</Literal> commands. The implementation is again trivial
- Get the necessary information from the group descriptor, initialize the
structures of the next type, and issue the <Literal remap="tt">setoffset / settype</Literal> pair.
</Para>
<Para>
For example, here is the implementation of the <Literal remap="tt">blockbitmap</Literal> command:
</Para>
<Para>
<ProgramListing>
void type_ext2_group_desc___blockbitmap (char *command_line)
{
long block_bitmap_offset;
char buffer [80];
block_bitmap_info.entry_num=0;
block_bitmap_info.group_num=group_info.group_num;
block_bitmap_offset=type_data.u.t_ext2_group_desc.bg_block_bitmap;
sprintf (buffer,"setoffset block %ld",block_bitmap_offset);dispatch (buffer);
sprintf (buffer,"settype block_bitmap");dispatch (buffer);
}
</ProgramListing>
</Para>
</Sect2>
</Sect1>
<Sect1>
<Title>The inode table</Title>
<Para>
The inode handling enables the user to move in the inode table, edit the
various attributes of the inode, and follow to the next stage - A file or a
directory.
</Para>
<Sect2>
<Title>The inode variables</Title>
<Para>
<ProgramListing>
struct ext2_inode {
__u16 i_mode; /* File mode */
__u16 i_uid; /* Owner Uid */
__u32 i_size; /* Size in bytes */
__u32 i_atime; /* Access time */
__u32 i_ctime; /* Creation time */
__u32 i_mtime; /* Modification time */
__u32 i_dtime; /* Deletion Time */
__u16 i_gid; /* Group Id */
__u16 i_links_count; /* Links count */
__u32 i_blocks; /* Blocks count */
__u32 i_flags; /* File flags */
union {
struct {
__u32 l_i_reserved1;
} linux1;
struct {
__u32 h_i_translator;
} hurd1;
} osd1; /* OS dependent 1 */
__u32 i_block[EXT2_N_BLOCKS]; /* Pointers to blocks */
__u32 i_version; /* File version (for NFS) */
__u32 i_file_acl; /* File ACL */
__u32 i_size_high; /* High 32bits of size */
__u32 i_faddr; /* Fragment address */
union {
struct {
__u8 l_i_frag; /* Fragment number */
__u8 l_i_fsize; /* Fragment size */
__u16 i_pad1;
__u32 l_i_reserved2[2];
} linux2;
struct {
__u8 h_i_frag; /* Fragment number */
__u8 h_i_fsize; /* Fragment size */
__u16 h_i_mode_high;
__u16 h_i_uid_high;
__u16 h_i_gid_high;
__u32 h_i_author;
} hurd2;
} osd2; /* OS dependent 2 */
};
</ProgramListing>
</Para>
<Para>
The above is the original source code definition. We can see that the inode
supports <Literal remap="tt">Operating systems specific structures</Literal>. In addition to the
expansion of the arrays, I have <Literal remap="tt">"flattened</Literal> the inode to support only
the <Literal remap="tt">Linux</Literal> declaration. It seemed that this one occasion of multiple
variable aliases didn't justify the complication of generally supporting
aliases. In any case, the above system specific variables are not used
internally by EXT2ED, and the user is free to change the definition in
<Literal remap="tt">ext2.descriptors</Literal> to accommodate for his needs.
</Para>
</Sect2>
<Sect2>
<Title>The handling functions</Title>
<Para>
The user interface to <Literal remap="tt">movement</Literal> is the usual <Literal remap="tt">next / prev /
entry</Literal> interface. There is really nothing special in those functions - The
size of the inode is fixed, the total number of inodes is known from the
superblock information, and the current entry can be figured up from the
device offset and the inode table start offset, which is known from the
corresponding group descriptor. Those functions are a bit older then some
other implementations of <Literal remap="tt">next</Literal> and <Literal remap="tt">prev</Literal>, and they do not save
information in a special structure. Rather, they recompute it when
necessary.
</Para>
<Para>
The <Literal remap="tt">show</Literal> command is overridden here, and provides a lot of additional
information about the inode - Its type, interpretation of the permissions,
special ext2 attributes (Immutable file, for example), and a lot more.
Again, the <Literal remap="tt">general show</Literal> is called first, and then the additional
information is written.
</Para>
</Sect2>
<Sect2>
<Title>Accessing files and directories</Title>
<Para>
From the inode, a <Literal remap="tt">file</Literal> or a <Literal remap="tt">directory</Literal> can typically be reached.
In order to treat a file, for example, its inode needs to be constantly
accessed. To satisfy that need, when editing a file or a directory, the
inode is still saved in memory - <Literal remap="tt">type_data</Literal> is not overwritten.
Rather, the following takes place:
<ItemizedList>
<ListItem>
<Para>
An internal global structure which is used by the types <Literal remap="tt">file</Literal>
and <Literal remap="tt">dir</Literal> handling functions is initialized by calling the
appropriate function.
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
The type is changed accordingly.
</Para>
</ListItem>
</ItemizedList>
The result is that a <Literal remap="tt">settype ext2_inode</Literal> is the only action necessary
to return to the inode - We actually never left it.
</Para>
<Para>
Follows the implementation of the inode's <Literal remap="tt">file</Literal> command:
</Para>
<Para>
<ProgramListing>
void type_ext2_inode___file (char *command_line)
{
char buffer [80];
if (!S_ISREG (type_data.u.t_ext2_inode.i_mode)) {
wprintw (command_win,"Error - Inode type is not file\n");
refresh_command_win (); return;
}
if (!init_file_info ()) {
wprintw (command_win,"Error - Unable to show file\n");
refresh_command_win ();return;
}
sprintf (buffer,"settype file");dispatch (buffer);
}
</ProgramListing>
</Para>
<Para>
As we can see - We just call <Literal remap="tt">init_file_info</Literal> to get the necessary
information from the inode, and set the type to <Literal remap="tt">file</Literal>. The next call
to <Literal remap="tt">show</Literal>, will dispatch to the <Literal remap="tt">file's show</Literal> implementation.
</Para>
</Sect2>
</Sect1>
<Sect1>
<Title>Viewing a file</Title>
<Para>
There isn't an ext2 kernel structure which corresponds to a file - A file is
just a series of blocks which are determined by its inode. As explained in
the last section, the inode is never actually left - The type is changed to
<Literal remap="tt">file</Literal> - A type which contains no variables, and a special structure is
initialized:
</Para>
<Para>
<ProgramListing>
struct struct_file_info {
struct ext2_inodes *inode_ptr;
long inode_offset;
long global_block_num,global_block_offset;
long block_num,blocks_count;
long file_offset,file_length;
long level;
unsigned char buffer [EXT2_MAX_BLOCK_SIZE];
long offset_in_block;
int display;
/* The following is used if the file is a directory */
long dir_entry_num,dir_entries_count;
long dir_entry_offset;
};
</ProgramListing>
</Para>
<Para>
The <Literal remap="tt">inode_ptr</Literal> will just point to the inode in <Literal remap="tt">type_data</Literal>, which
is not overwritten while the user is editing the file, as the
<Literal remap="tt">setoffset</Literal> command is not internally used. The <Literal remap="tt">buffer</Literal>
will contain the current viewed block of the file. The other variables
contain information about the current place in the file. For example,
<Literal remap="tt">global_block_num</Literal> just contains the current block number.
</Para>
<Para>
The general idea is that the above data structure will provide the file
handling functions all the accurate information which is needed to accomplish
their task.
</Para>
<Para>
The global structure of the above type, <Literal remap="tt">file_info</Literal>, is initialized by
<Literal remap="tt">init_file_info</Literal> in <Literal remap="tt">file_com.c</Literal>, which is called by the
<Literal remap="tt">type_ext2_inode___file</Literal> function when the user requests to watch the
file. <Literal remap="tt">It is updated as necessary to provide accurate information as long as
the file is edited.</Literal>
</Para>
<Sect2>
<Title>Returning to the file's inode</Title>
<Para>
Concerning the method I used to handle files, the above task is trivial:
<ProgramListing>
void type_file___inode (char *command_line)
{
dispatch ("settype ext2_inode");
}
</ProgramListing>
</Para>
</Sect2>
<Sect2>
<Title>File movement</Title>
<Para>
EXT2ED keeps track of the current position in the file. Movement inside the
current block is done using <Literal remap="tt">next, prev and offset</Literal> - They just change
<Literal remap="tt">file_info.offset_in_block</Literal>.
</Para>
<Para>
Movement between blocks is done using <Literal remap="tt">nextblock, prevblock and block</Literal>.
To accomplish this, the direct blocks, indirect blocks, etc, need to be
traced. This is done by <Literal remap="tt">file_block_to_global_block</Literal>, which accepts a
file's internal block number, and converts it to the actual filesystem block
number.
</Para>
<Para>
<ProgramListing>
long file_block_to_global_block (long file_block,struct struct_file_info *file_info_ptr)
{
long last_direct,last_indirect,last_dindirect;
long f_indirect,s_indirect;
last_direct=EXT2_NDIR_BLOCKS-1;
last_indirect=last_direct+file_system_info.block_size/4;
last_dindirect=last_indirect+(file_system_info.block_size/4) \
*(file_system_info.block_size/4);
if (file_block <= last_direct) {
file_info_ptr->level=0;
return (file_info_ptr->inode_ptr->i_block [file_block]);
}
if (file_block <= last_indirect) {
file_info_ptr->level=1;
file_block=file_block-last_direct-1;
return (return_indirect (file_info_ptr->inode_ptr-> \
i_block [EXT2_IND_BLOCK],file_block));
}
if (file_block <= last_dindirect) {
file_info_ptr->level=2;
file_block=file_block-last_indirect-1;
return (return_dindirect (file_info_ptr->inode_ptr-> \
i_block [EXT2_DIND_BLOCK],file_block));
}
file_info_ptr->level=3;
file_block=file_block-last_dindirect-1;
return (return_tindirect (file_info_ptr->inode_ptr-> \
i_block [EXT2_TIND_BLOCK],file_block));
}
</ProgramListing>
<Literal remap="tt">last_direct, last_indirect, etc</Literal>, contain the last internal block number
which is accessed by this method - If the requested block is smaller then
<Literal remap="tt">last_direct</Literal>, for example, it is a direct block.
</Para>
<Para>
If the block is a direct block, its number is just taken from the inode.
A non-direct block is handled by <Literal remap="tt">return_indirect, return_dindirect and
return_tindirect</Literal>, which correspond to indirect, double-indirect and
triple-indirect. Each of the above functions is constructed using the lower
level functions. For example, <Literal remap="tt">return_dindirect</Literal> is constructed as
follows:
</Para>
<Para>
<ProgramListing>
long return_dindirect (long table_block,long block_num)
{
long f_indirect;
f_indirect=block_num/(file_system_info.block_size/4);
f_indirect=return_indirect (table_block,f_indirect);
return (return_indirect (f_indirect,block_num%(file_system_info.block_size/4)));
}
</ProgramListing>
</Para>
</Sect2>
<Sect2>
<Title>Object memory</Title>
<Para>
The <Literal remap="tt">remember</Literal> command is overridden here and in the <Literal remap="tt">dir</Literal> type -
We just remember the inode of the file. It is just simpler to implement, and
doesn't seem like a big limitation.
</Para>
</Sect2>
<Sect2>
<Title>Changing data</Title>
<Para>
The <Literal remap="tt">set</Literal> command is overridden, and provides the same functionality
like the usage of the <Literal remap="tt">general set</Literal> command with no type declared. The
<Literal remap="tt">writedata</Literal> is overridden so that we'll write the edited block
(file_info.buffer) and not <Literal remap="tt">type_data</Literal> (Which contains the inode).
</Para>
</Sect2>
</Sect1>
<Sect1>
<Title>Directories</Title>
<Para>
A directory is just a file which is formatted according to a special format.
As such, EXT2ED handles directories and files quite alike. Specifically, the
same variable of type <Literal remap="tt">struct_file_info</Literal> which is used in the
<Literal remap="tt">file</Literal>, is used here.
</Para>
<Para>
The <Literal remap="tt">dir</Literal> type uses all the variables in the above structure, as
opposed to the <Literal remap="tt">file</Literal> type, which didn't use the last ones.
</Para>
<Sect2>
<Title>The search_dir_entries function</Title>
<Para>
The entire situation is similar to that which was described in the
<Literal remap="tt">file</Literal> type, with one main change:
</Para>
<Para>
The main function in <Literal remap="tt">dir_com.c</Literal> is <Literal remap="tt">search_dir_entries</Literal>. This
function will <Literal remap="tt">"run"</Literal> on the entire entries in the directory, and will
call a client's function each time. The client's function is supplied as an
argument, and will check the current entry for a match, based on its own
criterion. It will then signal <Literal remap="tt">search_dir_entries</Literal> whether to
<Literal remap="tt">ABORT</Literal> the search, whether it <Literal remap="tt">FOUND</Literal> the entry it was looking
for, or that the entry is still not found, and we should <Literal remap="tt">CONTINUE</Literal>
searching. Follows the declaration:
<ProgramListing>
struct struct_file_info search_dir_entries \
(int (*action) (struct struct_file_info *info),int *status)
/*
This routine runs on all directory entries in the current directory.
For each entry, action is called. The return code of action is one of
the following:
ABORT - Current dir entry is returned.
CONTINUE - Continue searching.
FOUND - Current dir entry is returned.
If the last entry is reached, it is returned, along with an ABORT status.
status is updated to the returned code of action.
*/
</ProgramListing>
</Para>
<Para>
With the above tool in hand, many operations are simple to perform - Here is
the way I counted the entries in the current directory:
</Para>
<Para>
<ProgramListing>
long count_dir_entries (void)
{
int status;
return (search_dir_entries (&action_count,&status).dir_entry_num);
}
int action_count (struct struct_file_info *info)
{
return (CONTINUE);
}
</ProgramListing>
It will just <Literal remap="tt">CONTINUE</Literal> until the last entry. The returned structure
(of type <Literal remap="tt">struct_file_info</Literal>) will have its number in the
<Literal remap="tt">dir_entry_num</Literal> field, and this is exactly the required number!
</Para>
</Sect2>
<Sect2>
<Title>The cd command</Title>
<Para>
The <Literal remap="tt">cd</Literal> command accepts a relative path, and moves there ...
The implementation is of-course a bit more complicated:
<OrderedList>
<ListItem>
<Para>
The path is checked that it is not an absolute path (from <Literal remap="tt">/</Literal>).
If it is, we let the <Literal remap="tt">general cd</Literal> to do the job by calling
directly <Literal remap="tt">type_ext2___cd</Literal>.
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
The path is divided into the nearest path and the rest of the path.
For example, cd 1/2/3/4 is divided into <Literal remap="tt">1</Literal> and into
<Literal remap="tt">2/3/4</Literal>.
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
It is the first part of the path that we need to search for in the
current directory. We search for it using <Literal remap="tt">search_dir_entries</Literal>,
which accepts the <Literal remap="tt">action_name</Literal> function as the user defined
function.
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
<Literal remap="tt">search_dir_entries</Literal> will scan the entire entries and will call
our <Literal remap="tt">action_name</Literal> function for each entry. In
<Literal remap="tt">action_name</Literal>, the required name will be checked against the
name of the current entry, and <Literal remap="tt">FOUND</Literal> will be returned when a
match occurs.
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
If the required entry is found, we dispatch a <Literal remap="tt">remember</Literal>
command to insert the current <Literal remap="tt">inode</Literal> into the object memory.
This is required to easily support <Literal remap="tt">symbolic links</Literal> - If we
find later that the inode pointed by the entry is actually a
symbolic link, we'll need to return to this point, and the above
inode doesn't have (and can't have, because of <Literal remap="tt">hard links</Literal>) the
information necessary to "move back".
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
We then dispatch a <Literal remap="tt">followinode</Literal> command to reach the inode
pointed by the required entry. This command will automatically
change the type to <Literal remap="tt">ext2_inode</Literal> - We are now at an inode, and
all the inode commands are available.
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
We check the inode's type to see if it is a directory. If it is, we
dispatch a <Literal remap="tt">dir</Literal> command to "enter the directory", and
recursively call ourself (The type is <Literal remap="tt">dir</Literal> again) by
dispatching a <Literal remap="tt">cd</Literal> command, with the rest of the path as an
argument.
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
If the inode's type is a symbolic link (only fast symbolic link were
meanwhile implemented. I guess this is typically the case.), we note
the path it is pointing at, the saved inode is recalled, we dispatch
<Literal remap="tt">dir</Literal> to get back to the original directory, and we call
ourself again with the <Literal remap="tt">link path/rest of the path</Literal> argument.
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
In any other case, we just stop at the resulting inode.
</Para>
</ListItem>
</OrderedList>
</Para>
</Sect2>
</Sect1>
<Sect1>
<Title>The block and inode allocation bitmaps</Title>
<Para>
The block allocation bitmap is reached by the corresponding group descriptor.
The group descriptor handling functions will save the necessary information
into a structure of the <Literal remap="tt">struct_block_bitmap_info</Literal> type:
</Para>
<Para>
<ProgramListing>
struct struct_block_bitmap_info {
unsigned long entry_num;
unsigned long group_num;
};
</ProgramListing>
</Para>
<Para>
The <Literal remap="tt">show</Literal> command is overridden, and will show the block as a series of
bits, each bit corresponding to a block. The main variable is the
<Literal remap="tt">entry_num</Literal> variable, declared above, which is just the current block
number in this block group. The current entry is highlighted, and the
<Literal remap="tt">next, prev and entry</Literal> commands just change the above variable.
</Para>
<Para>
The <Literal remap="tt">allocate and deallocate</Literal> change the specified bits. Nothing
special about them - They just contain code which converts between bit and
byte locations.
</Para>
<Para>
The <Literal remap="tt">inode allocation bitmap</Literal> is treated in much the same fashion, with
the same commands available.
</Para>
</Sect1>
<Sect1>
<Title>Filesystem size limitation</Title>
<Para>
While an ext2 filesystem has a size limit of <Literal remap="tt">4 TB</Literal>, EXT2ED currently
<Literal remap="tt">can't</Literal> handle filesystems which are <Literal remap="tt">bigger than 2 GB</Literal>.
</Para>
<Para>
This limitation results from my usage of <Literal remap="tt">32 bit long variables</Literal> and
of the <Literal remap="tt">fseek</Literal> filesystem call, which can't seek up to 4 TB.
</Para>
<Para>
By looking in the <Literal remap="tt">ext2 library</Literal> source code by <Literal remap="tt">Theodore Ts'o</Literal>,
I discovered the <Literal remap="tt">llseek</Literal> system call which can seek to a
<Literal remap="tt">64 bit unsigned long long</Literal> offset. Correcting the situation is not
difficult in concept - I need to change long into unsigned long long where
appropriate and modify <Literal remap="tt">disk.c</Literal> to use the llseek system call.
</Para>
<Para>
However, fixing the above limitation involves making changes in many places
in the code and will obviously make the entire code less stable. For that
reason, I chose to release EXT2ED as it is now and to postpone the above fix
to the next release.
</Para>
</Sect1>
<Sect1>
<Title>Conclusion</Title>
<Para>
Had I known in advance the structure of the ext2 filesystem, I feel that
the resulting design would have been quite different from the presented
design above.
</Para>
<Para>
EXT2ED has now two levels of abstraction - A <Literal remap="tt">general</Literal> filesystem, and an
<Literal remap="tt">ext2</Literal> filesystem, and the surface is more or less prepared for additions
of other filesystems. Had I approached the design in the "engineering" way,
I guess that the first level above would not have existed.
</Para>
</Sect1>
<Sect1>
<Title>Copyright</Title>
<Para>
EXT2ED is Copyright (C) 1995 Gadi Oxman.
</Para>
<Para>
EXT2ED is hereby placed under the GPL - Gnu Public License. You are free and
welcome to copy, view and modify the sources. My only wish is that my
copyright presented above will be left and that a list of the bug fixes,
added features, etc, will be provided.
</Para>
<Para>
The entire EXT2ED project is based, of-course, on the kernel sources. The
<Literal remap="tt">ext2.descriptors</Literal> distributed with EXT2ED is a slightly modified
version of the main ext2 include file, /usr/include/linux/ext2_fs.h. Follows
the original copyright:
</Para>
<Para>
<ProgramListing>
/*
* linux/include/linux/ext2_fs.h
*
* Copyright (C) 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995
* Remy Card (card@masi.ibp.fr)
* Laboratoire MASI - Institut Blaise Pascal
* Universite Pierre et Marie Curie (Paris VI)
*
* from
*
* linux/include/linux/minix_fs.h
*
* Copyright (C) 1991, 1992 Linus Torvalds
*/
</ProgramListing>
</Para>
</Sect1>
<Sect1>
<Title>Acknowledgments</Title>
<Para>
EXT2ED was constructed as a student project in the software
laboratory of the faculty of electrical-engineering in the
<Literal remap="tt">Technion - Israel's institute of technology</Literal>.
</Para>
<Para>
At first, I would like to thank <Literal remap="tt">Avner Lottem</Literal> and <Literal remap="tt">Doctor Ilana
David</Literal> for their interest and assistance in this project.
</Para>
<Para>
I would also like to thank the following people, who were involved in the
design and implementation of the ext2 filesystem kernel code and support
utilities:
<ItemizedList>
<ListItem>
<Para>
<Literal remap="tt">Remy Card</Literal>
Who designed, implemented and maintains the ext2 filesystem kernel
code, and some of the ext2 utilities. <Literal remap="tt">Remy Card</Literal> is also the
author of several helpful slides concerning the ext2 filesystem.
Specifically, he is the author of <Literal remap="tt">File Management in the Linux
Kernel</Literal> and of <Literal remap="tt">The Second Extended File System - Current
State, Future Development</Literal>.
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
<Literal remap="tt">Wayne Davison</Literal>
Who designed the ext2 filesystem.
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
<Literal remap="tt">Stephen Tweedie</Literal>
Who helped designing the ext2 filesystem kernel code and wrote the
slides <Literal remap="tt">Optimizations in File Systems</Literal>.
</Para>
</ListItem>
<ListItem>
<Para>
<Literal remap="tt">Theodore Ts'o</Literal>
Who is the author of several ext2 utilities and of the ext2 library
<Literal remap="tt">libext2fs</Literal> (which I didn't use, simply because I didn't know
it exists when I started to work on my project).
</Para>
</ListItem>
</ItemizedList>
</Para>
<Para>
Lastly, I would like to thank, of-course, <Literal remap="tt">Linus Torvalds</Literal> and the
<Literal remap="tt">Linux community</Literal> for providing all of us with such a great operating
system.
</Para>
<Para>
Please contact me in a case of bug report, suggestions, or just about
anything concerning EXT2ED.
</Para>
<Para>
Enjoy,
</Para>
<Para>
Gadi Oxman <tgud@tochnapc2.technion.ac.il>
</Para>
<Para>
Haifa, August 95
</Para>
</Sect1>
</Article>