file system concepts#

A file system (aka filesystem) is a software structure that dictates how data is organized on a storage device. The filesystem must be created and mounted to a directory in the Linux tree for it to become accessible. The Linux tree is a hierarchy of directory and file locations, names and permissions, which have been standardized in a set of guidelines defined in the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (FHS) document. A common misconception is that a filesystem is the directory structure visible in the terminal emulator; That is incorrect. The relationship between a filesystem and the Linux tree structure is that a filesystem, that is found on a device represented by a virtual block device, attaches to the Linux tree at the mount points.

A filesystem supports additional operations such as backup, labeling and resizing.

types of filesystems#

A filesystem can be:

• local, i.e. installed on a server that has directly-attached storage devices. Examples: XFS and ext4. XFS is the default filesystem on RHEL machines.
• network-and-client, i.e. storage is accessible over a network. Example of such filesystems: NFS.
• volume managing.

references#

• docs.redhat.com/en/documentation/red_hat_enterprise_linux/10/html/managing_file_systems/overview-of-available-file-systems
• docs.redhat.com/en/documentation/red_hat_enterprise_linux/10/html/managing_file_systems/getting-started-with-xfs
• docs.redhat.com/en/documentation/red_hat_enterprise_linux/10/html/managing_file_systems/mounting-file-systems
• docs.redhat.com/en/documentation/red_hat_enterprise_linux/7/html/storage_administration_guide/ch-filesystem
• refspecs.linuxfoundation.org/FHS_3.0/fhs/index.html