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A PRILIMINARY PROJECT REPORT ON

Delayed Allocation in Windows Kernel


SUBMITTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF PUNE, PUNE IN THE PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE AWARD OF THE DEGREE OF

BACHELOR OF ENGINEERING (Computer Engineering)


BY Piyush Agrawal Guruprasad Tahasildar Vipul Satav Varun Yaul

DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER ENGINEERING PUNE INSTITUTE OF COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY


SR. NO. 27, PUNE SATARA ROAD, DHANKAWADI PUNE 411043

OCTOBER 2007

CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that the preliminary project report entitled

Delayed Allocation in Windows Kernel


Submitted by

Piyush Agrawal Guruprasad Tahasildar Vipul Satav Varun Yaul


is a bonafide work carried out by them under the supervision of Prof. S. S. Pawar and it is approved for the partial fulfillment of the requirement of University of Pune, Pune for the award of the degree of Bachelor of Engineering (Computer Engineering) This project work has not been earlier submitted to any other Institute or University for the award of any degree or diploma.

Prof. S. S. Pawar Internal Guide Department of Computer Engineering

Prof. Rajesh B. Ingle Head, Department of Computer Engineering

External Examiner Place : Pune Date :

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
We would like to express our sincere gratitude to a number of people who were instrumental in making this project a success. We would like to take the opportunity to first of all thank our internal guide, Prof. S. S. Pawar for the constant encouragement and assistance he provided us at every stage of the project. We are also grateful to Prof. R.B. Ingle, Head of Computer Department, Pune Institute of Computer Technology and Other staff members for giving important suggestions. Our external guide Mr. Vivek Das Gupta, Mr. Pawan Rathi and Ms. Priyanka Mohite, Calsoft has always been very prompt at extending their helping hands and sharing their technical knowledge about the subject. We would also like to thank the faculty and all the lab assistants of the Computer Department who provided us access to the lab facilities from time to time. We would like to express our gratitude towards our parents, who have always been a source of inspiration and motivation.

Piyush Agrawal

Guruprasad Tahasildar Vipul Satav Varun Yaul

Abstract
When user requests to write data on secondary storage number of operations are performed. The main factor that stands in read/write operations is disk access. Now data to be written on secondary storage comes to cache. After fixed interval thread scans through cache and finds out dirty data. This dirty data is flushed to secondary storage. For that purpose blocks are allocated to that data on secondary storage. Now even though modifications are going on file and even though there is space in RAM its partial data is compulsorily flushed to secondary storage for which blocks are allocated. If file modifications are carried out frequently and some what slowly then it will create fragmentation in such case. So here we will delay this flushing i.e. we will hold data in memory until it is flushed because of memory pressure (i.e. when sufficient memory is not available for other applications). Because of that actual allocation for that file will be delayed. This will help to reduce fragmentation and will reduce disk accesses. But this delayed flushing may lead to inconsistency in the system when system crashes because of which all data on cache is lost. For that we are providing backup for user data ,which is currently on cache. This will help for user data recovery.

Index
1. Introduction..1 1.1 Need of the Project.1 1.2 Project Idea.....1 1.3 Literature Survey........1 2. Problem Definition and Scope ..3 2.1 Problem Statement...3 2.2 Goals and Objective. 2.3 Statement of scope 2.4 Software Context.. 2.5 Major Constraints. 2.6 Hardware Resources Required 2.7 Software Resources Required 2.8 Area of Project..

3. Software Requirement and Scope .5 3.1 Introduction...5 3.2 Product Overview...6 3.3 Usage Scenarios......6 3.4 Functional Model and Description.9 3.5 Restrictions, Limitations and Constraints..11 4. Project Plan .12 4.1 Introduction............12 4.2 Project Estimates ...13 4.3 Risk Management...14 4.4 Project Schedule. ...14 4.5 Staff Organization..15 4.2 Tracking and Control Mechanisms16 5. High Level Design Document .....17

5.1 Introduction............17 5.2 Data Design ...18 5.3 Architectural and Component Design18 5.4 User Interface Design.....21 5.5 Advantages.........23 5.6 Restrictions, Limitations and Constraints..............................................23 6. Summary and Conclusion.....24 7. Diagrams ....25 8. References .....26

1. Introduction
1.1 Need of the project:
Today disk capacity is growing exponentially but the disk access speed does not increase at the same pace. If files are frequently modified then overhead of I/O operations will lead to degrade the performance of the system. Time required for any modification on files mainly depends upon disk bandwidth. Also writing this updates separately to disk increases fragmentation. 1.2 Project Idea: To avoid above stated loopholes we propose Delayed allocation for Windows. Here, actual write to disk and hence the allocation of the disk space is delayed until the data is to be flushed to the disk. The file wont be allocated space till main memory becomes full. So, it will try to make the contiguity in files allocated space. It also reduces number of i/o operations. When any file is modified, the modified data for that file is present on the main memory. Now after each fixed time interval (1-3 seconds), system deferred procedure timer pops and scans for dirty pages in cache memory. Out of collected dirty pages 1/4th are actually flushed to secondary by CcFlushCache () routine. Now call to this routine is actually delayed for delayed flushing. Because of delayed write there is risk of data loss. Therefore after certain writes modified data will be transferred to protected file on secondary. When that corresponding data is written at its proper location on secondary from main memory, it will be deleted from our protected file. This file can be used at the time of recovery. At the time of recovery data in this file will be given to system as fresh writes.

1.3 Literature survey:


We decided to work in windows kernel. Windows File System was our basic area of project. So we started studying the various articles and the books related to windows file system. We went through various advances and limitations in this file system. We also studied the features of the various file systems in linux. Our basic reference book was Windows NT File System Internals by Rajiv Nagar. We also studied the book Windows 2000 Device Driver Book by Art baker. Regarding the online information, we took a lot of help from MSDN, Microsoft website and the various online mailing lists.

2. Problem Definition and Scope


2.1 Problem statement:
Create a file system filter driver which will intercept every i/o request and will delay actual write operation and hence allocation of blocks on secondary storage. It will also ensure user data recovery in case of system crash.

2.2 Goals and Objectives:


Basic idea is to enhance performance of i/o operations by delaying the allocation and actual write operation. When request to modify a file comes data is not directly written to disk neither blocks are allocated immediately. When we have to flush data from memory because of memory pressure or some other reason then actual blocks are allocated and write operation is performed. Thus we will achieve goal of increased efficiency of read/write operation and reduced fragmentation. Presently the user data recovery is absent. So, we are aiming to achieve recovery for user data.

2.3 Statement of scope:


Frequent modification requests to file can be satisfied from memory itself rather than going to secondary memory each time. Also in case of temporary files, (i.e. files which are short lived) file is not actually created in secondary storage. It resides only in main memory and deleted from there only. In case of sudden crash, data in cache is lost. But this data is available in our protected file. Hence we can use this file to recover user data.

2.4 Software Context: 2.5 Major constraints

2.6 Hardware Resources Required


1. IBM compatible PC with Pentium 4 Processor (2.4 GHz) 2. Minimum 512 MB RAM

2.7 Software Resources Required


1. Microsoft Windows NT (XP) 2. Windows Device Driver Kit (DDK) 3. VMware Workstation 4. DbgView 5. WinObj 6. OSR Loader

2.8 Area of Project


File System (Windows)

3. Software Requirement Specification


3.1 Introduction
3.1.1 Purpose of Document Scope of Document
The scope and purpose of this project is as follows:To present an overview of the project. A more detailed view of course of the project will follow which will include deadlines, development phases and deliverables. Further, a discussion of the manner in which the work will be completed within each sub team and how the team manager will oversee and guide this will be included. To present an analysis of the perceived problem from which a list of specific unambiguous requirements will be formulated from the users point of view. This list will include functional, external interface, performance and other requirements as well as summary of future expectations. Design constraints and attributes leading to the finished product will be specified. To discuss the approach adopted to carry the project through the development process to fruition. This will include the analysis and design techniques used. This report will not include implementation issues and is primarily a document centered on the complete and comprehensive exploration of the design of the product. Its purpose is to be used as the basis and reference for implementation of the final project.

3.1.2 Overview of responsibilities of Developer


We as developer of our project will follow the given responsibilities 1. Completing the tasks within the deadlines. 2. Informing our internal and external guides regularly about our performance. 3. Maintaining the log book. 4. Implementation of project in a well planned manner. 5. Dividing the tasks among projectees equally.

3.2 Product Overview


3.2.1 Overview of entire system: Basically this product will intercept each read/write request and will hold
dirty data in main memory until it is flushed because of memory pressure. Now for each modified file one structure is created in our protected file on secondary. Modified data will be written to this protected file and its reference is kept in that structure. Now a central structure is created in main memory which will have pointer to structures in protected file. Now at the time of recovery this protected file will be scanned for structures and from those structures user data will be sent to system as a fresh write request.

3.2.2 Hardware Requirements:


Windows 2000 compatible PC

3.2.3 Software Requirements:


Windows OS (NT Kernel)

3.3 Usage Scenario:


3.3.1 User Profiles:
a) Developer: Developer has to decide that when to copy data in memory to recovery file. Also he has to decide size of the recovery file depending on the main memory. Developer has to handle deletion of the data from the protected file when data is actually written to secondary storage. He has to carry out recovery of data from recovery file after system crash.

3.3.2 Use Case Views:

Recovery

File System
(f rom Actors)

Developer
(f rom Actors)

Write

Cache
(f rom Actors)

Decide recovery FileSize

Is write reques t

Accept file s ts em reques t

Is m em ory full

[yes ] [no] [yes ] Sys tem handles read request Flus h data to s econdary

[no]

Copy data to cache

copy data to recovery file

Delete correes ponding data from recovery file

Fig: Activity diagram for write

Start

Check for the data size in recovery file

system boots

[file is empty]

[file is not empty]

collect IRP for write

No recovery required

Send IRP to file system

End

Fig: Activity diagram for recovery

Start

System boot Is recovery file already present [yes]

create recovery file of size 1.5 times of RAM size

[no]

End

Fig: Activity diagram for determining size of recovery file

3.4

Data model and description


3.4.1 Data description
Shared cache
It is allocated by the cache manager when caching is first initiated for a file

stream via some file object. This shared cache map is used by all open instances for the file stream. It is unique for each file stream.

Private cache
It is allocated by cache manager for each file object when caching is initiated using that file object. It is unique to file object, and therefore multiple private cache maps can exist concurrently for an open file stream.

IRP
IRP is nothing but input output request packet. Kernel mode drivers receive I/O request packets which contain details of operation being requested. The recipient of IRP forwards it on to another kernel mode driver for additional processing or completing the IRP.

Recovery file
This file is created by developer and keeps user data that resides in main memory and not yet flushed to secondary storage. It is used at the time of recovery to track down the lost data because of the system crash.

3.4.2 Data relationship

IRP

Filter Driver Shared cache

Private cache

Prescribed location

Backup

Consist of

File Block Structure

Data Blocks

Fig: Data Relationship Diagram

3.5

Functional Model And Description


Data Flow Diagram
The data will flow in our system when the write request will come. This data flow

3.5.1

is managed in the two data flow diagrams as DFD level 0 and level 1.

Write request

Control System

File System

Fig: DFD level-0

Write request

Control System

File System

Normal Write

Recovery File Recovery Write Send data to recovery file Prescribed location in FS

Holds data till memory pressure

Scan recovery file after boot and send if any data as a direct write

Fig: DFD Level-1

3.6 Behavioral Model and Description:


3.6.1 State Transition Diagram:

3.7 Restrictions, Limitations and Constraints


There is overhead of extra write to recovery file but it is must for recovery. After every successful flush we have to delete corresponding data from recovery file.

3.8 Validation Criteria


Recovery procedure can be validated using recovery file.

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