xref: /inferno-os/man/3/tinyfs (revision 7ef44d652ae9e5e1f5b3465d73684e4a54de73c0)
TINYFS 3
NAME
tinyfs - file system for miniscule devices
SYNOPSIS
.EX bind -c #Fname /nvfs
DESCRIPTION
Tinyfs provides file system access to the contents of low-capacity devices, ranging from several hundred bytes (at least 144 bytes) to at most the order of a kilobyte. It is provided to support file system access to small non-volatile memories, as for instance are found in some real-time clock chips, where IDs, keys, PINs, certificates and the like might be stored by either client or server.

The file system has only one directory, its root, which can contain only files. Once created, a write can only append to a file; random updates are not allowed, although the file could be truncated and rewritten.

The device specifier following the #F device name is the name of a file in /dev on which the tiny file system will live. For instance, #Fnvram refers to /dev/nvram . The device must allow seek and write. During the attach , the system scans the device, checking the file system structure by building a table of files, and checking a checksum stored in each block; inconsistent structure is reinitialised, and thus a previously unused device will emerge correctly formatted as an empty tiny file system.

FILES
.TF /nvfs

/nvfs conventional mount point used by init (8)

SOURCE
/os/port/devtinyfs.c