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Virtual File System

To be distinguished from a file system implementation, a Virtual File System allows users to associate file names, e.g. /home/my_file.txt, with data on a device.

1 This is typically done as follows:

  1. A program makes a system call open() to the kernel, to access the file /home/my_file.txt
  2. The VFS, a part of the kernel, consults the mount table to see which device /home lives on, e.g. /dev/sda1
  3. A file system driver, specific to the concrete file system reads data from the device. (Remember, the concrete file system is on the disk. We say that the disk is formatted)
  4. The file system driver is hardware independent. The actual reading from the hardware is handled by a hardware specific driver

2 Sources