# dwarfs-format(5) -- DwarFS File System Format v2.5

## DESCRIPTION

This document describes the DwarFS file system format, version 2.5.

## FILE STRUCTURE

A DwarFS file system image is just a sequence of blocks, optionally
prefixed by a "header", which is typically some sort of shell script.
Each block has the following format:

         ┌───┬───┬───┬───┬───┬───┬───┬───┐
    0x00 │'D'│'W'│'A'│'R'│'F'│'S'│MAJ│MIN│  MAJ=0x02, MIN=0x05 for v2.5
         ├───┴───┴───┴───┴───┴───┴───┴───┤
    0x08 │                               │  Used for full (slow) integrity
         ├─ SHA-512/256 integrity hash  ─┤  check with `dwarfsck`.
    0x10 │  over the remainder of the    │
         ├─ block data, starting at     ─┤
    0x18 │  offset 0x28.                 │
         ├─                             ─┤
    0x20 │                               │
         ├───────────────────────────────┤
    0x28 │  XXH3-64 hash over remainder  │  Used for fast integrity check.
         ├───────────────┬───────┬───────┤
    0x30 │Section Number │SecType│CompAlg│  All integer fields are in LE
         ├───────────────┴───────┴───────┤  byte order.
    0x38 │   Length of remaining data    │
         ├───────────────────────────────┤
    0x40 │                               │
         │ Section data compressed using │
         │ CompAlg algorithm.            │
         │                               │
         │                               │
         │                               │
         └───────────────────────────────┘

A couple of notes:

- No padding is added between blocks.

- The list of blocks can easily be traversed by using the length field
  to skip to the start of the next section.

- Corruption can easily be detected using the XXH3-64 hash. Computation
  of this hash is so fast that it is in fact checked every single time a
  file system block is loaded.

- Integrity can furthermore be checked using the SHA-512/256 hash. This
  is much slower, but should rarely be needed.

- All header fields, except for the magic and version number, are
  protected by the hashes.

- In case of corruption, sections can easily be retrieved by scanning
  for the magic. The version number can be recovered by looking at all
  sections and choosing the majority. The explicit section number helps
  to recover data if multiple sections are missing.

- A major version number change will render the format incompatible.

- A minor version number change will be backwards compatible, i.e. an
  old program will refuse to read a file system with a minor version
  larger than the one it supports. However, a new program will still
  read all file systems with a smaller minor version number.

### Header Detection

In order to access the file system data when it is prefixed by a header,
the size of the header must be known. It can either be given to the
tools or the FUSE driver explicitly (using e.g. the `--image-offset` or
`-o offset` options), or it can be determined automatically (by passing
`auto` as the argument to the aforementioned options).

Automatic detection works by scanning the file for the section header
magic (`DWARFS`) and validating the match by looking up the second
section header using the length of the first section and also checking
its magic. It is rather unlikely that a file is created accidentally
that would pass this check, although one could be crafted manually
without any problems.

### Section Types

There are currently 4 different section types.

- `BLOCK` (0):
  A block of data. This is where all file data is stored. There can be
  an arbitrary number of blocks of this type.

- `METADATA_V2_SCHEMA` (7):
  The schema used to layout the `METADATA_V2` block contents. This is
  stored in "compact" thrift encoding.

- `METADATA_V2` (8):
  This section contains the bulk of the metadata. It's essentially just
  a collection of bit-packed arrays and structures. The exact layout of
  each list and structure depends on the actual data and is stored
  separately in `METADATA_V2_SCHEMA`.

- `SECTION_INDEX` (9):
  The section index is, well, an index of all sections in the file
  system. If present (creation of the index can be suppressed with
  `--no-section-index`), this is *required* to be the last section.
  Each entry in the section index is a 64-bit value with the upper
  16 bits being the section type and the lower 48 bits being the
  offset relative to the first section. That is, the section index
  is independent of whether or not a header is present before the
  first section. The whole point of the section index is to avoid
  having to build an index by visiting all section headers.
  In order to find the start of the section index, you only have
  to read the last 64-bit value from the file, check if the upper
  16 bits match the `SECTION_INDEX`, then add the image offset
  (header size) to the lower 48 bits. At that position in the
  file, you should find a valid section header for the section
  index.

- `HISTORY` (10):
  File system history information as defined `thrift/history.thrift`.
  This is stored in "compact" thrift encoding. Zero or more history
  sections are supported.

## METADATA FORMAT

Here is a high-level overview of how all the bits and pieces relate
to each other:

    ═════════════           ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
     DwarFS v2.5            │                                                                         │
    ═════════════           │         ┌───────────────────────────────────────────┐                   │
                            │         │                                           │                   │
              dir_entries[] ▼         │              inodes[]                     │   directories[]   │
    ╔════╗   ┌────────────────┐       │  S_IFDIR ──►┌───────────────────┐         │  ┌────────────────┴─┐
    ║root╟──►│ name_index:  0 │       │             │ mode_index:     0 ├──────┐  └─►│ parent_entry:  0 │
    ╚════╝   │ inode_num:   0 ├───────┴────────────►│ owner_index:    0 │      │     │ first_entry:   1 │
             ├────────────────┤                     │ group_index:    0 │      │     | self_entry:    0 |
         ┌───┤ name_index:  2 │                     │ atime_offset:   0 │      │     ├──────────────────┤
    ┌────┼───┤ inode_num:   5 ├───────┐             │ mtime_offset: 417 │      │     │ parent_entry:  0 │
    │    │   ├────────────────┤       │             │ ctime_offset:   0 │      │     │ first_entry:  11 │
    │ ┌──┼───┤ name_index:  3 │       │             ├───────────────────┤      │     | self_entry:    1 |
    │ │  │   │ inode_num:   9 ├────┐  │             │        ...        │      │     ├──────────────────┤
    │ │  │   ├────────────────┤    │  │  S_IFLNK ──►├───────────────────┤      │     │ parent_entry:  5 │
    │ │  │   │                │    │  │             │ mode_index:     2 │      │     │ first_entry:  12 │
    │ │  │   │      ...       │    │  └────────────►│ owner_index:    2 │      │     | self_entry:    7 |
    │ │  │   │                │    │                │ group_index:    0 │      │     ├──────────────────┤
    │ │  │   └────────────────┘    │                │ atime_offset:   0 │      │     │       ...        │
    │ │  │                         │                │ mtime_offset: 298 │      │     └──────────────────┘
    │ │  │                         │                │ ctime_offset:   0 │      │
    │ │  │    names[]              │                ├───────────────────┤      │      modes[]
    │ │  │   ┌────────────┐        │                │        ...        │      │     ┌─────────────┐
    │ │  │   │ "usr"      │        │     S_IFREG ──►├───────────────────┤      └────►│   0040775   │
    │ │  │   ├────────────┤        │     (unique)   │ mode_index:     1 │            ├─────────────┤
    │ │  │   │ "share"    │        ├───────────────►│ owner_index:    0 ├──────┐     │   0100644   │
    │ │  │   ├────────────┤        │                │ group_index:    0 │      │     ├─────────────┤
    │ │  └──►│ "words"    │        │                │ atime_offset:   0 │      │     │     ...     │
    │ │      ├────────────┤        │                │ mtime_offset: 298 │      │     └─────────────┘
    │ └─────►│ "lib"      │        │                │ ctime_offset:   0 │      │
    │        ├────────────┤        │                ├───────────────────┤      │      uids[]
    │        │ "ls"       │        │                │        ...        │      │     ┌─────────────┐
    │        ├────────────┤        │     S_IFREG ──►├───────────────────┤      └────►│       0     │
    │        │    ...     │        │  ┌──(shared)   │ mode_index:     4 │            ├─────────────┤
    ▼        └────────────┘        │  │             │ owner_index:    2 │            │    1000     │
    (inode-off)                    │  │             │ group_index:    1 ├──────┐     ├─────────────┤
    │                              │  │             │ atime_offset:   0 │      │     │     ...     │
    │         symlink_table[]      │  │             │ mtime_offset: 298 │      │     └─────────────┘
    │        ┌────────────┐        │  │             │ ctime_offset:   0 │      │
    │        │      1     ├───┐    │  │             ├───────────────────┤      │      gids[]
    │        ├────────────┤   │    │  │             │        ...        │      │     ┌─────────────┐
    └───────►│      0     │   │    │  │  S_IFBLK ──►├───────────────────┤      │     │       0     │
             ├────────────┤   │    │  │  S_IFCHR    │                   │      │     ├─────────────┤
             │    ...     │   │  ┌─┼──┼─────────────┤        ...        │      └────►│     100     │
             └────────────┘   │  │ │  │             │                   │            ├─────────────┤
                              │  │ │  │ S_IFSOCK ──►├───────────────────┤            │     ...     │
                              │  │ │  │  S_IFIFO    │                   │            └─────────────┘
              symlinks[]      │  │ │  │             │        ...        │
             ┌────────────┐   │  │ │  │             │                   │
             │ "../foo"   │   │  │ │  │             └───────────────────┘                 chunks[]
             ├────────────┤   │  │ │  │                                                  ┌──────────────┐
             │ "foo/bar"  │◄──┘  │ │  │                                            ┌────►│ block:     0 │
             ├────────────┤      │ └──┼──────────►(inode-off)                      │     │ offset: 1698 │
             │    ...     │      │    │                │            chunk_table[]  │     │ size:   1012 │
             └────────────┘      ▼    ▼                │           ┌─────────────┐ │     ├──────────────┤
                       (inode-off)    (inode-off)      └──────────►│      0      ├─┘ ┌──►│ block:     0 │
                                 │    │                            ├─────────────┤   │   │ offset: 1604 │
              devices[]          │    │      shared_files_table[]  │      1      ├───┘   │ size:     94 │
             ┌────────────┐      │    │     ┌───────────┐          ├─────────────┤       ├──────────────┤
             │   0x0107   │      │    └────►│     0     ├───┬─────►│      2      ├───┬──►│ block:     0 │
             ├────────────┤      │          ├───────────┤   │      ├─────────────┤   │   │ offset:    0 │
             │   0x0502   │◄─────┘          │     0     ├───┘      │      2      ├───┘   │ size:   1517 │
             ├────────────┤                 ├───────────┤          ├─────────────┤       ├──────────────┤
             │    ...     │                 │    ...    │          │     ...     │       │     ...      │
             └────────────┘                 └───────────┘          └─────────────┘       └──────────────┘

Thanks to the bit-packing, fields that are unused or only contain a
single (zero) value, e.g. a `group_index` that's always zero because
all files belong to the same group, does not occupy any space in the
metadata block.

### Determining Inode Offsets

Before you can start traversing the metadata, you need to determine
the offsets for symlinks, regular files, devices etc. in the `inodes`
list. The index into this list is the `inode_num` from `dir_entries`,
but you can perform direct lookups based on the inode number as well.
The `inodes` list is strictly in the following order:

- directory inodes (`S_IFDIR`)
- symlink inodes (`S_IFLNK`)
- regular *unique* file inodes (`S_IREG`)
- regular *shared* file inodes (`S_IREG`)
- character/block device inodes (`S_IFCHR`, `S_IFBLK`)
- socket/pipe inodes (`S_IFSOCK`, `S_IFIFO`)

The offsets can thus be found by using a binary search with a
predicate on the inode mode. The shared file offset can be found
by subtracting the length of `shared_files_table` from the total
number of regular files.

### Unique and Shared File Inodes

The difference between *unique* and *shared* file inodes is that
there is only one *unique* file inode that references a particular
index in the `chunk_table`, whereas there are multiple *shared*
file inodes that will reference the same index. This is how DwarFS
implements file-level de-duplication beyond hardlinks. Hardlinks
share the same inode. Duplicate files that are not hardlinked each
have a unique inode, but still reference the same content through
the `chunk_table`.

The `shared_files_table` provides the necessary indirection that
maps a *shared* file inode to a `chunk_table` index.

### Traversing the Metadata

You typically start at the root directory which is at `dir_entries[0]`,
`inodes[0]` and `directories[0]`. Note that the root directory
implicitly has no name, so that `dir_entries[0].name_index`
should not be used.

To determine the contents of a directory, we determine the range
of entries from `directories[inode_num].first_entry` to
`directories[inode_num + 1].first_entry`. If both values are equal,
the directory is empty. Otherwise, we can look up the entries in
`dir_entries[]`.

So for directory inodes, you can directly index into `directories`
using the inode number.

For link inodes, you can index into `symlink_table`, but you have
to adjust the index for the link inode offset determined before:

    link_index = symlink_table[inode_num - link_inode_offset]

With that, you can look up the contents of the symlink:

    contents = symlinks[link_index]

For *unique* regular file inodes, you can index into `chunk_table`
after adjusting the index:

    chunk_index = inode_num - file_inode_offset

For *shared* regular file inodes, you can index into the (unpacked)
`shared_files_table`:

    shared_index = shared_files[inode_num - file_inode_offset - num_unique_files]

Then, you can index into `chunk_table`, but you need to adjust the
index once more:

    chunk_index = shared_index + num_unique_files

The range of chunks that make up a regular file inode is
`chunk_table[chunk_index]` to `chunk_table[chunk_index + 1]`. If
these values are equal, the file is empty. Otherwise, you need
to look up the range of chunks in `chunks`.

Each chunk references a range of bytes in one file system `BLOCK`.
These need to be concatenated to produce the file contents.

Both `chunk_table` and `directories` have a sentinel entry at the
end to make sure you can perform range lookups for all indices.

Last but not least, to read the device id for a device inode, you
can index into `devices`:

    device_id = devices[inode_num - device_inode_offset]

## OPTIONALLY PACKED STRUCTURES

The overview above assumes metadata without any additional packing,
which can be produced using:

    mkdwarfs --pack-metadata=none,plain

However, this isn't the default, and parts of the metadata are
likely stored in a packed format. These are mostly easy to unpack.

### Shared Files Table Packing

The `shared_files_table` can be stored in a packed format that
only encodes the number of shared links to a `chunk_table` index.
As the minimum number of links is always 2 (otherwise it wouldn't
be shared), the numbers in the packed format are additionally
offset by 2. So for example, a packed table like

    [0, 3, 1, 0, 1]

would unpack to:

    [0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 4]

The packed format is used when `options.packed_shared_files_table`
is true.

### Directories Packing

The `directories` table, when stored in packed format, omits
all `parent_entry` fields and uses delta compression for the
`first_entry` fields.

In order to unpack all information, you first have to delta-
decompress the `first_entry` fields, then traverse the whole
directory tree once to fill in the `parent_entry` fields.
This sounds like a lot of work, but it's actually reasonably
fast. For example, for a file system with 15 million entries
in 90,000 directories, reconstructing the `directories` takes
only about 50 milliseconds.

The packed format is used when `options.packed_directories`
is true.

### Chunk Table Packing

The `chunk_table` can also be stored delta-compressed and
must be unpacked accordingly.

The packed format is used when `options.packed_chunk_table`
is true.

### Names and Symlinks String Table Packing

Both the `names` and `symlinks` tables can be stored in a
packed format in `compact_names` and `compact_symlinks`.

There are two separate packing schemes which can be combined.
If none of these schemes is active, the difference between
e.g. `names` and `compact_names` is that the former is stored
as a "proper" list, whereas the latter is stored as a single
string plus an index of offsets. As lists of strings store
both offset and length for each element, this already saves
the storage for the length fields, which can easily be
determined from the offsets at run-time.

If the `packed_index` scheme is used in addition, the index
is stored delta-compressed.

Last but not least, the individual strings can be compressed
as well. The [fsst library](https://github.com/cwida/fsst)
allows for compression of short strings with random access
and is typically able to reduce the overall size of the
string tables by 50%, using a dictionary that is only a few
hundred bytes long. If a `symtab` is set for the string table,
this compression is used.

## AUTHOR

Written by Marcus Holland-Moritz.

## COPYRIGHT

Copyright (C) Marcus Holland-Moritz.

## SEE ALSO

mkdwarfs(1), dwarfs(1), dwarfsextract(1), dwarfsck(1)
