PCFS(4FS) File Systems PCFS(4FS)

pcfs — FAT formatted file system

#include <sys/param.h>
#include <sys/mount.h>
#include <sys/fs/pc_fs.h>

int
mount(const char *spec, const char *dir, int mflag, "pcfs", NULL, 0, const char *optptr, int optlen);

pcfs is a file system type that enables direct access to files on FAT formatted disks from within the SunOS operating system.

Once mounted, pcfs provides standard file operations and semantics. Using pcfs you can create, delete, read, and write files on a FAT formatted disk. You can also create and delete directories and list files in a directory.

pcfs supports FAT12 (floppies) and FAT16 and FAT32 file systems.

pcfs file systems can be force umounted using the --f argument to umount(8).

The pcfs file system contained on the block special file identified by spec is mounted on the directory identified by dir. spec and dir are pointers to pathnames. mflag specifies the mount options. The MS_DATA bit in mflag must be set. Mount options can be passed to pcfs using the optptr and optlen arguments. See mount_pcfs(8) for a list of mount options supported by pcfs

Because FAT formatted media can record file timestamps between January 1st 1980 and December 31st 2127, it's not possible to fully represent UNIX time_t in pcfs for 32 bit or 64 bit programs. In particular, if post-2038 timestamps are present on a FAT formatted medium and pcfs returns these, 32bit applications may unexpectedly fail with EOVERFLOW errors. To prevent this, the default behaviour of pcfs has been modified to clamp post-2038 timestamps to the latest possible value for a 32bit time_t, which is January 19th 2038, 03:14:06 UTC when setting and retrieving file timestamps. You can override this behavior using the noclamptime mount option, as described in mount_pcfs(8).

Timestamps on FAT formatted media are recorded in local time. If the recording and receiving systems use different timezones, the representation of timestamps shown on the two systems for the same medium might vary. To correct this, pcfs provides a timezone mount option to force interpretation of timestamps as read from a FAT formatted medium in a given timezone (that of the recorder). By default, the local timezone of the receiver is used. See mount_pcfs(8) for details.

The root directory of a FAT formatted medium has no timestamps and pcfs returns the time when the mount was done as timestamp for the root of the filesystem.

The FAT filesystem doesn't support multiple links. As a result, the link count for all files and directories in pcfs is hard-coded as “1”.

Use the following command to mount pcfs from diskette:

mount -F pcfs device-special directory-name

You can use:

mount directory-name
if the following line is in your /etc/vfstab file: 
device-special - directory-name pcfs - no rw

Use the following command to mount pcfs from non-diskette media:

mount -F pcfs device-special:logical-drive directory-name

You can use:

mount directory-name
if the following line is in your /etc/vfstab file: 
device-special:logical_drive - directory-name pcfs - no rw

device-special specifies the special block device file for the diskette (/dev/disketteN) or the entire hard disk (Pa /dev/dsk/cNtNdNp0 for a SCSI, SATA, NVME disk, and /dev/dsk/cNdNp0 for IDE disks) or the PCMCIA pseudo-floppy memory card (/dev/dsk/cNtNdNsN).

logical-drive specifies either the DOS logical drive letter (c through z) or a drive number (1 through 24). Drive letter c is equivalent to drive number and represents the Primary DOS partition on the disk; drive letters through z are equivalent to drive numbers through , and represent DOS drives within the Extended FAT partition. Note that device-special and logical-drive must be separated by a colon.

directory-name specifies the location where the file system is mounted.

For example, to mount the Primary DOS partition from a SCSI hard disk, use:

mount -F pcfs /dev/dsk/cNtNdNp0:c /pcfs/c

To mount the first logical drive in the Extended DOS partition from an IDE hard disk, use:

mount -F pcfs /dev/dsk/cNdNp0:d /pcfs/d

To mount a DOS diskette in the first floppy drive when volume management is not running use:

mount -F pcfs /dev/diskette /pcfs/a

If Volume Management is running, run volcheck(1) to automatically mount the floppy and some removable disks.

To mount a PCMCIA pseudo-floppy memory card, with Volume Management not running (or not managing the PCMCIA media), use:

mount -F pcfs /dev/dsk/cNtNdNsN /pcfs

Files and directories created through pcfs must comply with either the FAT short file name convention or the long file name convention introduced with Windows 95. The FAT short file name convention is of the form filename[.ext], where generally consists of from one to eight upper-case characters, while the optional consists of from one to three upper-case characters.

The long file name convention is much closer to illumos file names. A long file name can consist of any characters valid in a short file name, lowercase letters, non-leading spaces, the characters , any number of periods, and can be up to 255 characters long. Long file names have an associated short file name for systems that do not support long file names. The short file name is not visible if the system recognizes long file names. pcfs generates a unique short name automatically when creating a long file name.

Given a long file name such as This is a really long filename.TXT, the short file name will generally be of the form THISIS~N.TXT, where is a number. The long file name will probably get the short name THISIS~1.TXT, or THISIS~2.TXT if THISIS~1.TXT already exits (or THISIS~3.TXT if both exist, and so forth). If you use pcfs file systems on systems that do not support long file names, you may want to continue following the short file name conventions. See EXAMPLES.

When creating a file name, pcfs creates a short file name if it fits the FAT short file name format, otherwise it creates a long file name. This is because long file names take more directory space. Because the root directory of a pcfs file system is fixed size, long file names in the root directory should be avoided if possible.

When displaying file names, pcfs shows them exactly as they are on the media. This means that short names are displayed as uppercase and long file names retain their case. Earlier versions of pcfs folded all names to lowercase, which can be forced with the PCFS_MNT_FOLDCASE mount option. All file name searches within pcfs, however, are treated as if they were uppercase, so readme.txt and ReAdMe.TxT refer to the same file.

To format a diskette or a PCMCIA pseudo-floppy memory card in FAT format in the SunOS system, use either the fdformat(1) --d or the DOS command.

On x86 systems, hard drives may contain an fdisk partition reserved for the boot utilities. The most common case is the EFI system partition. These partitions are special instances of pcfs. You can mount an x86 boot partition with the command:

mount -F pcfs device-special:boot directory-name
or you can use: 
mount directory-name
if the following line is in your /etc/vfstab file: 
device-special:boot - directory-name pcfs - no rw

device-special specifies the special block device file for the entire hard disk (/dev/dsk/cNtNdNp0)

directory-name specifies the location where the file system is mounted.

All files on a boot partition are owned by super-user. Only the super-user may create, delete, or modify files on a boot partition.

See environ(7) for descriptions of the following environment variables for the current locale setting: LANG, LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LC_COLLATE.

/usr/lib/fs/pcfs/mount
pcfs mount command.
/usr/kernel/fs/amd64/pcfs
64-bit kernel module (x86).

Sample Displays of File Names

If you copy a file financial.data from a UNIX file system to pcfs, it displays as financial.data in pcfs but may show up as FINANC~1.DAT in systems that do not support long file names.

The following are legal long file names. They are also illegal short file names:

Other systems that do not support long file names may see:

The short file name is generated from the initial characters of the long file name, so differentiate names in the first few characters. For example, these names: result in these short names, which are not distinguishable:

These names, however:

result in the more descriptive short names:

chgrp(1), chown(1), dos2unix(1), eject(1), fdformat(1), unix2dos(1), volcheck(1), ctime(3C), vfstab(5), environ(7), mount(8), mount_pcfs(8), umount(8)

Do not physically eject a FAT floppy while the device is mounted as pcfs If Volume Management is managing a device, use the eject(1) command before physically removing media.

When mounting pcfs on a hard disk, make sure the first block on that device contains a valid fdisk partition table.

Because pcfs has no provision for handling owner-IDs or group-IDs on files, chown(1) or chgrp(1) may generate various errors. This is a limitation of pcfs but it should not cause problems other than error messages.

Only the following characters are allowed in pcfs short file names and extensions:

illumos and FAT use different character sets and have different requirements for the text file format. Use the dos2unix(1) and unix2dos(1) commands to convert files between them.

pcfs offers a convenient transportation vehicle for files between multiple systems. Because the FAT disk format was designed for use under DOS, it does not operate efficiently under illumos and should not be used as the format for a regular local storage. Instead, use ZFS for local storage within an illumos system.

Although long file names can contain spaces (just as in UNIX file names) , some utilities may be confused by them.

When pcfs encounters long file names with non-ASCII characters, it converts such long file names in Unicode scalar values into UTF-8 encoded filenames so that they are legible and usable with any of illumos UTF-8 locales. In the same context, when new file names with non-ASCII characters are created, pcfs expects that such file names are in UTF-8. This feature increases the interoperability of pcfs on illumos with other operating systems.

pcfs should handle the disk change condition in the same way that DOS does, so you do not need to unmount the file system to change floppies.

November 29, 2021 OmniOS