DOSFS(4) 386BSD Programmer's Manual DOSFS(4)
NAME
dosfs - MS-DOS FAT file system
SYNOPSIS
dosfs fsidx.
DESCRIPTION
The dosfs(4) filesystem provides support for a MS DOS formatted hard disk
partition or floppy disk to be mounted on the system's filesystem tree,
allowing DOS files to be directly accessible by all user programs.
Since DOS file and directory names and attributes do not correspond to
POSIX names and attributes, the filesystem implementation partially
compensates for these limitations for the convienence of the user. File
and directory names are silently truncated and case-wrapped to 7
character lowercase characters and numbers (11 if the 8th is a period).
While the names are recorded internally as upper case only, case is
always mapped to lower case on filename lookup and creation. Filenames
ending in a period have the period silently dropped as well. Files can
only be made "system read only" regardless of user, as only the single
write bit per file is present (the hidden and archived attribute bits are
not implemented). While all files appear to be owned by root, any user
can alter contents and attributes at will (so the only protection present
is that of the mount directory itself). Read and execute attribute bits
are always set for user, group, and other. The write protect attribute
bit can only be set from the user set (where it will appear to set them
all).
In addition, all time attributes reported are always the time of last
modification. Since times are kept in local time, times fitfully
correspond to DOS interpretations.
AUTHOR
dosfs(4) was written by Paul Popelka.
386BSD Release 1.0 March 28, 1994 1