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Solaris Transition Guide

Supported File System Types

Most file system types included in the SunOS release 4 software are also included in the SunOS release 5.7 software. There is one exception: The translucent file system (TFS) type has been withdrawn from the SunOS release 5.7 software. Table 9-2 summarizes file-system type availability in the SunOS release 4 and SunOS release 5.7 environment.

Table 9-2 Summary of File System Types

Category 

Name 

Description 

SunOS release 4 

SunOS release 5.7 

Disk-based 

UFS

UNIX file system 

Yes 

Yes 

HSFS

CD-ROM file system 

Yes 

Yes 

PCFS

PC file system 

Yes 

Yes 

Network-based

NFS

Sun's distributed computing file system 

Yes 

Yes 

Pseudo

SPECFS

Device special file system 

Yes 

Yes 

TMPFS

/tmp temporary file system

Yes 

Yes 

LOFS

Loopback file system 

Yes 

Yes 

TFS

Translucent file system 

Yes 

No 

 

PROCFS

Process access file system 

No 

Yes 

 

FDFS

File descriptor file system 

No  

Yes 

 

FIFOFS

FIFO/Pipe file system 

No  

Yes 

 

NAMEFS

Name file system 

No 

Yes 

 

SWAPFS

Swap file system 

No 

Yes 

 

CACHEFS

Cache file system 

No 

Yes

For more information on file systems, see the proc(4) and fd(4) man pages and System Administration Guide, Volume I.

Cache File System (CACHEFS)

The Cache File System can be used to improve performance of remote file systems or slow devices such as CD-ROMs. When a file system is cached, the data read from the remote file system or CD-ROM is stored in a cache on the local system.

Swap File Changes

In the SunOS release 5.7 software, SWAPFS is the default swap device when the system boots or you create additional swap space. This swap device uses physical memory as swap space, but also requires physical swap space on a disk.

In SunOS release 4 systems, the default physical swap device depends on the system configuration. Standalone systems default to sd0b and diskless systems get their swap files from the bootparam server. The SunOS release 5.7 software uses the swap file as the default dump device instead of specifying a file on disk.