| Developer(s) | Bell Labs[citation needed] |
|---|---|
| Full name | Boot File System |
| Introduced | with UNIX System V |
| Partition IDs | 0x63 (MBR) |
| Structures | |
| Directory contents | single inode table |
| File allocation | 16-bit inodes |
| Limits | |
| Max filename length | 14 characters |
| Other | |
| Supported operating systems | SVR4, UnixWare[citation needed] |
The Boot File System (named BFS on Linux, but BFS also refers to the Be File System) was used on UnixWare to store files necessary to its boot process.[1]
It does not support directories, and only allows contiguous allocation for files, to make it simpler to be used by the boot loader.
Besides the UnixWare support, Martin Hinner wrote a bfs kernel module for Linux that supports it.[2]
He documented the file system layout as part of the process.[3]
The Linux kernel implementation of BFS was written by Tigran Aivazian and it became part of the standard kernel sources on 28 October 1999 (Linux version 2.3.25).[4]
The original BFS was written at AT&T Bell Laboratories for the UNIX System V, Version 4.0 porting base in 1986.[citation needed] It was written by Ron Schnell, who is also the author of Dunnet (game).[citation needed]
BFS was the first non-S5[clarification needed] (System V) Filesystem written using VFS (Virtual Filesystem) for AT&T UNIX.