Filesystem Compatibility

[aiden]

Okay, I can tell by reading the threads that filesystem support has come up over and over again over the years, with the last relevant thread being around a year ago.  I am curious if anyone has made an add-on or anything that allows for r/w of NTFS, or exFAT, or ext3 at this point.  I have no interest in debating the relevance of using ReiserFS over the other flavors (although ZFS is damn sexy in a lot of ways).  But when I connect my USB drive that I bring home from work, I would like to be able to actually do more than read-only.  Windows 7 is particularly nasty towards non-MS file systems, so it makes a lot more sense for linux to have the compatibility to work with NTFS or exFAT.  In short, I'd like to be able to do a "mount -t ntfs" or "mount -t exfat" and it actually enable r/w mode.  Am I missing something?  Is there a wiki entry I missed while I was digging?

[Joe L.]

Okay, I can tell by reading the threads that filesystem support has come up over and over again over the years, with the last relevant thread being around a year ago.  I am curious if anyone has made an add-on or anything that allows for r/w of NTFS, or exFAT, or ext3 at this point.  I have no interest in debating the relevance of using ReiserFS over the other flavors (although ZFS is damn sexy in a lot of ways).  But when I connect my USB drive that I bring home from work, I would like to be able to actually do more than read-only.  Windows 7 is particularly nasty towards non-MS file systems, so it makes a lot more sense for linux to have the compatibility to work with NTFS or exFAT.  In short, I'd like to be able to do a "mount -t ntfs" or "mount -t exfat" and it actually enable r/w mode.  Am I missing something?  Is there a wiki entry I missed while I was digging?

Yes, you missed this entry in the wiki:

http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php?title=Mounting_an_external_USB_drive_having_an_existing_NTFS_file_system_in_READ/WRITE_mode_to_transport_files_from/to_unRaid_server

 

Newest ntfs-3g driver install package is here:

ftp://slackware.osuosl.org/pub/slackware/slackware-current/slackware/a/ntfs-3g-2010.3.6-i486-1.txz

 

Many improvements to be compatible with Win7 from the year old 2009.3.8 version listed in the wiki.

 

Then, you can mount as

mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sdX1 /mnt/your_mount_point

 

For ext3, mount as ext2.

mount -t ext2 .....

 

For exFAT, sorry, I can't help you there, never used one.

 

Joe L.

[aiden]

Perfect.  Thanks Joe.  Sorry for not being more diligent in my wiki searches. 

[queeg]

If you want your usb drive to mount and share automatically when you plug it in then use the add-on SNAP.  Currently it mounts ntfs read-only but you can change that very easily by editing the snap.sh script.  Just open the script and search for the mount command.

To figure out the right mount parameters I usually mount it once in unMenu because it shows the mount string - thanks Joe L.

 

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=5904.0

[Joe L.]

If you want your usb drive to mount and share automatically when you plug it in then use the add-on SNAP.  Currently it mounts ntfs read-only but you can change that very easily by editing the snap.sh script.  Just open the script and search for the mount command.

To figure out the right mount parameters I usually mount it once in unMenu because it shows the mount string - thanks Joe L.

 

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=5904.0

And if yo use one of our scripts to mount as read-only, as long as you are using the ntfs-3g driver, you can type

mount -o rw,remount /your_mount_point

and your read-only disk will be writable.  Don't try this with the built-in ntfs driver, as it is 99% read-only (The built-in nfts driver can only write to existing files and cannot change the size of an existing file without corrupting something.). 

 

Only use mount -o rw,remount /your_mount_point if you mounted the disk with the ntfs-3g driver.

 

Joe L

[queeg]

If you want your usb drive to mount and share automatically when you plug it in then use the add-on SNAP.  Currently it mounts ntfs read-only but you can change that very easily by editing the snap.sh script.  Just open the script and search for the mount command.

To figure out the right mount parameters I usually mount it once in unMenu because it shows the mount string - thanks Joe L.

 

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=5904.0

And if yo use one of our scripts to mount as read-only, as long as you are using the ntfs-3g driver, you can type

mount -o rw,remount /your_mount_point

and your read-only disk will be writable.   Don't try this with the built-in ntfs driver, as it is 99% read-only (The built-in nfts driver can only write to existing files and cannot change the size of an existing file without corrupting something.). 

 

Only use mount -o rw,remount /your_mount_point if you mounted the disk with the ntfs-3g driver.

 

Joe L

 

Joe, is there any way to detect if the ntfs-3g driver is used?  I'd think about making SNAP smarter if I knew how to detect that.

[xamindar]

If you type "mount" it will show "type fuseblk" for any mounted as ntfs-3g and any other filesystems under fuse.

[Joe L.]

If you want your usb drive to mount and share automatically when you plug it in then use the add-on SNAP.  Currently it mounts ntfs read-only but you can change that very easily by editing the snap.sh script.  Just open the script and search for the mount command.

To figure out the right mount parameters I usually mount it once in unMenu because it shows the mount string - thanks Joe L.

 

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=5904.0

And if yo use one of our scripts to mount as read-only, as long as you are using the ntfs-3g driver, you can type

mount -o rw,remount /your_mount_point

and your read-only disk will be writable.   Don't try this with the built-in ntfs driver, as it is 99% read-only (The built-in nfts driver can only write to existing files and cannot change the size of an existing file without corrupting something.). 

 

Only use mount -o rw,remount /your_mount_point if you mounted the disk with the ntfs-3g driver.

 

Joe L

 

Joe, is there any way to detect if the ntfs-3g driver is used?  I'd think about making SNAP smarter if I knew how to detect that.

Since you are mounting the drive, I don't think you need do anything other than to use

mount -type ntfs-3g /dev/sdX1 /mnt/your_mount_point

 

You can detect if ntfs-3g is installed by looking for /bin/ntfs-3g

 

 

 

[aiden]

For finality sake I would like to confirm the procedure Joe outlined so patiently worked perfectly, and the Wiki entry is more than detailed.  If I were to do something like this on a more permanent basis I would probably go through the extra process of adding SNAP, but this was for a one time situation.  Thanks everyone.