NAME¶
libntfs-gnomevfs - Module for GNOME VFS that allows access to NTFS filesystems.
OVERVIEW¶
The GNOME virtual filesystem (VFS) provides universal access to different
filesystems. The
libntfs-gnomevfs module enables GNOME VFS aware
clients to seamlessly utilize the NTFS library
libntfs.
So you can access an NTFS filesystem without needing to use the NTFS utilities
themselves (at least in theory anyway). In practice this is probably more
useful for programs and programmers to make using
libntfs easier, more
generic, and to allow easier debugging of
libntfs.
Examples¶
Prerequisites¶
To be able to follow these examples you will need to have installed the test
utilities from the gnome-vfs-2.4.x package. The easiest way to do this is to
download and compile the gnome-vfs-2 package, e.g. download from:
http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/desktop/2.4/2.4.0/sources/gnome-vfs-2.4.0.tar.gz
Then run ./configure followed by make and make install (as root). This will
install it into /usr/local so it should not conflict with your existing
installation from rpm or deb packages which will be in /usr.
Note you may also need to add /usr/local/lib to /etc/ld.so.conf and then run
ldconfig (as root) to let your system see the installed gnome-vfs-2.4.x
libraries.
Then run ./configure followed by make and make install (as root) in the main
ntfsprogs directory to build and install the
libntfs-gnomevfs
module and
libntfs library which is used by the module.
Copying a file from an NTFS partition¶
To copy the file autoexec.bat from the main directory of an NTFS partition
(/dev/hda1) to the /tmp directory on your system you could run:
/path/to/gnome-vfs-2.4.x/test/test-xfer
file:///dev/hda1#libntfs:/autoexec.bat
/tmp/autoexec.bat
To copy a file from a directory inside the NTFS partition you would just specify
the full path. So for example to copy the file win.ini from the Windows
directory you would run:
/path/to/gnome-vfs-2.4.x/test/test-xfer
file:///dev/hda1#libntfs:/Windows/win.ini /tmp/win.ini
Shell access to an NTFS partition¶
For debugging it is most useful to be able to do various things to the NTFS
partition while it is being operated upon by
libntfs. This is achieved
using the test-shell utility (from the gnome-vfs-2.4.x package) by running:
/path/to/gnome-vfs-2.4.x/test/test-shell
This drops you into the GNOME VFS shell from where you can now cd into the NTFS
partition (/dev/hda1) by typing: cd
file:///dev/hda1#libntfs:/
You are now in the root directory of the NTFS partition. The first thing you
will probably want to do is to type "ls" to display the directory
contents.
You could then change directories using the "cd" command, e.g. to
enter the Windows directory you would type: cd Windows
You can then open files, seek inside files, read from files (write is not
enabled at present), etc thus exercising large portions of the NTFS library.
Use the "help" command while in the shell to see the available
commands.
BUGS¶
No bugs are known but there are several limitations at the moment:
You cannot get information about files other than what the "ls"
command in the test-shell can give you, i.e. the "info" command in
the test-shell does not work.
Further access to the partition is read-only and hence you cannot write to
files. This will be changed in the future once the module has had more wide
testing.
There may be other limitations and possibly bugs. Please report any problems to
the NTFS mailing list: linux-ntfs-dev@lists.sourceforge.net
AUTHORS¶
The
libntfs-gnomevfs module was written by Jan Kratochvil. This man page
was written by Anton Altaparmakov.
AVAILABILITY¶
The
ntfsprogs package which contains the
libntfs-gnomevfs module
can be downloaded from
http://www.linux-ntfs.org/content/view/19/37/ These
manual pages can be viewed online at
http://man.linux-ntfs.org/ntfsprogs.8.html
SEE ALSO¶
ntfsprogs(8)