ntfs treated by default as POSIX
Affects | Status | Importance | Assigned to | Milestone | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
ntfs-3g (Ubuntu) |
Invalid
|
Medium
|
Unassigned |
Bug Description
Binary package hint: ntfs-3g
version 1:1.616-1
The ntfs filesystem in a default windows istallation has some forbidden characters such as
: \ ?
and others (I don't have the list)
and is not case sensitive
Using ntfs3g it is possible to create files with this names. Those files cannot be read in windows, without Windows Services for Unix.
We are evaluating if ntfs-3g should behave like the old vfat driver that forbids the creation of these files, or should stay by default POSIX.
Anyway I think that ntfs-3g needs an option to control this behaviour
NOTE: microsoft developer ntfs as a POSIX filesystem for interoperability, but added these restrictions in windows to support legacy apps, and because they think that accessing a case sensitive filesystem is a security risk, because the user could execute the troyan EDIT.exe instead of edit.exe (I do not really understand this, but it is reported in the help of Windows Services for Unix)
A windows installation with Windows Services for Unix is not able to manage files which only differ by case, using normal software such as explorer. The appropriate programs installed by WSfU must be used.
Changed in ntfs-3g: | |
importance: | Undecided → Medium |
status: | New → Confirmed |
description: | updated |
From ntfs-3g upstream: this bug report is invalid.
NTFS has several file namespaces: DOS, WIN32, POSIX. Linux, as a POSIX OS,
always creates files in the POSIX namespace. Characters in the file name
can be anything except '/' and '\0'. These files are accessible via the WIN
API on Windows only if they don't have "forbidden" characters. To handle
these files on Windows, the same way as on Linux, one needs to install the
Windows Services for Unix (SFU) freely available Microsoft package.
In sort, everything behaves as it was designed. No problem on Linux and all
the files are accessible if SFU is installed on Windows.
If a non-posix file namespace handling is desirable on Linux then I suggest
exporting the NTFS volume via Samba which should have support for
restricting the file namespace to the WIN32 or DOS one.
Thank you for the report, the question will be added to the ntfs-3g support
page.