| USING VFAT | |
| ---------------------------------------------------------------------- | |
| To use the vfat filesystem, use the filesystem type 'vfat'. i.e. | |
| mount -t vfat /dev/fd0 /mnt | |
| No special partition formatter is required. mkdosfs will work fine | |
| if you want to format from within Linux. | |
| VFAT MOUNT OPTIONS | |
| ---------------------------------------------------------------------- | |
| uid=### -- Set the owner of all files on this filesystem. | |
| The default is the uid of current process. | |
| gid=### -- Set the group of all files on this filesystem. | |
| The default is the gid of current process. | |
| umask=### -- The permission mask (for files and directories, see umask(1)). | |
| The default is the umask of current process. | |
| dmask=### -- The permission mask for the directory. | |
| The default is the umask of current process. | |
| fmask=### -- The permission mask for files. | |
| The default is the umask of current process. | |
| allow_utime=### -- This option controls the permission check of mtime/atime. | |
| 20 - If current process is in group of file's group ID, | |
| you can change timestamp. | |
| 2 - Other users can change timestamp. | |
| The default is set from `dmask' option. (If the directory is | |
| writable, utime(2) is also allowed. I.e. ~dmask & 022) | |
| Normally utime(2) checks current process is owner of | |
| the file, or it has CAP_FOWNER capability. But FAT | |
| filesystem doesn't have uid/gid on disk, so normal | |
| check is too unflexible. With this option you can | |
| relax it. | |
| codepage=### -- Sets the codepage number for converting to shortname | |
| characters on FAT filesystem. | |
| By default, FAT_DEFAULT_CODEPAGE setting is used. | |
| iocharset=<name> -- Character set to use for converting between the | |
| encoding is used for user visible filename and 16 bit | |
| Unicode characters. Long filenames are stored on disk | |
| in Unicode format, but Unix for the most part doesn't | |
| know how to deal with Unicode. | |
| By default, FAT_DEFAULT_IOCHARSET setting is used. | |
| There is also an option of doing UTF-8 translations | |
| with the utf8 option. | |
| NOTE: "iocharset=utf8" is not recommended. If unsure, | |
| you should consider the following option instead. | |
| utf8=<bool> -- UTF-8 is the filesystem safe version of Unicode that | |
| is used by the console. It can be enabled or disabled | |
| for the filesystem with this option. | |
| If 'uni_xlate' gets set, UTF-8 gets disabled. | |
| By default, FAT_DEFAULT_UTF8 setting is used. | |
| uni_xlate=<bool> -- Translate unhandled Unicode characters to special | |
| escaped sequences. This would let you backup and | |
| restore filenames that are created with any Unicode | |
| characters. Until Linux supports Unicode for real, | |
| this gives you an alternative. Without this option, | |
| a '?' is used when no translation is possible. The | |
| escape character is ':' because it is otherwise | |
| illegal on the vfat filesystem. The escape sequence | |
| that gets used is ':' and the four digits of hexadecimal | |
| unicode. | |
| nonumtail=<bool> -- When creating 8.3 aliases, normally the alias will | |
| end in '~1' or tilde followed by some number. If this | |
| option is set, then if the filename is | |
| "longfilename.txt" and "longfile.txt" does not | |
| currently exist in the directory, 'longfile.txt' will | |
| be the short alias instead of 'longfi~1.txt'. | |
| usefree -- Use the "free clusters" value stored on FSINFO. It'll | |
| be used to determine number of free clusters without | |
| scanning disk. But it's not used by default, because | |
| recent Windows don't update it correctly in some | |
| case. If you are sure the "free clusters" on FSINFO is | |
| correct, by this option you can avoid scanning disk. | |
| quiet -- Stops printing certain warning messages. | |
| check=s|r|n -- Case sensitivity checking setting. | |
| s: strict, case sensitive | |
| r: relaxed, case insensitive | |
| n: normal, default setting, currently case insensitive | |
| nocase -- This was deprecated for vfat. Use shortname=win95 instead. | |
| shortname=lower|win95|winnt|mixed | |
| -- Shortname display/create setting. | |
| lower: convert to lowercase for display, | |
| emulate the Windows 95 rule for create. | |
| win95: emulate the Windows 95 rule for display/create. | |
| winnt: emulate the Windows NT rule for display/create. | |
| mixed: emulate the Windows NT rule for display, | |
| emulate the Windows 95 rule for create. | |
| Default setting is `mixed'. | |
| tz=UTC -- Interpret timestamps as UTC rather than local time. | |
| This option disables the conversion of timestamps | |
| between local time (as used by Windows on FAT) and UTC | |
| (which Linux uses internally). This is particularly | |
| useful when mounting devices (like digital cameras) | |
| that are set to UTC in order to avoid the pitfalls of | |
| local time. | |
| time_offset=minutes | |
| -- Set offset for conversion of timestamps from local time | |
| used by FAT to UTC. I.e. <minutes> minutes will be subtracted | |
| from each timestamp to convert it to UTC used internally by | |
| Linux. This is useful when time zone set in sys_tz is | |
| not the time zone used by the filesystem. Note that this | |
| option still does not provide correct time stamps in all | |
| cases in presence of DST - time stamps in a different DST | |
| setting will be off by one hour. | |
| showexec -- If set, the execute permission bits of the file will be | |
| allowed only if the extension part of the name is .EXE, | |
| .COM, or .BAT. Not set by default. | |
| debug -- Can be set, but unused by the current implementation. | |
| sys_immutable -- If set, ATTR_SYS attribute on FAT is handled as | |
| IMMUTABLE flag on Linux. Not set by default. | |
| flush -- If set, the filesystem will try to flush to disk more | |
| early than normal. Not set by default. | |
| rodir -- FAT has the ATTR_RO (read-only) attribute. On Windows, | |
| the ATTR_RO of the directory will just be ignored, | |
| and is used only by applications as a flag (e.g. it's set | |
| for the customized folder). | |
| If you want to use ATTR_RO as read-only flag even for | |
| the directory, set this option. | |
| errors=panic|continue|remount-ro | |
| -- specify FAT behavior on critical errors: panic, continue | |
| without doing anything or remount the partition in | |
| read-only mode (default behavior). | |
| discard -- If set, issues discard/TRIM commands to the block | |
| device when blocks are freed. This is useful for SSD devices | |
| and sparse/thinly-provisoned LUNs. | |
| nfs=stale_rw|nostale_ro | |
| Enable this only if you want to export the FAT filesystem | |
| over NFS. | |
| stale_rw: This option maintains an index (cache) of directory | |
| inodes by i_logstart which is used by the nfs-related code to | |
| improve look-ups. Full file operations (read/write) over NFS is | |
| supported but with cache eviction at NFS server, this could | |
| result in ESTALE issues. | |
| nostale_ro: This option bases the inode number and filehandle | |
| on the on-disk location of a file in the MS-DOS directory entry. | |
| This ensures that ESTALE will not be returned after a file is | |
| evicted from the inode cache. However, it means that operations | |
| such as rename, create and unlink could cause filehandles that | |
| previously pointed at one file to point at a different file, | |
| potentially causing data corruption. For this reason, this | |
| option also mounts the filesystem readonly. | |
| To maintain backward compatibility, '-o nfs' is also accepted, | |
| defaulting to stale_rw | |
| dos1xfloppy -- If set, use a fallback default BIOS Parameter Block | |
| configuration, determined by backing device size. These static | |
| parameters match defaults assumed by DOS 1.x for 160 kiB, | |
| 180 kiB, 320 kiB, and 360 kiB floppies and floppy images. | |
| <bool>: 0,1,yes,no,true,false | |
| LIMITATION | |
| --------------------------------------------------------------------- | |
| * The fallocated region of file is discarded at umount/evict time | |
| when using fallocate with FALLOC_FL_KEEP_SIZE. | |
| So, User should assume that fallocated region can be discarded at | |
| last close if there is memory pressure resulting in eviction of | |
| the inode from the memory. As a result, for any dependency on | |
| the fallocated region, user should make sure to recheck fallocate | |
| after reopening the file. | |
| TODO | |
| ---------------------------------------------------------------------- | |
| * Need to get rid of the raw scanning stuff. Instead, always use | |
| a get next directory entry approach. The only thing left that uses | |
| raw scanning is the directory renaming code. | |
| POSSIBLE PROBLEMS | |
| ---------------------------------------------------------------------- | |
| * vfat_valid_longname does not properly checked reserved names. | |
| * When a volume name is the same as a directory name in the root | |
| directory of the filesystem, the directory name sometimes shows | |
| up as an empty file. | |
| * autoconv option does not work correctly. | |
| BUG REPORTS | |
| ---------------------------------------------------------------------- | |
| If you have trouble with the VFAT filesystem, mail bug reports to | |
| chaffee@bmrc.cs.berkeley.edu. Please specify the filename | |
| and the operation that gave you trouble. | |
| TEST SUITE | |
| ---------------------------------------------------------------------- | |
| If you plan to make any modifications to the vfat filesystem, please | |
| get the test suite that comes with the vfat distribution at | |
| http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://bmrc.berkeley.edu/ | |
| people/chaffee/vfat.html | |
| This tests quite a few parts of the vfat filesystem and additional | |
| tests for new features or untested features would be appreciated. | |
| NOTES ON THE STRUCTURE OF THE VFAT FILESYSTEM | |
| ---------------------------------------------------------------------- | |
| (This documentation was provided by Galen C. Hunt <gchunt@cs.rochester.edu> | |
| and lightly annotated by Gordon Chaffee). | |
| This document presents a very rough, technical overview of my | |
| knowledge of the extended FAT file system used in Windows NT 3.5 and | |
| Windows 95. I don't guarantee that any of the following is correct, | |
| but it appears to be so. | |
| The extended FAT file system is almost identical to the FAT | |
| file system used in DOS versions up to and including 6.223410239847 | |
| :-). The significant change has been the addition of long file names. | |
| These names support up to 255 characters including spaces and lower | |
| case characters as opposed to the traditional 8.3 short names. | |
| Here is the description of the traditional FAT entry in the current | |
| Windows 95 filesystem: | |
| struct directory { // Short 8.3 names | |
| unsigned char name[8]; // file name | |
| unsigned char ext[3]; // file extension | |
| unsigned char attr; // attribute byte | |
| unsigned char lcase; // Case for base and extension | |
| unsigned char ctime_ms; // Creation time, milliseconds | |
| unsigned char ctime[2]; // Creation time | |
| unsigned char cdate[2]; // Creation date | |
| unsigned char adate[2]; // Last access date | |
| unsigned char reserved[2]; // reserved values (ignored) | |
| unsigned char time[2]; // time stamp | |
| unsigned char date[2]; // date stamp | |
| unsigned char start[2]; // starting cluster number | |
| unsigned char size[4]; // size of the file | |
| }; | |
| The lcase field specifies if the base and/or the extension of an 8.3 | |
| name should be capitalized. This field does not seem to be used by | |
| Windows 95 but it is used by Windows NT. The case of filenames is not | |
| completely compatible from Windows NT to Windows 95. It is not completely | |
| compatible in the reverse direction, however. Filenames that fit in | |
| the 8.3 namespace and are written on Windows NT to be lowercase will | |
| show up as uppercase on Windows 95. | |
| Note that the "start" and "size" values are actually little | |
| endian integer values. The descriptions of the fields in this | |
| structure are public knowledge and can be found elsewhere. | |
| With the extended FAT system, Microsoft has inserted extra | |
| directory entries for any files with extended names. (Any name which | |
| legally fits within the old 8.3 encoding scheme does not have extra | |
| entries.) I call these extra entries slots. Basically, a slot is a | |
| specially formatted directory entry which holds up to 13 characters of | |
| a file's extended name. Think of slots as additional labeling for the | |
| directory entry of the file to which they correspond. Microsoft | |
| prefers to refer to the 8.3 entry for a file as its alias and the | |
| extended slot directory entries as the file name. | |
| The C structure for a slot directory entry follows: | |
| struct slot { // Up to 13 characters of a long name | |
| unsigned char id; // sequence number for slot | |
| unsigned char name0_4[10]; // first 5 characters in name | |
| unsigned char attr; // attribute byte | |
| unsigned char reserved; // always 0 | |
| unsigned char alias_checksum; // checksum for 8.3 alias | |
| unsigned char name5_10[12]; // 6 more characters in name | |
| unsigned char start[2]; // starting cluster number | |
| unsigned char name11_12[4]; // last 2 characters in name | |
| }; | |
| If the layout of the slots looks a little odd, it's only | |
| because of Microsoft's efforts to maintain compatibility with old | |
| software. The slots must be disguised to prevent old software from | |
| panicking. To this end, a number of measures are taken: | |
| 1) The attribute byte for a slot directory entry is always set | |
| to 0x0f. This corresponds to an old directory entry with | |
| attributes of "hidden", "system", "read-only", and "volume | |
| label". Most old software will ignore any directory | |
| entries with the "volume label" bit set. Real volume label | |
| entries don't have the other three bits set. | |
| 2) The starting cluster is always set to 0, an impossible | |
| value for a DOS file. | |
| Because the extended FAT system is backward compatible, it is | |
| possible for old software to modify directory entries. Measures must | |
| be taken to ensure the validity of slots. An extended FAT system can | |
| verify that a slot does in fact belong to an 8.3 directory entry by | |
| the following: | |
| 1) Positioning. Slots for a file always immediately proceed | |
| their corresponding 8.3 directory entry. In addition, each | |
| slot has an id which marks its order in the extended file | |
| name. Here is a very abbreviated view of an 8.3 directory | |
| entry and its corresponding long name slots for the file | |
| "My Big File.Extension which is long": | |
| <proceeding files...> | |
| <slot #3, id = 0x43, characters = "h is long"> | |
| <slot #2, id = 0x02, characters = "xtension whic"> | |
| <slot #1, id = 0x01, characters = "My Big File.E"> | |
| <directory entry, name = "MYBIGFIL.EXT"> | |
| Note that the slots are stored from last to first. Slots | |
| are numbered from 1 to N. The Nth slot is or'ed with 0x40 | |
| to mark it as the last one. | |
| 2) Checksum. Each slot has an "alias_checksum" value. The | |
| checksum is calculated from the 8.3 name using the | |
| following algorithm: | |
| for (sum = i = 0; i < 11; i++) { | |
| sum = (((sum&1)<<7)|((sum&0xfe)>>1)) + name[i] | |
| } | |
| 3) If there is free space in the final slot, a Unicode NULL (0x0000) | |
| is stored after the final character. After that, all unused | |
| characters in the final slot are set to Unicode 0xFFFF. | |
| Finally, note that the extended name is stored in Unicode. Each Unicode | |
| character takes two bytes. |