man > mount.ntfs(8)

NTFS-3G(8)                             System Manager's Manual                            NTFS-3G(8)

NAME
       ntfs-3g - Third Generation Read/Write NTFS Driver

SYNOPSIS
       ntfs-3g [-o option[,...]]  volume mount_point
       mount -t ntfs-3g [-o option[,...]]  volume mount_point
       lowntfs-3g [-o option[,...]]  volume mount_point
       mount -t lowntfs-3g [-o option[,...]]  volume mount_point

DESCRIPTION
       ntfs-3g  is  an  NTFS driver, which can create, remove, rename, move files, directories, hard
       links, and streams; it can read and write files, including streams, sparse files  and  trans‐
       parently  compressed files; it can handle special files like symbolic links, devices, and FI‐
       FOs; moreover it provides standard management of file ownership  and  permissions,  including
       POSIX ACLs.

       It  comes  in  two  variants ntfs-3g and lowntfs-3g with a few differences mentioned below in
       relevant options descriptions.

       The volume to be mounted can be either a block device or an image file, either by  using  the
       mount command or starting the drive.

   Windows hibernation and fast restarting
       On  computers  which  can  be dual-booted into Windows or Linux, Windows has to be fully shut
       down before booting into Linux, otherwise the NTFS file systems on internal disks may be left
       in an inconsistent state and changes made by Linux may be ignored by Windows.

       So, Windows may not be left in hibernation when starting Linux, in order to  avoid  inconsis‐
       tencies.  Moreover,  the  fast  restart feature available on recent Windows systems has to be
       disabled. This can be achieved by issuing as an Administrator the Windows command which  dis‐
       ables both hibernation and fast restarting :

              powercfg /h off

       If  either Windows is hibernated or its fast restart is enabled, partitions on internal disks
       are forced to be mounted in read-only mode.

   Access Handling and Security
       By default, files and directories are owned by the effective user and group of  the  mounting
       process,  and  everybody  has full read, write, execution and directory browsing permissions.
       You can also assign permissions to a single user by using the uid and/or the gid options  to‐
       gether with the umask, or fmask and dmask options.

       Doing so, all Windows users have full access to the files created by ntfs-3g.

       But,  by  setting the permissions option, you can benefit from the full ownership and permis‐
       sions features as defined by POSIX. Moreover, by defining a  Windows-to-Linux  user  mapping,
       the ownerships and permissions are even applied to Windows users and conversely.

       If ntfs-3g is set setuid-root then non-root users will be also able to mount volumes.

   Windows Filename Compatibility
       NTFS  supports  several  filename  namespaces: DOS, Win32 and POSIX. While the ntfs-3g driver
       handles all of them, it always creates new files in the POSIX namespace for maximum portabil‐
       ity and interoperability reasons.  This means that filenames are case sensitive and all char‐
       acters are allowed except '/' and '\0'. This is perfectly legal on Windows, though  some  ap‐
       plication  may  get  confused. The option windows_names may be used to apply Windows restric‐
       tions to new file names.

   Alternate Data Streams (ADS)
       NTFS stores all data in streams. Every file has exactly one unnamed data stream and can  have
       many  named data streams.  The size of a file is the size of its unnamed data stream.  By de‐
       fault, ntfs-3g will only read the unnamed data stream.

       By using the option streams_interface=windows, with the ntfs-3g  driver  (not  possible  with
       lowntfs-3g), you will be able to read any named data streams, simply by specifying the stream
       name after a colon.  For example:

              cat some.mp3:artist

       Named  data  streams act like normal files, so you can read from them, write to them and even
       delete them (using rm).  You can list all the named data streams a file has  by  getting  the
       ntfs.streams.list extended attribute.

OPTIONS
       Below is a summary of the options that ntfs-3g accepts.

       acl    Enable  setting Posix ACLs on created files and use them for access control.  This op‐
              tion is only available on specific builds. It is set by default when  a  user  mapping
              file is present and the permissions mount option is not set.

       allow_other
              This  option overrides the security measure restricting file access to the user mount‐
              ing the filesystem. This option is only allowed to root, but this restriction  can  be
              overridden by the user_allow_other option in the /etc/fuse.conf file.

       atime, noatime, relatime
              The atime option updates inode access time for each access.

              The  noatime option disables inode access time updates, which can speed up file opera‐
              tions and prevent sleeping (notebook) disks spinning up too often thus  saving  energy
              and disk lifetime.

              The  relatime  option is very similar to noatime.  It updates inode access times rela‐
              tive to modify or change time.  The access time is only updated if the previous access
              time was earlier than the current modify or change time. Unlike  noatime  this  option
              doesn't  break  applications  that need to know if a file has been read since the last
              time it was modified.  This is the default behaviour.

       big_writes
              This option prevents fuse from splitting write buffers into 4K  chunks,  enabling  big
              write buffers to be transferred from the application in a single step (up to some sys‐
              tem limit, generally 128K bytes).

       compression
              This  option enables creating new transparently compressed files in directories marked
              for compression. A directory is marked for compression by setting the  bit  11  (value
              0x00000800)  in its Windows attribute. In such a directory, new files are created com‐
              pressed and new subdirectories are themselves marked for compression. The  option  and
              the flag have no effect on existing files. Currently this is the default option.

       debug  Makes ntfs-3g (or lowntfs-3g) to print a lot of debug output from libntfs-3g and FUSE.

       delay_mtime[= value]
              Only  update  the file modification time and the file change time of a file when it is
              closed or when the indicated delay since the previous update has elapsed. The argument
              is a number of seconds, with a default value of 60.  This is  mainly  useful  for  big
              files  which are kept open for a long time and written to without changing their size,
              such as databases or file system images mounted as loop.

       dmask=value
              Set the  bitmask of the directory permissions that are not present. The value is given
              in octal. The default value is 0 which means full access to everybody.

       efs_raw
              This option should only be used in backup or restore situation.  It changes the appar‐
              ent size of files and the behavior of read and write operation so that encrypted files
              can be saved and restored without being decrypted. The user.ntfs.efsinfo extended  at‐
              tribute has also to be saved and restored for the file to be decrypted.

       fmask=value
              Set  the  bitmask of the file permissions that are not present.  The value is given in
              octal. The default value is 0 which means full access to everybody.

       force  This option is obsolete. It has been superseded by the recover and norecover options.

       hide_dot_files
              Set the hidden flag in the NTFS attribute for  created  files  and  directories  whose
              first  character  of the name is a dot. Such files and directories normally do not ap‐
              pear in directory listings, and when the flag is set they do not appear in Windows di‐
              rectory displays either.  When a file is renamed or linked with a new name, the hidden
              flag is adjusted to the latest name.

       hide_hid_files
              Hide the hidden files and directories in directory listings, the hidden files and  di‐
              rectories  being  the  ones whose NTFS attribute have the hidden flag set.  The hidden
              files will not be selected when using wildcards in commands, but all files and  direc‐
              tories  remain accessible by full name, for example you can always display the Windows
              trash bin directory by : "ls -ld '$RECYCLE.BIN'".

       ignore_case (only with lowntfs-3g)
              Ignore character case when accessing a file (FOO, Foo, foo, etc.  designate  the  same
              file). All files are displayed with lower case in directory listings.

       inherit
              When  creating  a new file, set its initial protections according to inheritance rules
              defined in parent directory. These rules deviate from Posix specifications, but  yield
              a  better  Windows  compatibility. The permissions (or **acl**) option or a valid user
              mapping file is required for this option to be effective.

       locale=value
              This option can be useful when wanting a language specific locale environment.  It  is
              however discouraged as it leads to files with untranslatable characters to not be vis‐
              ible.

       max_read=value
              With this option the maximum size of read operations can be set.  The default is infi‐
              nite.  Note that the size of read requests is limited anyway by the system (usually to
              128kbyte).

       no_def_opts
              By  default  ntfs-3g  acts as if silent (ignore permission errors when permissions are
              not enabled), allow_other (allow any user to access files) and nonempty (allow  mount‐
              ing on non-empty directories) were set, and no_def_opts cancels these default options.

       no_detach
              Makes ntfs-3g to not detach from terminal and print some debug output.

       nocompression
              This option disables creating new transparently compressed files in directories marked
              for compression. Existing compressed files can still be read and updated.

       norecover
              Do not try to mount a partition which was not unmounted properly by Windows.

       permissions
              Set  standard  permissions on created files and use standard access control.  This op‐
              tion is set by default when a user mapping file is present.

       posix_nlink
              Compute the count of hard links of a file or directory according to the POSIX specifi‐
              cations. When this option is not set, a count of 1 is set  for  directories,  and  the
              short  name  of  files is accounted for.  Using the option entails some penalty as the
              count is not stored and has to be computed.

       recover
              Recover and try to mount a partition which was not unmounted properly by Windows.  The
              Windows  logfile  is  cleared, which may cause inconsistencies.  Currently this is the
              default option.

       remove_hiberfile
              When the NTFS volume is hibernated, a read-write mount is denied and a read-only mount
              is forced. One needs either to resume Windows and shutdown it properly,  or  use  this
              option  which  will  remove the Windows hibernation file. Please note, this means that
              the saved Windows session will be completely lost. Use this option under your own  re‐
              sponsibility.

       ro     Mount  the  filesystem  read-only. Useful if Windows is hibernated or the NTFS journal
              file is unclean.

       show_sys_files
              Show the metafiles in directory listings. Otherwise the default behaviour is  to  hide
              the  metafiles,  which are special files used to store the NTFS structure. Please note
              that even when this option is specified, "$MFT" may not be visible due to a glibc bug.
              Furthermore, irrespectively of show_sys_files, all files are accessible by  name,  for
              example you can always do "ls -l '$UpCase'".

       silent Do  nothing, without returning any error, on chmod and chown operations and on permis‐
              sion checking errors, when the permissions option is not set and no user mapping  file
              is  defined.  This  option  is  on  by  default,  and  when  set  off  (through option
              no_def_opts) ownership and permissions parameters have to be set.

       special_files=mode
              This option selects a mode for representing a special file  to  be  created  (symbolic
              link,  socket,  fifo,  character or block device). The mode can be interix or wsl, and
              existing files in either mode are recognized irrespective of the  selected  mode.  In‐
              terix  is the traditional mode, used by default, and wsl is interoperable with Windows
              WSL, but it is not compatible with Windows versions earlier than Windows 10.   Neither
              mode are interoperable with Windows.

       streams_interface=mode
              This  option controls how the user can access Alternate Data Streams (ADS) or in other
              words, named data streams. The mode can be set to one of none, windows  or  xattr.  If
              the  option is set to none, the user will have no access to the named data streams. If
              it is set to windows (not possible with lowntfs-3g), then the  user  can  access  them
              just  like in Windows (eg. cat file:stream). If it's set to xattr, then the named data
              streams are mapped to extended  attributes  and  a  user  can  manipulate  them  using
              {get,set}fattr utilities. The default is xattr.

       uid=value and gid=value
              Set  the  owner and the group of files and directories. The values are numerical.  The
              defaults are the uid and gid of the current process.

       umask=value
              Set the  bitmask of the file and directory permissions that are not present. The value
              is given in octal. The default value is 0 which means full access to everybody.

       usermapping=file-name
              Use file file-name as the user mapping file instead of the  default  .NTFS-3G/UserMap‐
              ping. If file-name defines a full path, the file must be located on a partition previ‐
              ously  mounted.  If it defines a relative path, it is interpreted relative to the root
              of NTFS partition being mounted.

              When a user mapping file is defined, the options uid=, gid=,  umask=,  fmask=,  dmask=
              and silent are ignored.

       user_xattr
              Same as streams_interface=xattr.

       windows_names
              This  option  prevents files, directories and extended attributes to be created with a
              name not allowed by windows, because

                     - it contains some not allowed character,
                     - or the last character is a space or a dot,
                     - or the name is reserved.

              The forbidden characters are the nine characters " * / : < > ? \  |  and  those  whose
              code  is  less  than  0x20, and the reserved names are CON, PRN, AUX, NUL, COM1..COM9,
              LPT1..LPT9, with no suffix or followed by a dot.

              Existing such files can still be read (and renamed).

USER MAPPING
       NTFS uses specific ids to record the ownership of files instead of the uid (user id) and  gid
       (group  id)  used  by Linux. As a consequence a mapping between the ids has to be defined for
       ownerships to be recorded into NTFS files and recognized.

       By default, this mapping is fetched from the file .NTFS-3G/UserMapping located  in  the  NTFS
       partition.  The  option  usermapping= may be used to define another location. When the option
       **permissions** is set and no mapping file is found, a default mapping is used.

       Each line in the user mapping file defines a mapping. It is organized in three  fields  sepa‐
       rated  by colons. The first field identifies a uid, the second field identifies a gid and the
       third one identifies the corresponding NTFS id, known as a SID. The uid and the gid  are  op‐
       tional and defining both of them for the same SID is not recommended.

       If  no  interoperation with Windows is needed, you can use the option permissions to define a
       standard mapping. Alternately, you may define your own mapping by setting  a  single  default
       mapping  with no uid and gid. In both cases, files created on Linux will appear to Windows as
       owned by a foreign user, and files created on Windows will appear to Linux as owned by  root.
       Just  copy the example below and replace the 9 and 10-digit numbers by any number not greater
       than 4294967295. The resulting behavior is the same as the one with the option permission set
       with no ownership option and no user mapping file available.

              ::S-1-5-21-3141592653-589793238-462643383-10000

       If a strong interoperation with Windows is needed, the mapping has to  be  defined  for  each
       user  and  group known to both system, and the SIDs used by Windows has to be collected. This
       will lead to a user mapping file like :

              john::S-1-5-21-3141592653-589793238-462643383-1008
              mary::S-1-5-21-3141592653-589793238-462643383-1009
              :smith:S-1-5-21-3141592653-589793238-462643383-513
              ::S-1-5-21-3141592653-589793238-462643383-10000


       The utility ntfsusermap may be used to create such a user mapping file.

EXAMPLES
       Mount /dev/sda1 to /mnt/windows:

              ntfs-3g /dev/sda1 /mnt/windows
       or
              mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sda1 /mnt/windows

       Mount the ntfs data partition /dev/sda3 to /mnt/data with standard Linux permissions  applied
       :

              ntfs-3g -o permissions /dev/sda3 /mnt/data
       or
              mount -t ntfs-3g -o permissions /dev/sda3 /mnt/data

       Read-only  mount  /dev/sda5  to /home/user/mnt and make user with uid 1000 to be the owner of
       all files:

              ntfs-3g /dev/sda5 /home/user/mnt -o ro,uid=1000

       /etc/fstab entry for the above (the sixth and last field has to be zero to avoid a file  sys‐
       tem check at boot time) :

              /dev/sda5 /home/user/mnt ntfs-3g ro,uid=1000 0 0

       Unmount /mnt/windows:

              umount /mnt/windows


EXIT CODES
       To  facilitate  the use of the ntfs-3g driver in scripts, an exit code is returned to give an
       indication of the mountability status of a volume. Value 0 means success, and all other  ones
       mean an error. The unique error codes are documented in the ntfs-3g.probe(8) manual page.

KNOWN ISSUES
       Please see

              https://github.com/tuxera/ntfs-3g/wiki/NTFS-3G-FAQ

       for  common questions and known issues.  If you would find a new one in the latest release of
       the software then please post an ntfs-3g issue describing it in detail so that  the  develop‐
       ment team can be aware of the issue and take care of it:

              https://github.com/tuxera/ntfs-3g/issues


AUTHORS
       ntfs-3g  was  based on and a major improvement to ntfsmount and libntfs which were written by
       Yura Pakhuchiy and the Linux-NTFS team. The improvements were made, the ntfs-3g  project  was
       initiated  and  currently  led  by  long  time  Linux-NTFS team developer Szabolcs Szakacsits
       (szaka AT tuxera.com).

THANKS
       Several people made heroic efforts, often over five or more years which resulted the  ntfs-3g
       driver.  Most  importantly  they  are  Anton  Altaparmakov,  Jean-Pierre André, Erik Larsson,
       Richard Russon, Szabolcs Szakacsits, Yura Pakhuchiy, Yuval Fledel,  and  the  author  of  the
       groundbreaking FUSE filesystem development framework, Miklos Szeredi.

SEE ALSO
       ntfs-3g.probe(8), ntfsprogs(8), attr(5), getfattr(1)

ntfs-3g 2022.10.3                             Aug 2021                                    NTFS-3G(8)