Ubuntu Manpage: wimlib-imagex - Extract, create, modify, or mount a WIM archive

NAME

       wimlib-imagex - Extract, create, modify, or mount a WIM archive

SYNOPSIS

       wimlib-imagex append arguments... (or wimappend arguments...)
       wimlib-imagex apply arguments... (or wimapply arguments...)
       wimlib-imagex capture arguments... (or wimcapture arguments...)
       wimlib-imagex delete arguments... (or wimdelete arguments...)
       wimlib-imagex dir arguments... (or wimdir arguments...)
       wimlib-imagex export arguments... (or wimexport arguments...)
       wimlib-imagex extract arguments... (or wimextract arguments...)
       wimlib-imagex info arguments... (or wiminfo arguments...)
       wimlib-imagex join arguments... (or wimjoin arguments...)
       wimlib-imagex mount arguments... (or wimmount arguments...)
       wimlib-imagex mountrw arguments... (or wimmountrw arguments...)
       wimlib-imagex optimize arguments... (or wimoptimize arguments...)
       wimlib-imagex split arguments... (or wimsplit arguments...)
       wimlib-imagex unmount arguments... (or wimunmount arguments...)
       wimlib-imagex update arguments... (or wimupdate arguments...)
       wimlib-imagex verify arguments... (or wimverify arguments...)

DESCRIPTION

       wimlib-imagex  deals with archive files in the Windows Imaging (WIM) format.  Its interface is similar to
       Microsoft's ImageX, but wimlib-imagex is cross-platform and has useful improvements and extensions.

       To do its work, wimlib-imagex uses wimlib,  an  open  source  C  library  that  provides  interfaces  for
       manipulating WIM archives.  wimlib is completely independent from the equivalent Microsoft implementation
       (WIMGAPI, or wimgapi.dll).  You can use wimlib in  your  own  programs,  although  for  command-line  use
       wimlib-imagex already provides access to most of wimlib's functionality.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

       The  Windows  Imaging (WIM) format was designed by Microsoft primarily for archiving Windows filesystems,
       such as NTFS.  However, it can be used on other platforms as well, with some limitations.  A WIM  archive
       contains one or more images, each of which is a logically independent directory tree.  Images are indexed
       starting from 1, and each may also have a name.  File data is stored as content-addressable "blobs"  that
       are  deduplicated  across  the  entire  archive.  Data may be compressed using one of several compression
       algorithms.

       An update of the WIM format which Microsoft released with Windows 8 uses solid-mode LZMS  compression  to
       achieve  a  better  compression  ratio.   Such  files  are  also called "ESD files" and may have the .esd
       extension instead of .wim.  wimlib fully supports these files except when they are encrypted.

COMMANDS

       wimlib-imagex accepts one of a number of commands (listed above in SYNOPSYS),  and  additional  arguments
       depending on the specific command.  Although wimlib-imagex will print usage information with --help or if
       you invoke it incorrectly, the full documentation for each wimlib-imagex command  can  be  found  in  the
       appropriate manual page.

       Note:  if  appropriate hard links or batch files have been installed, a command wimlib-imagex COMMAND can
       also be accessed as simply wimCOMMAND; for example, wimapply for wimlib-imagex apply.   For  brevity  the
       documentation uses the shorter names.

GENERAL FEATURES

       The  following  are some of the general features, or use cases, currently supported by wimlib-imagex, and
       pointers to the relevant commands:

       •   Display information about a WIM file (wiminfo)

       •   List the files in a WIM image (wimdir)

       •   Extract, or "apply", a full WIM image (wimapply)

       •   Extract files or directories from a WIM image (wimextract)

       •   Capture a WIM image and save it to a new WIM file (wimcapture)

       •   Capture a WIM image and append it to an existing WIM file (wimappend)

       •   Modify a WIM image by adding, deleting, or renaming files (wimupdate)

       •   (Linux only) Mount a WIM image read-only (wimmount)

       •   (Linux only) Mount a WIM image read-write (wimmountrw)

       •   Delete an image from a WIM file (wimdelete)

       •   Export image(s) from a WIM file (wimexport)

       •   Change the name or description of a WIM image (wiminfo)

       •   Change the bootable image index of a WIM file (wiminfo)

       •   Rebuild, and optionally recompress, a WIM file (wimoptimize)

       •   Split a WIM file into multiple parts (wimsplit)

       •   Join a split WIM (wimjoin)

       •   Verify the validity and integrity of a WIM file (wimverify)

DETAILED FEATURES

This section presents some of the interesting features of wimlib-imagex in more detail.

• Multi-platform support. wimlib-imagex is supported on both UNIX-like systems (mainly Linux, but also
FreeBSD, Mac OS X, etc.) and Windows. Most code is shared among all platforms, but platform-specific
features are still supported when possible.

• XPRESS, LZX, and LZMS compression and decompression. wimlib contains advanced implementations of all
these compression algorithms. These have been improved over time and now usually outperform and
outcompress their Microsoft equivalents, while remaining fully compatible.

• Solid-mode compression, or "ESD file", support. "ESD files" are an updated WIM format that uses solid
LZMS compression to achieve a better compression ratio.

• Multithreaded compression. By default, wimlib's data compression is multithreaded and will use all
available processors.

• On UNIX-like systems, integration with libntfs-3g allows capturing a WIM image directly from an NTFS
volume, or applying a WIM image directly to an NTFS volume. This allows saving and restoring NTFS-
specific data and metadata, such as security descriptors and named data streams, which would
otherwise only be supported on Windows.

• On UNIX-like systems, optional support for saving and restoring standard UNIX file permissions
(owner/group/mode), UNIX special files, and extended attributes. (This is a wimlib extension;
Microsoft's WIM software ignores this extra information.)

• On Linux, support for mounting WIM images with FUSE (Filesystem in UserSpacE), both readonly and
read-write.

• Split WIMs. A split WIM is a WIM archive split into multiple parts. wimsplit can create a split WIM
from a standalone WIM, and wimjoin can create a standalone WIM from a split WIM.

• Delta WIMs. A delta WIM contains image metadata but excludes file data already present in another
WIM file. A delta WIM can be created using wimcapture with the --delta-from option.

• "Pipable" WIMs. As a wimlib extension (not compatible with the Microsoft implementation), wimcapture
supports capturing a WIM file to standard output in a special "pipable" format which can later be
applied by sending it to wimapply on standard input. Among other things, this can be used to pipe
images to or from a server over the network to implement fast filesystem imaging and restore.

• Support for WIM integrity tables. Although file data in WIM archives is always checksummed, there
can also be an extra set of checksums (an "integrity table") associated with the WIM file itself to
provide extra integrity assurance. The --check option to several wimlib-imagex commands can be used
to verify or add these extra checksums.

• Fast incremental backups. Because WIM archives use content-addressible file data, the contents of
files are automatically deduplicated. In addition, using the --update-of option of wimcapture or
wimappend, you can optimize an image capture so that files that are unmodified based on timestamps
are not even read from disk.

• Windows-specific image metadata support. When capturing an image of a Windows operating system,
wimlib will automatically populate XML metadata fields such as the Windows OS version details by
scanning well-known system files.

• WIMBoot support. On Windows 8.1 and later, files can be "externally backed" by a WIM archive with
the help of Microsoft's Windows Overlay Filesystem (WOF) filter driver. With the --wimboot option,
wimapply will extract "pointer files" to the WIM archive rather than the files themselves.

• VSS snapshot support. On Windows, wimcapture or wimappend with the --snapshot option will
automatically create a temporary VSS snapshot and capture the image from it. This can be used to
image a "live" Windows system.

• Long path support on Windows. wimlib-imagex can capture and apply files with paths exceeding the
MAX_PATH (260 character) limitation of the Win32 subsystem.

• Non-Administrator support on Windows. You can run wimlib-imagex without Administrator rights,
subject to some limitations.

COMMON OPTIONS

       The following options work for all wimlib-imagex commands:

       --help
             Display the help, then exit.

       --version
             Display the version and legal information, then exit.

       --quiet
             Suppress informational and progress messages.

CASE SENSITIVITY

       By default, the case sensitivity of wimlib-imagex differs somewhat between UNIX-like systems and Windows.
       WIM images may (but usually do not) have multiple files with the same case-insensitive name.  Internally,
       wimlib  stores filenames as case-sensitive, but on Windows paths actually provided by the user for use in
       a WIM image (e.g. for extracting, adding, renaming, or deleting files) will  by  default  be  treated  as
       case-insensitive in order to get the "expected" behavior. This differs from the default behavior on UNIX-
       like systems, where such paths will be treated as case-sensitive.

       Note that with case insensitivity, a path component may in general be ambiguous due to multiple files  or
       directories  having  the same case-insensitive name.  In such cases, if there is a file or directory with
       an exactly matching name, it is chosen;  otherwise,  one  of  the  case-insensitively  matching  file  or
       directories is chosen arbitrarily.

       The  default  case sensitivity of wimlib-imagex can be overridden by explicitly setting the environmental
       variable WIMLIB_IMAGEX_IGNORE_CASE to 1, in which case such paths will be treated case insensitively,  or
       0, in which such paths will be treated case sensitively.

       Regardless of these settings, options and non-path arguments must be specified in lower case.

LICENSE

       wimlib-imagex  may  be  redistributed  and/or modified under the terms of the GNU General Public License;
       either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.  There is  NO  WARRANTY,  to  the
       extent permitted by law.

REPORTING BUGS

       Report  bugs  to ebiggers3@gmail.com or to https://wimlib.net/forums/.  Feedback and suggestions are also
       welcome.