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.