Ubuntu Manpage: wimlib-imagex-update

NAME

       wimlib-imagex-update - Update a WIM image

SYNOPSIS

       wimlib-imagex update WIMFILE [IMAGE] [OPTION...] [< CMDFILE]

DESCRIPTION

       wimlib-imagex  update  modifies  the specified IMAGE in the Windows Imaging (WIM) file WIMFILE by adding,
       deleting, or renaming files or directories in it.  This command is also available as simply wimupdate  if
       the appropriate hard link or batch file has been installed.

       IMAGE  specifies the image in WIMFILE to update.  It may be a 1-based index of an image in the WIM or the
       name of an image in the WIM.  Use the wimlib-imagex info (1) command  to  list  the  images  a  WIM  file
       contains.  IMAGE may be omitted if WIMFILE contains only one image.

       The modifications to perform on the WIM image are specified as a sequence of commands, one per line, read
       in  a  text  file  from  standard input.  It is recommended that standard input be redirected from a file
       (CMDFILE), as shown above, rather than typing in commands interactively.   Alternatively,  to  specify  a
       command directly on the command line, see the --command option.

AVAILABLE COMMANDS

This section documents the commands that may appear in the CMDFILE described above.

add [OPTION...] SOURCE DESTINATION
Add a file or directory tree to the WIM image. SOURCE must specify the path to a file or directory on
your filesystem. DESTINATION must specify the path inside the WIM image at which to add the file or
directory tree.

If DESTINATION names an existing directory in the WIM image, then SOURCE must also name a directory.
This causes the contents of the SOURCE directory to be added to the DESTINATION directory.

If DESTINATION names an existing nondirectory file in the WIM image, then SOURCE must also name a
nondirectory file. By default, this causes the DESTINATION file to be replaced with the SOURCE file.
Or, with --no-replace specified, this generates an error.

If DESTINATION does not exist in the WIM image, then any prerequisite directories are created as needed
to add the SOURCE at that location.

The add command supports a subset of the options accepted by wimlib-imagex capture; namely,
--dereference, --unix-data, --no-acls, and --strict-acls. See wimlib-imagex-capture (1) for explanations
of these options.

In addition, the add command supports the --no-replace option, which causes the add command to refuse to
overwrite existing nondirectory files in the WIM image.

delete [OPTION...] PATH
Delete a file or directory tree from the WIM image. PATH must specify the path inside the WIM image of
the file or directory tree to delete.

The available options for the delete command are:

--force
Do not issue an error if the path to delete does not exist.

--recursive
Delete the file or directory tree recursively; if not specified, an error is issued if the path to
delete is a directory.

rename OLD_PATH NEW_PATH
Rename a file or directory tree inside the WIM image. OLD_PATH must specify the old path of the file or
directory tree inside the WIM image, and NEW_PATH must specify the new path for the file or directory
tree. This command follows the semantics of the POSIX rename (3) function; in particular, a pre-existing
file at NEW_PATH will be deleted if present, except in certain cases such as attempting to rename a
directory to a non-directory, which is not allowed.

There are no options available for the rename command.

OPTIONS

The following options are accepted on the command line by wimlib-imagex update itself:

--dereference
Use --dereference for all add commands.

--unix-data
Use --unix-data for all add commands.

--no-acls
Use --no-acls for all add commands.

--strict-acls
Use --strict-acls for all add commands.

--no-replace
Use --no-replace for all add commands.

--config=FILE
Set the capture configuration file for all add commands. See the description of this option in
wimlib-imagex-capture (1).

--force
Use --force for all delete commands.

--recursive
Use --recursive for all delete commands.

--check
When reading WIMFILE, verify its integrity if the integrity table is present; in addition, include
an integrity table in the updated WIM. If this option is not specified, an integrity table will be
included in the updated WIM if and only if one was present before.

--threads=NUM_THREADS
Number of threads to use for compressing newly added files. Default: autodetect (number of
processors).

--rebuild
Rebuild the entire WIM rather than appending the updated data to the end of it. Rebuilding the WIM
is slower, but will save a little bit of space that would otherwise be left as a hole in the WIM
file.

See wimlib-imagex-optimize (1) for a more customizable way of rebuilding (and optionally
recompressing) a WIM file. If running wimlib-imagex optimize after wimlib-imagex update, there is
no need to specify --rebuild to wimlib-imagex update.

--command=STRING
Instead of reading update commands from standard input, read a single update command directly from
the string STRING specified on the command line. This option cannot be provided more than one time
and cannot be used to specify more than one update command. Note that the STRING, as well as any
paths containing spaces within the STRING must be appropriately quoted. If running from cmd.exe on
Windows, you should use double quotes for the outer quotes and single quotes for the inner quotes.
Example:

wimlib-imagex update boot.wim 1 \
--command="add 'C:\My Dir' '\My Dir'"

This option is provided for convenience only. Do not execute wimlib-imagex update multiple
consecutive times, each time passing the --command option! This is inefficient. Instead, generate
an update command file and provide it (on standard input) to a single invocation of wimlib-imagex
update, as explained in this document.

--wimboot-config=FILE
If this option is specified, no commands shall be read from standard input, and instead the
following command shall be executed:

add FILE /Windows/System32/WimBootCompress.ini

This sets FILE as the WIMBoot configuration file for the image. The [PrepopulateList] section of
this file specifies path globs that shall not be extracted as WIMBoot pointer files (perhaps due to
being needed early in the boot process). See the documentation for the --wimboot option of wimlib-
imagex apply (1) for more information.

--unsafe-compact
See the documentation for this option in wimlib-imagex-optimize (1).

NOTES

wimlib-imagex update is partly redundant with wimlib-imagex mountrw, since if a WIM image can be mounted
read-write, then there theoretically is no need for wimlib-imagex update. The main advantage of wimlib-
imagex update is that it works on both UNIX-like systems and Windows, whereas wimlib-imagex mountrw is
only available on UNIX-like systems, and even then it only works on those with a compatible FUSE
implementation.

Symbolic links inside a WIM image are not dereferenced when being interpreted. So, for example, if you
have a WIM image that contains a symbolic link "/Documents and Settings" -> "/Users" where "/Users" is a
directory, then a subdirectory named "Public" in this directory must be specified as "/Users/Public"
rather than "/Documents and Settings/Public".

All paths to files or directories within the WIM image must be specified relative to the root of the
image. However, the leading slash is optional, and both forward slashes and backslashes are accepted.
In addition, on Windows, the paths are by default treated case-insensitively, while on UNIX-like systems,
the paths are by default treated case-sensitively. The default case sensitivity may be changed by
setting the WIMLIB_IMAGEX_IGNORE_CASE environmental variable to 0 or 1.

The command file (CMDFILE) is parsed by wimlib-imagex update itself and not by the system shell.
Therefore, its syntax is limited. However, comment lines beginning with '#' are allowed, and it is also
possible to quote arguments with whitespace inside them.

On UNIX-like systems, you cannot use wimlib-imagex update to add files to an image directly from an NTFS
volume using libntfs-3g, even though wimlib-imagex capture supports capturing a full image this way.

Except when using --unsafe-compact, it is safe to abort a wimlib-imagex update command partway through;
however, after doing this, it is recommended to run wimlib-imagex optimize to remove any data that was
appended to the physical WIM file but not yet incorporated into the structure of the WIM, unless
--rebuild was specified, in which case you should delete the temporary file left over.

EXAMPLES

       All  the  examples  below  show the update command file to be created as well as the wimlib-imagex update
       command to run to perform the updates.

       Delete two files from a WIM image:

              update_commands.txt:

                     delete /setup.exe
                     delete /sources/setup.exe

              $ wimlib-imagex update boot.wim 2 < update_commands.txt

       Add some files and directories to a WIM image.  Note that the first path of each  add  command  specifies
       the files to add, while the second path of each add command specify the locations at which to to add them
       inside the WIM image:

              update_commands.txt:

                     add somedir     /dir
                     add somefile    /dir/file

              $ wimlib-imagex update boot.wim 2 < update_commands.txt

       Rename a file inside a WIM image.

              update_commands.txt:

                     rename /dir_in_wim/oldfile.txt /dir_in_wim/newfile.txt

              $ wimlib-imagex update boot.wim 2 < update_commands.txt

       Using  additional  features, such as comments, options, and overlays, and including an integrity table in
       the updated WIM:

              update_commands.txt:

                     #
                     # This file specifies some changes to make to a WIM image.
                     #

                     # Add a new directory containing files I want in the image.
                     # The quotes are necessary because the directory name
                     # contains a space.
                     add "My Directory" "/My Directory"

                     # Add the contents of "Another Directory" to the
                     # "/My Directory" we just created in the WIM image.  Since
                     # the destination path already exists, this performs an
                     # overlay.
                     add "Another Directory" "/My Directory"

                     # Rename some file for some reason.
                     rename /dir_in_wim/oldfile.txt /dir_in_wim/newfile.txt

                     # Delete an unwanted directory.
                     delete --recursive /Users/Me/Documents/Junk

              $ wimlib-imagex update boot.wim 2 --check < update_commands.txt