Ubuntu Manpage: wimlib-imagex-mount, wimlib-imagex-mountrw, wimlib-imagex-unmount

NAME

       wimlib-imagex-mount, wimlib-imagex-mountrw, wimlib-imagex-unmount - Mount and unmount an image from a WIM
       archive

SYNOPSIS

       wimlib-imagex mount WIMFILE [IMAGE] DIRECTORY [OPTION...]
       wimlib-imagex mountrw WIMFILE [IMAGE] DIRECTORY [OPTION...]
       wimlib-imagex unmount DIRECTORY [OPTION...]

DESCRIPTION

       On  Linux-based  systems, the wimlib-imagex mount and wimlib-imagex mountrw commands will mount the image
       in the Windows Imaging (WIM) file WIMFILE specified by  IMAGE  on  the  directory  DIRECTORY  using  FUSE
       (Filesystem  in  Userspace).   wimlib-imagex  mount  will  mount the image read-only, while wimlib-imagex
       mountrw will mount the  image  read-write.   These  commands  are  also  available  as  simply  wimmount,
       wimmountrw, and wimunmount if the appropriate hard links are installed.

       IMAGE  may  be a 1-based index of the image in the WIM to mount, or it may be the name of an image in the
       WIM.  Use the wimlib-imagex info (1) command to see the available  images  in  the  WIM.   IMAGE  may  be
       omitted if WIMFILE contains only one image.

       The  WIM  image  can be unmounted using the wimlib-imagex unmount command.  Changes made to a WIM mounted
       read-write will be discarded unless the --commit flag is provided to wimlib-imagex unmount.

DATA AND METADATA SUPPORT

This section documents which WIM features are exposed via the mount support and which are not.

The following features are supported (read/write unless otherwise specified):

• Hard links

• Symbolic links. Native Windows symbolic links and junctions in a mounted WIM image will
automatically be translated into UNIX symbolic links, potentially with their targets fixed to be
valid given the actual mountpoint directory. UNIX symbolic links created in a read-write mounted WIM
image will automatically be translated into native Windows symbolic links.

• Named data streams (mostly). See the --streams-interface option.

• Standard UNIX permission bits and UNIX special files are supported if the --unix-data option is used.

The following features are unsupported:

• Windows security descriptors. These are not exposed in the mounted filesystem, although existing
values will be preserved on commit. New files are not given security descriptors.

• DOS names (8.3 names) (short names). These are not exposed in the mounted filesystem, although
existing values will be preserved on commit. New files are not given DOS names.

• Windows file attributes. These are not exposed in the mounted filesystem, although existing values
will be preserved on commit. New files are assigned default attributes based on the UNIX file mode
bits.

• EFS-encrypted files. The files themselves will be visible in mounted WIM images but their data will
not be available.

SPLIT WIMS

       You may use wimlib-imagex mount to mount an image from a split WIM read-only.  However, you may not mount
       an image from a split WIM read-write.

       The  WIMFILE  argument  must  specify  the first part of the split WIM, while the additional parts of the
       split WIM must be specified in one or more --ref="GLOB" options.  Since globbing is built into the  --ref
       option,  typically  only  one  --ref option is necessary.  For example, the names for the split WIM parts
       usually go something like:

              mywim.swm
              mywim2.swm
              mywim3.swm
              mywim4.swm
              mywim5.swm

       To mount the first image of this split WIM to the directory "dir", run:

              wimlib-imagex mount mywim.swm 1 dir --ref="mywim*.swm"

NOTES

       Availablity: Mounting WIM images is only supported on Linux-based systems.  These commands will not  work
       on other platforms.  Furthermore, the library cannot have been configured --without-fuse.

       Multiple  mounts: You are free to mount many WIM images at the same time, provided that there are not two
       images mounted read-write from the same file at the same time.

       Appends vs. rebuilds: By default, changes to a read-write WIM are made in-place by appending to the  WIM.
       This  is nice for big WIM files, since the entire file doesn't have to be rebuilt to make a small change.
       But, if you are making many changes to a read-write mounted WIM, especially deleting large files,  it  is
       suggested  to  provide  the  --rebuild option to wimlib-imagex unmount to force the WIM to be rebuilt, or
       else run wimlib-imagex optimize on the WIM afterwards.

       ESD files (solid WIMs): You can mount version 3584 WIMs,  which  usually  contain  LZMS-compressed  solid
       resources  and  may carry the .esd file extension rather than .wim.  However, such files are not designed
       for random access, so reading data from them when mounted may be very  slow.   In  addition,  .esd  files
       downloaded directly by the Windows 8 web downloader have encrypted segments, and wimlib cannot mount such
       files until they are first decrypted.

MOUNT OPTIONS

--check
When reading the WIM, verify its integrity if it contains an integrity table.

--streams-interface=INTERFACE
This option is inspired by the ntfs-3g filesystem driver (see ntfs-3g (8)). It controls how
alternate data streams, or named data streams, in WIM files are made available.

If "none", it will be impossible to read or write the named data streams.

If "xattr" (default), named data streams will be accessible through extended file attributes,
unless this support was disabled when compiling wimlib. The named data streams may be accessed
through extended attributes named "user.*", where the * is the name of the named data stream. See
setfattr (1) and getfattr (1). Note that this is not an ideal interface, since named data streams
may be larger than the maximum allowed extended attribute size.

If "windows", the named data streams will be accessible by specifying the filename, then a colon,
then the name of the named data stream; for example, "myfile:mystream".

Please note that named data streams are a somewhat obscure NTFS feature that aren't actually used
much, even though they complicate the WIM file format considerably. Normally, all you care about
is the default or "unnamed" data stream.

--debug
Turn on debugging information printed by the FUSE library, and do not fork into the background.

--ref="GLOB"
File glob of additional WIMs or split WIM parts to reference resources from. See SPLIT_WIMS. This
option can be specified multiple times. Note: GLOB is listed in quotes because it is interpreted
by wimlib-imagex and may need to be quoted to protect against shell expansion.

--staging-dir=DIR
Store temporary staging files in a subdirectory of the directory DIR. Only valid for wimlib-imagex
mountrw.

--unix-data
Honor UNIX-specific metadata that was captured by wimlib-imagex capture with the --unix-data
option. By default, wimlib-imagex mount and wimlib-imagex mountrw will ignore both Windows-style
security descriptors (which may have been set either from Windows or by wimlib-imagex capture from
an NTFS-volume) and UNIX-specific metadata. In this default mode, all files will simply be owned
by the user running wimlib-imagex and will have mode 0777. (Note: they will still not be
accessible to other users unless you also specify --allow-other.) If you instead provide the
--unix-data option, these default permissions will be overridden on a per-file basis with the UNIX-
specific data when available, and in the case of wimlib-imagex mountrw it will be possible to
change the UNIX permissions using the standard UNIX tools and functions. In addition, with wimlib
v1.7.0 and later, you can create device nodes, named pipes, and sockets on the mounted filesystem
and have them stored in the WIM image.

--allow-other
Pass the allow_other option to the FUSE mount. See mount.fuse (8). Note: to do this is a non-root
user, user_allow_other needs to be specified in /etc/fuse.conf (with the FUSE implementation on
Linux, at least).

UNMOUNT OPTIONS

--commit
Update the WIM file with the changes that have been made. Has no effect if the mount is read-
only.

--force
In combination with --commit, force the WIM image to be committed even if there are open file
descriptors to the WIM image. Any such file descriptors will be immediately closed, and the WIM
image will be committed and unmounted.

--lazy is a deprecated alias for --force. (Unmounts are now "lazy" by default with regards to the
kernel-level mountpoint, except in the case with --commit described above.)

--check
When writing WIMFILE, include an integrity table. Has no effect if the mount is read-only or if
--commit was not specified. The default behavior is to include an integrity table if and only if
there was one present before.

--rebuild
Rebuild the entire WIM rather than appending any new 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.
Even more space will be saved if the read-write mount resulted in streams being deleted from the
WIM. Also see

--new-image
In combination with --commit for a read-write mounted image, causes the modified image to be
committed as a new, unnamed image appended to the WIM archive. The original image will be
unmodified.

IMPLEMENTATION DETAILS

       Since  a  WIM  is  an  archive  and  not  a filesystem, wimlib-imagex mountrw creates a temporary staging
       directory to contain files that are created or modified.  This directory is located in the same directory
       as WIMFILE by default, but the location can be set using the --staging-dir option.  When  the  filesystem
       is  unmounted with --commit, the WIM is modified in-place (or rebuilt completely with --rebuild), merging
       in the staging files as needed.  Then, the temporary staging directory is deleted.

       wimlib-imagex unmount runs in a separate process from  the  process  that  previously  ran  wimlib-imagex
       mount.   When  unmounting  a  read-write mounted WIM image with --commit, these two processes communicate
       using a POSIX message queue so that the unmount process can track the progress of the mount process.  See
       src/mount_image.c in the sources for details.