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.