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Questions re: kernel 5.15 & ntfs3

Posted: Mon Nov 01, 2021 7:27 am
by peebee

Any thoughts from kernel experts???

Kernel 5.15 has appeared.
ntfs3 support is now built into the kernel - apparently....

So some questions that need to be considered are:

1. how do the 5.14 kernel configs have to be altered to put ntfs into 5.15? ***

2. will the 5.15 kernel with ntfs3 work with a system that already has the ntfs3g drivers included as a package? If the ntfs3g package has to be removed this will restrict the applicability of the 5.15 kernel.

3. what testing is needed to ensure that the new kernel ntfs3 drivers work identically to previous ntfs3g package?

*** I've got these kernel configs from somewhere:

Code: Select all

CONFIG_NTFS3_FS=y
CONFIG_NTFS3_LZX_XPRESS=y
CONFIG_NTFS3_FS_POSIX_ACL=y

are these the complete config changes needed?

The 5.14 configs currently have these configs - is this the right place to make amendments?

Code: Select all

# DOS/FAT/NT Filesystems
#
CONFIG_FAT_FS=y
CONFIG_MSDOS_FS=y
CONFIG_VFAT_FS=y
CONFIG_FAT_DEFAULT_CODEPAGE=437
CONFIG_FAT_DEFAULT_IOCHARSET="iso8859-1"
# CONFIG_FAT_DEFAULT_UTF8 is not set
CONFIG_NTFS_FS=y
# CONFIG_NTFS_DEBUG is not set
CONFIG_NTFS_RW=y
# end of DOS/FAT/NT Filesystems

@01micko @mistfire @jamesbond @dimkr


Re: kernel 5.15 & ntfs3 ?? help needed!

Posted: Mon Nov 01, 2021 10:36 am
by mistfire

@peebee ntfs3 and ntfs are seperate kernel module. So I think its safe to coexists. It's time to include the native ntfs3 driver which gives full NTFS support on linux.

*** I've got these kernel configs from somewhere:

CODE: SELECT ALL

CONFIG_NTFS3_FS=y
CONFIG_NTFS3_LZX_XPRESS=y
CONFIG_NTFS3_FS_POSIX_ACL=y
are these the complete config changes needed

Upon searching the config. It's all good.

will the 5.15 kernel with ntfs3 work with a system that already has the ntfs3g drivers included as a package? If the ntfs3g package has to be removed this will restrict the applicability of the 5.15 kernel.

ntfs-3g was fuse-based (if I'm correct) so native ntfs3 will still work even ntfs-3g was installed.

The setup here was to use ntfs-3g as fallback in case ntfs3 mounting failed. But we need to catch error exit code for hibernated ntfs partition. It require to edit init and mount scripts first.

But I needed to test it first. That's why I'm waiting for your compiled kernel with NTFS3. The QuickPup64 was ntfs3 ready.


Re: Questions re: kernel 5.15 & ntfs3

Posted: Mon Nov 01, 2021 1:06 pm
by BarryK

For EasyOS, I decided not to enable ntfs3 in the kernel. The reason for that, is don't know whether 'ntfsprogs' utilities work with ntfs3.

ntfsprogs got merged into the ntfs-3g project sometime ago. So if you leave out ntfs-3g then you also lose those utilities.

Let's see, looking at ntfs-3g, there are these:

/sbin
mkfs.ntfs, mount.ntfs

/usr/bin
lowntfs-3g ntfs-3g.probe ntfscluster ntfsfix ntfsls
ntfs-3g ntfscat ntfscmp ntfsinfo

/usr/sbin
mkntfs ntfsclone ntfscp ntfslabel ntfsresize ntfsundelete

Note, gparted needs some of those utilities.


Re: Questions re: kernel 5.15 & ntfs3

Posted: Mon Nov 01, 2021 1:14 pm
by BarryK

Also note, you don't have to be using the 5.15 kernel. There is a patch available for earlier kernels, don't have the link right now. I had it working on a 5.10 kernel.


Re: Questions re: kernel 5.15 & ntfs3

Posted: Mon Nov 01, 2021 1:31 pm
by peebee

https://sourceforge.net/projects/lxpup/ ... 2/download
has:

Code: Select all

CONFIG_NTFS_FS=y
# CONFIG_NTFS_DEBUG is not set
CONFIG_NTFS_RW=y
CONFIG_NTFS3_FS=y
CONFIG_NTFS3_64BIT_CLUSTER=y
CONFIG_NTFS3_LZX_XPRESS=y
CONFIG_NTFS3_FS_POSIX_ACL=y

Re: Questions re: kernel 5.15 & ntfs3

Posted: Mon Nov 01, 2021 1:43 pm
by bigpup

Maybe some answers:
https://www.paragon-software.com/us/hom ... river-faq/

One specific issue:

Are you planning to add any files system utilities? The existing alternatives such as fsck.NTFS/NTFSck and fsck.(v)fat don’t work well, and the community has been waiting for a fix.
Yes, we plan to publish and open-source our mkfs.NTFS utility.


Re: Questions re: kernel 5.15 & ntfs3

Posted: Mon Nov 01, 2021 2:27 pm
by mistfire

@peebee
Thanks for creating 5.15 kernel with ntfs3 support. I tested with my QuickPup64 which has ntfs3 mounting support by default. It works nice and fast for me.


Re: Questions re: kernel 5.15 & ntfs3

Posted: Mon Nov 01, 2021 9:24 pm
by Clarity

Haven't has a chance to try this in an ISO, yet.

I am looking forward to the built-into-kernel ability. My specific interest is ability for system to find and use the NTFS 'Compressed' filesystems I have used over the past 3 decades in addition to a non-compressed NTFS.

I believe the cooperation between MS and Tovalds will lead to this being a replacement for how NTFS was used, by Linux without MS, in the past.

Implication is a more consistent filesystem: It should eliminate/dissipate many of the past corruptions that have plagued Linux users for years while bringing the security in line with Linux files security model.

In the past MS did their security one-way while Linux is different. This leads to some interesting issues we've faced. I foresee many of those going away and a clear consistent use, no matter if running MS or running Linux, the file's security models will match with much better inter-operations.


Re: Questions re: kernel 5.15 & ntfs3

Posted: Thu Nov 04, 2021 6:52 am
by peebee

Is this significant?

@Marv reports: viewtopic.php?p=40774#p40774

Code: Select all

# dmesg | grep -i warning
[    0.791597] ntfs3: Warning: Activated 64 bits per cluster. Windows does not support this