[opensuse] Is ntfs-3g safe?
I've installed suse and Windows xp on my wife's new computer; she's not very confident of her ability to deal with computers, and she has to use xp for work, so she insists on her xp at home. I find that ext2fs doesn't work any more because suse, like most (all?) other distributions has gone to 256-byte inodes rather than the original 128-byte inodes, and to get back to the old structure means backing up my entire 150G home partition and reformatting it. But ntfs-3g, which ships with suse, claims to read and write to ntfs partitions, but writing is disabled by default because it's "unsafe". I've installed ntfs-config, but haven't had the courage to use it because in the course of finding out why I could no longer use ext2fs (which I've used in the past), I ran across several statements that writing under ntfs-3g could corrupt ntfs partitions, and that's why it's disabled by default. But the most recent of these statements is two years old in an ubuntu forum archive. Is ntfs-3g still risky? I'd really like to use it to put information into my xp account so when my wife preempts her computer (struggling with xen, unfortunately), and when I need engineering resources not available under linux, I don't have to juggle flashdrives and such. John Perry -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On 2011/01/21 23:08 (GMT-0500) John Perry composed:
I find that ext2fs doesn't work any more because suse, like most (all?) other distributions has gone to 256-byte inodes rather than the original 128-byte inodes...
256 byte is only a default. All my Linux partitions have 128 byte, including 11.3s, 11.4s & Rawhides. Most of mine also have 1024 byte block size, rather than the 4096 current default, but most are 5G or less, where excessive cluster overhang waste is poorly tolerated. -- "How much better to get wisdom than gold, to choose understanding rather than silver." Proverbs 16:16 NKJV Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On 01/22/2011 12:37 AM, Felix Miata wrote:
On 2011/01/21 23:08 (GMT-0500) John Perry composed:
I find that ext2fs doesn't work any more because suse, like most (all?) other distributions has gone to 256-byte inodes rather than the original 128-byte inodes...
256 byte is only a default. All my Linux partitions have 128 byte, including 11.3s, 11.4s & Rawhides. Most of mine also have 1024 byte block size, rather than the 4096 current default, but most are 5G or less, where excessive cluster overhang waste is poorly tolerated.
Well, since I don't have gparted up in front of me, tell us how to change the default to 128-byte inodes. I assume that's the program, or is it something else? Or is there a good reason _not_ to do that? (So far, my old disk drives don't give me any trouble. I put a 1 TB drive in my W7 machine a few months ago and it didn't complain--the drive or the Windows. I put a 260 KB 2-1/2" drive in the laptop last August, and Linux and XP are happy with that, whatever format the drive is.) --doug -- Blessed are the peacemakers...for they shall be shot at from both sides. --A. M. Greeley -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On 2011/01/22 01:14 (GMT-0500) Doug composed:
On 01/22/2011 12:37 AM, Felix Miata wrote:
256 byte is only a default. All my Linux partitions have 128 byte, including 11.3s, 11.4s & Rawhides. Most of mine also have 1024 byte block size, rather than the 4096 current default, but most are 5G or less, where excessive cluster overhang waste is poorly tolerated.
Well, since I don't have gparted up in front of me, tell us how to change
I never use gparted to format.
the default to 128-byte inodes. I assume that's the program, or is it something else?
/etc/mke2fs.conf man mke2fs man tune2fs AFAIK, you have to finish the install before you can change the defaults. That means you either format according to your own specifications prior to installation, or during installation when selecting to format individual partitions you have to go into details/options and specify what you want to not be set to default. I nearly always format prior to beginning installation.
Or is there a good reason _not_ to do that?
No definitive idea, but I suppose it's a matter of efficiency WRT partition size, average file sizes expected, and total number of files expected among other things. -- "How much better to get wisdom than gold, to choose understanding rather than silver." Proverbs 16:16 NKJV Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On 01/22/2011 12:37 AM, Felix Miata wrote:
On 2011/01/21 23:08 (GMT-0500) John Perry composed:
I find that ext2fs doesn't work any more because suse, like most (all?) other distributions has gone to 256-byte inodes rather than the original 128-byte inodes...
256 byte is only a default. All my Linux partitions have 128 byte, including 11.3s, 11.4s & Rawhides. Most of mine also have 1024 byte block size, rather than the 4096 current default, but most are 5G or less, where excessive cluster overhang waste is poorly tolerated.
Quite so. But you have to know it's happening and how to prevent it, and I didn't (I have only a vague idea of what an inode might be, actually...). And once the deed is done and has bitten you, you have to reformat the partition to get back (does that answer your question, Doug?), and, as I said, that would be very inconvenient. Possible, but inconvenient -- and if ntfs-3g is now safe, as Tejas maintains, unnecessary for me. I can handle one-way transfer until ext2fs and its siblings catch up. Thanks, all. It's much easier to back up and restore Tana's 2 -- 3G of information than my 50+G. jp -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On 22/01/11 09:31, John E. Perry wrote:
Quite so. But you have to know it's happening and how to prevent it, and I didn't (I have only a vague idea of what an inode might be, actually...). And once the deed is done and has bitten you, you have to reformat the partition to get back (does that answer your question, Doug?), and, as I said, that would be very inconvenient. Possible, but inconvenient -- and if ntfs-3g is now safe, as Tejas maintains, unnecessary for me. I can handle one-way transfer until ext2fs and its siblings catch up.
Thanks, all. It's much easier to back up and restore Tana's 2 -- 3G of information than my 50+G.
jp
If you're paranoid about data loss, one solution is to leave the ntfs partition read-only from Linux, and have a small FAT32 partition r/w from both Windows and Linux, since fat is an even older/more stable implementation, it is hopefully even more bug-free. Not that I've had any problems with ntfs-3g though - YMMV. Regards, Tejas -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On 22/01/11 04:08, John Perry wrote:
I've installed suse and Windows xp on my wife's new computer; she's not very confident of her ability to deal with computers, and she has to use xp for work, so she insists on her xp at home.
I find that ext2fs doesn't work any more because suse, like most (all?) other distributions has gone to 256-byte inodes rather than the original 128-byte inodes, and to get back to the old structure means backing up my entire 150G home partition and reformatting it.
FWIW there is a project ext2fsd http://www.ext2fsd.com that can read 256-byte inodes and even ext4 with extents (see comments on that page -> bo branten's patches). It's worked fine for me, but I personally trust ntfs-3g more than it.
But ntfs-3g, which ships with suse, claims to read and write to ntfs partitions, but writing is disabled by default because it's "unsafe". I've installed ntfs-config, but haven't had the courage to use it because in the course of finding out why I could no longer use ext2fs (which I've used in the past), I ran across several statements that writing under ntfs-3g could corrupt ntfs partitions, and that's why it's disabled by default. But the most recent of these statements is two years old in an ubuntu forum archive.
openSUSE mounts drives r/w, but only writeable to user root if they are an internal drive, IIRC. Just edit your /etc/fstab. ntfs-config hasn't been necessary since ~11.1?
Is ntfs-3g still risky? I'd really like to use it to put information into my xp account so when my wife preempts her computer (struggling with xen, unfortunately), and when I need engineering resources not available under linux, I don't have to juggle flashdrives and such.
I've never had a data corruption problem with ntfs-3g in the 2+ years it's been stable. A long time ago there used to be performance issues but those seem to be fixed. Regards, Tejas -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Saturday 22 January 2011 03:57:19 Tejas Guruswamy wrote: <snipped>
I've never had a data corruption problem with ntfs-3g in the 2+ years it's been stable. A long time ago there used to be performance issues but those seem to be fixed.
Regards, Tejas
+1 I seem to recall my concerns about using ntfs-3g evaporating when I discovered that 11.1 had been auto-mounting the Vista partition rw since day one. My bad. I just assumed it was being mounted read-only. I added "noauto" to the fstab entry and spent a couple of weeks experimented with a 'spare' usb external drive; one that came factory formatted ntfs. Bottom line: It has since worked (and is continuing to work) flawlessly for exchanging large volumes of data between my Vista and *nix installations here. ymmv, but I hth & regards, Carl -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
El 22/01/11 01:08, John Perry escribió:
Is ntfs-3g still risky?
As much as risky as reading/writting any other filesystem, all software has bugs which are part of their very nature. It should work just fine ;-) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On 01/22/2011 09:07 AM, Cristian Rodríguez wrote:
El 22/01/11 01:08, John Perry escribió:
Is ntfs-3g still risky?
As much as risky as reading/writting any other filesystem, all software has bugs which are part of their very nature.
It should work just fine ;-)
Aha! That's what I was hoping to hear -- support for ntfs-3g from someone at suse who might know something. Yes, I know -- large software projects have bugs, some serious, that can sneak in under the nose of the most diligent of defenders. I can handle that; it's just a matter of how much risk, and how serious the risk is. As far as I'm concerned, ntfs-3g is now a solid product. FLW :-). Thanks, all. jp -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On 01/22/2011 12:58 PM, John E. Perry wrote:
On 01/22/2011 09:07 AM, Cristian Rodríguez wrote:
El 22/01/11 01:08, John Perry escribió:
Is ntfs-3g still risky?
As much as risky as reading/writting any other filesystem, all software has bugs which are part of their very nature.
It should work just fine ;-)
So, I had used ntfs-3g to enable writing (I haven't yet worked out the mysteries of fstab). I brought up Dolphin in superuser mode to change the owner from root to john in appropriate places. Indicates success. Close Dolphin, bring up Konqueror and look. No change. Owner and group are still root. Just on the off chance that something might be wrong with my understanding of what Dolphin did, I go the the command line; ls -l says owner and group are root. Chown from the command line; indicates success. ls -l says owner and group are root. Despair. So, I bring up ntfs-3g again; it says the partition is writable (I'd done that yesterday before chickening out and asking here). Try again with Konqueror: now I can drag files from my linux account to my xp account (yesterday I didn't have permission). Konqueror and ls still say the partition and all its contents belong to root:root. I'm using my home account. Strange. Now all I have left to do is reboot to my xp account and see if my additions are really and truly there. Both Konqueror and ls say they are. jp -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Sun, 23 Jan 2011 02:08:36 -0500, John Perry
No change. Owner and group are still root. Just on the off chance that something might be wrong with my understanding of what Dolphin did, I go the the command line; ls -l says owner and group are root. Chown from the command line; indicates success. ls -l says owner and group are root. Despair.
Owner and group for files on ntfs are determined by mount option(the uid and gid options), not by chown. Read the mount man page for a description. Philipp -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Sunday, January 23, 2011 07:31:02 am Philipp Thomas wrote:
Read the mount man page for a description.
or http://en.opensuse.org/NTFS Background: Windows protects its system files from deletion, but only when it is controlling the system. When user is accessing partition with installed windows from Linux, that protection does not exist, so one can overwrite or delete important files preventing Windows from starting. Restrictive settings that allow only root to write there are some protection, not very sophisticated, but it prevents users without basic knowledge to damage their windows, at least to the moment they discover power of root :) Problem is that any other NTFS file system is not writable too, which forces users to either learn workarounds, or leave Linux. Taking that people with a little computer knowledge already demonstrated lack of interest in computer internals, second option is probably the most used one, unless they find Linux that is not overprotective. Problem is similar to UAC in Vista. It failed because it was giving too many warnings to be usable. -- Regards, Rajko -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Wed, 2 Feb 2011 22:28:50 -0600, "Rajko M."
Windows protects its system files from deletion, but only when it is controlling the system. When user is accessing partition with installed windows from Linux, that protection does not exist, so one can overwrite or delete important files preventing Windows from starting.
Rather lame excuse. For instance, what is with ntfs partitions other then those holding the OS?
Problem is similar to UAC in Vista. It failed because it was giving too many warnings to be usable.
No, it didn't give too much warnings, it just showed how stupid many applications had been programmed because MS had been to lax in forcing the right behaviour. And then MS made that dumb decision for Win7 to enable the user to switch off the warnings completely, rendering all the protection UAC offers obsolete. Philipp -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
participants (10)
-
Carl Hartung -
Cristian Rodríguez -
Doug -
Felix Miata -
James Knott -
John E. Perry -
John Perry -
Philipp Thomas -
Rajko M. -
Tejas Guruswamy