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1USING VFAT
2----------------------------------------------------------------------
3To use the vfat filesystem, use the filesystem type 'vfat'. i.e.
4 mount -t vfat /dev/fd0 /mnt
5
6No special partition formatter is required. mkdosfs will work fine
7if you want to format from within Linux.
8
9VFAT MOUNT OPTIONS
10----------------------------------------------------------------------
11uid=### -- Set the owner of all files on this filesystem.
12 The default is the uid of current process.
13
14gid=### -- Set the group of all files on this filesystem.
15 The default is the gid of current process.
16
17umask=### -- The permission mask (for files and directories, see umask(1)).
18 The default is the umask of current process.
19
20dmask=### -- The permission mask for the directory.
21 The default is the umask of current process.
22
23fmask=### -- The permission mask for files.
24 The default is the umask of current process.
25
26allow_utime=### -- This option controls the permission check of mtime/atime.
27
28 20 - If current process is in group of file's group ID,
29 you can change timestamp.
30 2 - Other users can change timestamp.
31
32 The default is set from `dmask' option. (If the directory is
33 writable, utime(2) is also allowed. I.e. ~dmask & 022)
34
35 Normally utime(2) checks current process is owner of
36 the file, or it has CAP_FOWNER capability. But FAT
37 filesystem doesn't have uid/gid on disk, so normal
38 check is too unflexible. With this option you can
39 relax it.
40
41codepage=### -- Sets the codepage number for converting to shortname
42 characters on FAT filesystem.
43 By default, FAT_DEFAULT_CODEPAGE setting is used.
44
45iocharset=<name> -- Character set to use for converting between the
46 encoding is used for user visible filename and 16 bit
47 Unicode characters. Long filenames are stored on disk
48 in Unicode format, but Unix for the most part doesn't
49 know how to deal with Unicode.
50 By default, FAT_DEFAULT_IOCHARSET setting is used.
51
52 There is also an option of doing UTF-8 translations
53 with the utf8 option.
54
55 NOTE: "iocharset=utf8" is not recommended. If unsure,
56 you should consider the following option instead.
57
58utf8=<bool> -- UTF-8 is the filesystem safe version of Unicode that
59 is used by the console. It can be enabled for the
60 filesystem with this option. If 'uni_xlate' gets set,
61 UTF-8 gets disabled.
62
63uni_xlate=<bool> -- Translate unhandled Unicode characters to special
64 escaped sequences. This would let you backup and
65 restore filenames that are created with any Unicode
66 characters. Until Linux supports Unicode for real,
67 this gives you an alternative. Without this option,
68 a '?' is used when no translation is possible. The
69 escape character is ':' because it is otherwise
70 illegal on the vfat filesystem. The escape sequence
71 that gets used is ':' and the four digits of hexadecimal
72 unicode.
73
74nonumtail=<bool> -- When creating 8.3 aliases, normally the alias will
75 end in '~1' or tilde followed by some number. If this
76 option is set, then if the filename is
77 "longfilename.txt" and "longfile.txt" does not
78 currently exist in the directory, 'longfile.txt' will
79 be the short alias instead of 'longfi~1.txt'.
80
81usefree -- Use the "free clusters" value stored on FSINFO. It'll
82 be used to determine number of free clusters without
83 scanning disk. But it's not used by default, because
84 recent Windows don't update it correctly in some
85 case. If you are sure the "free clusters" on FSINFO is
86 correct, by this option you can avoid scanning disk.
87
88quiet -- Stops printing certain warning messages.
89
90check=s|r|n -- Case sensitivity checking setting.
91 s: strict, case sensitive
92 r: relaxed, case insensitive
93 n: normal, default setting, currently case insensitive
94
95nocase -- This was deprecated for vfat. Use shortname=win95 instead.
96
97shortname=lower|win95|winnt|mixed
98 -- Shortname display/create setting.
99 lower: convert to lowercase for display,
100 emulate the Windows 95 rule for create.
101 win95: emulate the Windows 95 rule for display/create.
102 winnt: emulate the Windows NT rule for display/create.
103 mixed: emulate the Windows NT rule for display,
104 emulate the Windows 95 rule for create.
105 Default setting is `mixed'.
106
107tz=UTC -- Interpret timestamps as UTC rather than local time.
108 This option disables the conversion of timestamps
109 between local time (as used by Windows on FAT) and UTC
110 (which Linux uses internally). This is particularly
111 useful when mounting devices (like digital cameras)
112 that are set to UTC in order to avoid the pitfalls of
113 local time.
114
115showexec -- If set, the execute permission bits of the file will be
116 allowed only if the extension part of the name is .EXE,
117 .COM, or .BAT. Not set by default.
118
119debug -- Can be set, but unused by the current implementation.
120
121sys_immutable -- If set, ATTR_SYS attribute on FAT is handled as
122 IMMUTABLE flag on Linux. Not set by default.
123
124flush -- If set, the filesystem will try to flush to disk more
125 early than normal. Not set by default.
126
127rodir -- FAT has the ATTR_RO (read-only) attribute. On Windows,
128 the ATTR_RO of the directory will just be ignored,
129 and is used only by applications as a flag (e.g. it's set
130 for the customized folder).
131
132 If you want to use ATTR_RO as read-only flag even for
133 the directory, set this option.
134
135errors=panic|continue|remount-ro
136 -- specify FAT behavior on critical errors: panic, continue
137 without doing anything or remount the partition in
138 read-only mode (default behavior).
139
140<bool>: 0,1,yes,no,true,false
141
142TODO
143----------------------------------------------------------------------
144* Need to get rid of the raw scanning stuff. Instead, always use
145 a get next directory entry approach. The only thing left that uses
146 raw scanning is the directory renaming code.
147
148
149POSSIBLE PROBLEMS
150----------------------------------------------------------------------
151* vfat_valid_longname does not properly checked reserved names.
152* When a volume name is the same as a directory name in the root
153 directory of the filesystem, the directory name sometimes shows
154 up as an empty file.
155* autoconv option does not work correctly.
156
157BUG REPORTS
158----------------------------------------------------------------------
159If you have trouble with the VFAT filesystem, mail bug reports to
160chaffee@bmrc.cs.berkeley.edu. Please specify the filename
161and the operation that gave you trouble.
162
163TEST SUITE
164----------------------------------------------------------------------
165If you plan to make any modifications to the vfat filesystem, please
166get the test suite that comes with the vfat distribution at
167
168 http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://bmrc.berkeley.edu/
169 people/chaffee/vfat.html
170
171This tests quite a few parts of the vfat filesystem and additional
172tests for new features or untested features would be appreciated.
173
174NOTES ON THE STRUCTURE OF THE VFAT FILESYSTEM
175----------------------------------------------------------------------
176(This documentation was provided by Galen C. Hunt <gchunt@cs.rochester.edu>
177 and lightly annotated by Gordon Chaffee).
178
179This document presents a very rough, technical overview of my
180knowledge of the extended FAT file system used in Windows NT 3.5 and
181Windows 95. I don't guarantee that any of the following is correct,
182but it appears to be so.
183
184The extended FAT file system is almost identical to the FAT
185file system used in DOS versions up to and including 6.223410239847
186:-). The significant change has been the addition of long file names.
187These names support up to 255 characters including spaces and lower
188case characters as opposed to the traditional 8.3 short names.
189
190Here is the description of the traditional FAT entry in the current
191Windows 95 filesystem:
192
193 struct directory { // Short 8.3 names
194 unsigned char name[8]; // file name
195 unsigned char ext[3]; // file extension
196 unsigned char attr; // attribute byte
197 unsigned char lcase; // Case for base and extension
198 unsigned char ctime_ms; // Creation time, milliseconds
199 unsigned char ctime[2]; // Creation time
200 unsigned char cdate[2]; // Creation date
201 unsigned char adate[2]; // Last access date
202 unsigned char reserved[2]; // reserved values (ignored)
203 unsigned char time[2]; // time stamp
204 unsigned char date[2]; // date stamp
205 unsigned char start[2]; // starting cluster number
206 unsigned char size[4]; // size of the file
207 };
208
209The lcase field specifies if the base and/or the extension of an 8.3
210name should be capitalized. This field does not seem to be used by
211Windows 95 but it is used by Windows NT. The case of filenames is not
212completely compatible from Windows NT to Windows 95. It is not completely
213compatible in the reverse direction, however. Filenames that fit in
214the 8.3 namespace and are written on Windows NT to be lowercase will
215show up as uppercase on Windows 95.
216
217Note that the "start" and "size" values are actually little
218endian integer values. The descriptions of the fields in this
219structure are public knowledge and can be found elsewhere.
220
221With the extended FAT system, Microsoft has inserted extra
222directory entries for any files with extended names. (Any name which
223legally fits within the old 8.3 encoding scheme does not have extra
224entries.) I call these extra entries slots. Basically, a slot is a
225specially formatted directory entry which holds up to 13 characters of
226a file's extended name. Think of slots as additional labeling for the
227directory entry of the file to which they correspond. Microsoft
228prefers to refer to the 8.3 entry for a file as its alias and the
229extended slot directory entries as the file name.
230
231The C structure for a slot directory entry follows:
232
233 struct slot { // Up to 13 characters of a long name
234 unsigned char id; // sequence number for slot
235 unsigned char name0_4[10]; // first 5 characters in name
236 unsigned char attr; // attribute byte
237 unsigned char reserved; // always 0
238 unsigned char alias_checksum; // checksum for 8.3 alias
239 unsigned char name5_10[12]; // 6 more characters in name
240 unsigned char start[2]; // starting cluster number
241 unsigned char name11_12[4]; // last 2 characters in name
242 };
243
244If the layout of the slots looks a little odd, it's only
245because of Microsoft's efforts to maintain compatibility with old
246software. The slots must be disguised to prevent old software from
247panicking. To this end, a number of measures are taken:
248
249 1) The attribute byte for a slot directory entry is always set
250 to 0x0f. This corresponds to an old directory entry with
251 attributes of "hidden", "system", "read-only", and "volume
252 label". Most old software will ignore any directory
253 entries with the "volume label" bit set. Real volume label
254 entries don't have the other three bits set.
255
256 2) The starting cluster is always set to 0, an impossible
257 value for a DOS file.
258
259Because the extended FAT system is backward compatible, it is
260possible for old software to modify directory entries. Measures must
261be taken to ensure the validity of slots. An extended FAT system can
262verify that a slot does in fact belong to an 8.3 directory entry by
263the following:
264
265 1) Positioning. Slots for a file always immediately proceed
266 their corresponding 8.3 directory entry. In addition, each
267 slot has an id which marks its order in the extended file
268 name. Here is a very abbreviated view of an 8.3 directory
269 entry and its corresponding long name slots for the file
270 "My Big File.Extension which is long":
271
272 <proceeding files...>
273 <slot #3, id = 0x43, characters = "h is long">
274 <slot #2, id = 0x02, characters = "xtension whic">
275 <slot #1, id = 0x01, characters = "My Big File.E">
276 <directory entry, name = "MYBIGFIL.EXT">
277
278 Note that the slots are stored from last to first. Slots
279 are numbered from 1 to N. The Nth slot is or'ed with 0x40
280 to mark it as the last one.
281
282 2) Checksum. Each slot has an "alias_checksum" value. The
283 checksum is calculated from the 8.3 name using the
284 following algorithm:
285
286 for (sum = i = 0; i < 11; i++) {
287 sum = (((sum&1)<<7)|((sum&0xfe)>>1)) + name[i]
288 }
289
290 3) If there is free space in the final slot, a Unicode NULL (0x0000)
291 is stored after the final character. After that, all unused
292 characters in the final slot are set to Unicode 0xFFFF.
293
294Finally, note that the extended name is stored in Unicode. Each Unicode
295character takes two bytes.