Windows uses a file system called NTFS, today’s Linux distributions primarily use ext3, and like two warring tribes, the two barely speak. Fortunately, there’s a handy tool from Paragon Software Group called NTFS for Linux, which acts like an interpreter for these battling nations. For Linux users hampered by lack of communication with Windows, Paragon’s NTFS for Linux presents an elegant and effective solution.
The author claims that a valid security concern is that you could boot off a Linux CD and get full readwrite access to the NTFS partition. The only flaw in this reasoning is that you can do exactly the same thing with Windows. You can build a functional Windows XP system into a bootable CD, which allows you the same priviledges.
Like the old saying goes: If an attacker gets close enough to reboot your machine, you’re ****ed anyway you look at it.
If you have a dual boot machine and someone gets root access, you are done anyway. All it take is fdisk and delete the NTFS partition.
Actually, the saying I know, love, and have spread around over the years is:
“If you can swing at the fucking thing with a bat, it ain’t secure!”
Anybody tested this product to work as advertised?
why would someone try a product that cost 150$ just for reading/writing ntfs partitions under linux?
So they can read and write to an ntfs partition under linux.
And why won’t I add 150 more and buy windows. I am happy with Fat32 support and besides Windows Vista is moving to WinFS now.
And why won’t I add 150 more and buy windows. I am happy with Fat32 support and besides Windows Vista is moving to WinFS now.
Windows Vista is going to use NTFS. WinFS is not really a filesystem, just a layer above NTFS.
*Sigh* not this again! Windows vista will continue to use NTFS. Winfs is a file storage subsystem that will run ontop of NTFS. see here for more details http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winfs
I prefer using captive-ntfs which uses WXP original driver to read/write ntfs filesystems without any limitations and of course is FREE, why I would be using linux (Open source) to waste 150$ in additional software to access privative file systems??
There are free alternatives that work fine
NTFS read/write support has been in the linux kernel for more than a year. So the question is, why pay for something that is already there for free?
Yeah, and it’s soooo useful. It can: overwrite existing files with a file of the same size, and… that’s all. great isn’t it?
damaki
>Yeah, and it’s soooo useful. It can: overwrite existing files with a file of the same size, and… that’s all. great isn’t it?
I was talking about the linux kernel ntfs support
damaki
So was he.
The kernel module for NTFS can do no more then that.
For $70 it had better be fully supported, ie it better work and they better fix it when it fails…
Tell that to Billy-G.
This open source project provides the same functionality: http://www.jankratochvil.net/project/captive/
and yet another one, used to work perfectly for me 1.5 years ago, it must be even more advanced now: http://linux-ntfs.sourceforge.net/
Anyone else notice that PC mag article says “Price: $69.95 direct” turn the two nines upside down and it’s 666! Coincidence, I think not. It goes to show you that the cost of using M$’ OS really is your s0ul.
Your IP starts with 66.* and if you add another 6 it’s going to be 666. Coincidence, I think not.
And here’s yet another open source alternative to this software.
http://linux-ntfs.sourceforge.net/
No it isn’t.
The only write support these free versions offer is:
Quote:
Still read-only, but with safe file overwrite support on all Windows versions without changes to the file size (uncompressed, unencrypted, nonsparse files only).
In other words, a write support which isn’t a proper write support at all.
Other people in this topic talk about captive ntfs which uses wine to write to ntfs. Great but have you ever looked at the speed? Last time i tried my writing speed was 600 Kbyte/sec and reading speed 3 Mbyte a sec.
This “should” be the first product that offers fast read and write support for ntfs probably as fast as you could read/write to an ext3 partition. That’s why i’m really interested in seeing some benchmarks.
A last thing: captive ntfs development has stopped.
Actually, Paragon’s NTFS for Linux is anything but new. Here’s a review from PCMag from almost a year ago: http://www.linux-magazine.com/issue/49/Mounting_NTFS_Partitions.pdf
Notice the reading speed. Although it couldn’t be compared to Captive’s speed (have they tested only a single file which happened to fail?), transfer rate is slow. Slower than on new mp3 players. Writing ain’t a big thing either.
Notice that on Paragons website, new updates have bugfixes only, nothing related to speed.
Don’t blame Paragon though, I guess nothing more can be done since you need to use reverse engineering just try to gasp an idea on how NTFS works.
If you seriously need dual booting, the best you can do is to have Windows on one or several FAT32 partitions. Use the reading support the linux kernel has to read from NTFS partitions. If you need to write, go with Captive, and use it only when necessary.
Attempting to go beyond that is just trying to use NTFS for something it isn’t meant to do: be used on Linux. Really, it wasn’t designed to be dual booted on other OSes, so it is a great that open-source support got this far.
as helpful as captive seems, it only works on a dual boot machine. i’m assuming that isn’t necessary with this software.
Not exactly. You just need ntfs.sys and ntoskrnl.exe, which you can pull from any 2000/XP machine.
Anyways, if you need to read/write an NTFS partition, chances are Windows is installed on that partition!
“Anyways, if you need to read/write an NTFS partition, chances are Windows is installed on that partition!”
Not at all true. I have several External USB drives all formatted with NTFS. Extremely likely I am not alone.
WRONG!!!!
Captive has _FULL_ read/write capabilities. Only the kernel NTFS driver has that limitation of not being able to change file size.
Development on captive has stopped for one reason. . . the goal of development was reached. End of story.
Huh? There is no such thing as reaching the end of development in a product…if they have that mindset it’s a good bet their software is shoddy. Products should _always_ be moving forward with bug fixes/new releases/etc.
Using Captive NTFS is illegal as long as you don’t have a licence of Microsoft Windows.
The NTFS support in the Linux kernel is read-only, not read/write. It can safely overwrite files, but that’s it. It cannot create files or directories.
So if you need a real NTFS driver for Linux and you don’t need Windows (or don’t want to support Microsoft for whatever reason), the Paragon tool is the cheapest (or only) solution, even for $70. No, it doesn’t cost $150.
If you don’t have a legal copy of windows, why do you have a NTFS partition??????
Ok, if you have windows illegaly, do you really mind to break the driver license??
Oh! come on, just be serious
i HAD a copy of windows, in a PC with a second HDD.
When I sold the PC (Including Windows licence), I kept the HDD.
Now I need to read from it and alter the files on it.
I had a PC with an external data drive (NTFS). Now that I no longer have the Windows licence, I still want to use the external drive, and it has data on it.
I use a second HDD which I would like to be read/writable from my friend’s Windows PC as well as my Linuc PC. AS his PC will not read/write to ext3, I use NTFS.
More needed?
If you kept a HDD and you did no use windows, you can use NTFS kernel module to read data, then format it and restore the info.
If you want to share a HDD with your friends (you using linux, you friends using windows) do what everybody does, use FAT32 filesystem in the HDD to share.
Yes!! more needed
> If you want to share a HDD with your friends (you using
> linux, you friends using windows) do what everybody
> does, use FAT32 filesystem in the HDD to share.
FAT32 has serious flaws. Yes, I already had a case where NTFS was the only possibility to store my data because FAT32 couldn’t handle large amounts of small files properly.
Why shouldn’t I use NTFS? Correct answer: The only reason is that Linux can’t write on it.
– Morin
Morin, why not use ext2 for your data? There is an excellent ext2 driver for windows, so windows can read and write to ext2. I use it daily, for small and very large files.
NTFS has an incredibly amount for serious flaws as well (though this is true for all filesystems). Use a read/write tool for ext2 and/or ext3 on windows.
dylansmrjones
kristian AT herkild DOT dk
I had already heard about this s/w, and that it can have full access, but read in a review some time ago that it did have some problems (with lots of files if I remember), and that speed wasn’t all that great too.
I was hoping that this ‘review’ had some benchmarks and at least some level of testing beyond ‘works for me’, but it seems that it’s only repeating the stuff you can probably find at paragon’s website…
Why would anybody waste money trying to read a proprietary and completely useless filesystem made by Microseft?
Note that captive doesn’t cope with files above 2 GB (or was it 4GB? In any case, not enough for DVD-5 images). I wonder if this product does?
“Why would anybody waste money trying to read a proprietary and completely useless filesystem made by Microseft?”
Well, it’s just great that you live on a planet where Linux is the only OS.
Here on earth, many of us have to cope with mixed Windows/Linux/Unix environments.
Price: $69.95 direct
Where are you getting $150 from?
If you don’t have windows installed at all then ntfs support isn’t needed IMO
“I” don’t have Windows installed, but I do have several older HDD with back-up data on, in FAT32 and NTFS.
My friend keeps trashing his PC and is willing to bring it over to me and pay me to fix it. Booting to a Linux environment to run diagnostics/anti-virus/etc is handy. NTFS support needed.
Anyone else think that THEY don’t need NTFS support? Are you ALL going to tell the rest of us what WE need?
It would be nice if all OSSs talked to all file systems. But they don’t. Some of us find it useful to have the facility to read a non-native fs.
There is a linux distro with captive-ntfs.
If you really want to pay for it, that’s nice, but this product is not new, and is not needed, is like neroLinux, another piece of software non free, introduced into linux but never needed.
It is not clear if paragon NTFS violates the actual license allowed for kernel modules. The license for binary modules stated by Linus is restrictive to code that is ported from other platforms, this looks like a Linux only thing which violates the intent of the license.
Paragon sell other products based on the same technology (“Paragon NTFS for Windows 98” for example), so it falls into the same category as the nVidia drivers I think.
(See http://kerneltrap.org/node/1735 for Linus’ stance on the matter.)
Why pay 150USD when you can use the ‘captive’ driver?
1. Captive driver is slow, requires access to a Windows binary file, doesn’t work on non x86 machines.
2. Free NTFS driver for Linux doesn’t have stable, complete write support.
3. There are plenty of reasons why a Linux machine might need to access an NTFS drive.
I also don’t get why people think software fine-print and law are the same thing, and that using a file against Microsoft’s wishes is “illegal”. Who makes the laws in your country anyway?
I also don’t get why people think software fine-print and law are the same thing, and that using a file against Microsoft’s wishes is “illegal”. Who makes the laws in your country anyway?
I’m assuming you’re talking about the files distributed with Windows. Those files are Microsoft’s Intellectual Property (whether you like it or not), which means they’re protected by IP laws.
These laws do say you can’t do anything with those files unless you have permission to do so. When you buy Windows, MS gives you permission to use those files, but under their conditions. That’s called a license.
Now you’re bound to those conditions, and yes, that’s also protected by law.
You assume that the license terms are in acordance with non-US law (must…restrain…from…making…antinamerican…comment). That’s not necessarily the case, yo know. For example, I can reverse engineer everything I want…
So can I…
dylansmrjones
kristian AT herkild DOT dk
“These laws do say you can’t do anything with those files unless you have permission to do so. When you buy Windows, MS gives you permission to use those files, but under their conditions. That’s called a license.”
As much as MS, and other companies, laywers wants you to think so that’s not the case.
An EULA is not a legally binding document and even if it was it cant pre-empt the fundamental rights you have as a citizen. You can use the files that comes with windows in any way you want to do whatever you want. You can even modify them.
What you can NOT do is redistribute the original files (or your modified ones) without consent from the copyright holder, in this case Microsoft.
Perhaps the DMCA changes this somewhat but the DMCA has no legal validity outside U.S borders and is therefore of no relevance to most people.
I don’t get it as well.
Captive driver is slow, requires access to a Windows binary file, doesn’t work on non x86 machines.
I only understand the argument that it’s slow. But I don’t get why the other two points you make are a problem. I assume that if you need access to an NTFS partition you have an x86 machine and a copy of Windows anyway.
There are plenty of reasons why a Linux machine might need to access an NTFS drive.
That’s the main point I don’t get. Can you explain which computing scenario requires access to an NTFS partition if the Windows operating system isn’t involved at all? Does NTFS provide you with anything that Linux’ native file systems don’t offer?
Yes, you really don´t get it.
Linux runs on more than just x86 and we are living in a world with external USB/Firewire disks. So what do you do if people need to exchange data with an external NTFS formatted drive?
If you want to exchange data across multiple platforms via USB stickers, you don’t use NTFS. Period.
dylansmrjones
kristian AT herkild DOT dk
Even assuming that what you say is 100% true, it still ignores the practical reality that people *do* use NTFS.
If you _do_ use NTFS on something you want to share across multiple platforms, then you deserve all the trouble it’ll give you.
How wise is it to use a proprietary fs to exchange information?
If the information is on an usb-device, you might as well use ext2 or ext3 – or perhaps fat32. Worrying about security in regard to fs on USB-stickers is like worrying about security in regard to fs on floppy disks… who gives a damn?
dylansmrjones
kristian AT herkild DOT dk
Example: You connect an external firewire drive, normally used with an XP box, to your non-x86 Linux machine (a dual-booting Mac for instance).
http://www.jankratochvil.net/pipermail/captive-list/2005-August/000…
People, look at TopologiLinux. It creates a file system image from Windows, and you can install into that filesystem. Pretty much interesting.
Does this paragon product allows you to clone ntfs partitions?Otherwise this link might be interesting,after all it’s free:
http://linux-ntfs.sourceforge.net/man/ntfsclone.html
This sounds like a handy utility to have.
Valuable and worth the money for commercial use.
Now those of us who just run Linux at home would also find this useful but I think it costs too much, I mean we can live without writing to NTFS, it isnt hard to have a FAT32 partition for information interchange, so this is just a nice to have convenience – how about a non commercial download for a lot less?
Windows uses a file system called NTFS, today’s Linux distributions primarily use ext3, and like two warring tribes, the two barely speak.
<Br>
I know, it must have been a party friday, or just a slow saturday morning :] Anyway, first, distributions don’t use any filesystem primarily, at most they give you half a dozen choices with one or another as default. That may be ext3, or not. As for Windows not supporting any linux file system natively, correct (only one or two third party drivers and apps exist, like limited ext2/ext3 read/write and a reiser driver with very limited features and fequent BSOD), as for Linux not supporting Windows file systems, not really correct (think fat,vfat with read/write and reading ntfs natively, without third party support).
<Br>
That said, this Paragon stuff looks cool, but I wouldn’t pay for such a thing, instead I’ll remain with my usual fat32 buffer partitions for data transfer.
What I would pay for is a full-featured (with access rights, full read/write support, no BSOD) native xfs filesystem driver for Windows.
Actually, I use Linux and xp. Sharing filesystems has always been a problem until now. Why not format all you’re drives with ext3 on linux and mount theses (read/write) with windows ?
better check this tool : http://www.fs-driver.org/ it works admirably.
note : captive solution works but it’s sooo slow…
And this other Paragon’s product ?
Mount Everything 3.0
http://www.mount-everything.com/
It costs “only” $39.95.
Does it permit linux access NTS partitions ?
I’ll accept that there are some cases where open formats/protocols/standards are a bad idea, but right now I can only think of military situations. Filesystem formats should be open. All of the linux filesystems are: ext2, ext3, ReiserFS, JFS, XFS, Reiser4, etc. FAT16 and FAT32 are. But NTFS is not. And yet this article portrays ext3 (the predominant Linux filesystem, it adds) as one of two “warring parties” that don’t talk to one another.
The EU ruling was about media and communications, because that’s where the “money” is right now. But the umbrella of interoperability should cover local filesystems, too.
I think the name Captive-NTFS is fitting. Why does our society, our law, allow us to be cative to a proprietary format? Why do “English as the national language” bills get shot down year after year in the US House of Representatives, and yet we are willing to make NTFS our global proprietary filesystem?
No more to say: http://www.fs-driver.org
Now you can share a hard disk with a windows-friend without problem… or even in your oun network with read/write support, no 4GB limitation and no risks!
There are not limitations…
Thanks “Elclaudio” for the info!