Paragon Sends Out Latest NTFS Read-Write Linux Driver Patches

[jacob]

But ext4 is a POSIX file system so it have like rwxrwxrwx on its CHMOD, so its rwx for user, rwx for group, rwx for world. Does NTFS have?
On NTFS all files are executable, but on Linux only the files that have the permission +x are executable. I don't think NTFS has any concept of +x.

But the POSIX rwxrwxrwx model is brain dead anyway, U would much prefer Linux to ditch it for pervasive ACLs like Windows (the semi-POSIX ACLs supported by Linux are a joke).

[theriddick]

I just use NTFS for games and apps that I also run under Windows10, because there are several things I still can't do under Linux so am forced on win10 quite often.

[BesiegedAce]

I wonder if the casual user would notice a difference between whatever current drivers there are and this one. Either way, I hope work continues on this, since I dual boot w/ Windows.

[darkbasic]

Someone to actually do that work.

I cant remember precisely, but I think the developer was at some point hired by Apple. I dont know if there has been much development on it since then. (or that might have been the developer for ntfsprogs...)

I still don't understand what would have been the advantage to write it as a userspace driver: maybe the fear to not get it merged?

[ypnos]

I still don't understand what would have been the advantage to write it as a userspace driver: maybe the fear to not get it merged?

1. Barrier to entry -- you don't have to learn kernel interfaces and general kernel programming, just the FUSE API
2. Easier debugging in userspace
3. More resilient, bugs in the unpriviledged FUSE driver should not be able to crash the kernel
4. Easier deployment, no need to migrate to every new kernel version
5. Cross-platform support, as FUSE is not bound to Linux

[uid313]

But the POSIX rwxrwxrwx model is brain dead anyway, U would much prefer Linux to ditch it for pervasive ACLs like Windows (the semi-POSIX ACLs supported by Linux are a joke).

I don't really know the difference. I just know r=read, w=write, x=execute, and there are 3 sets of them for user, group and world. Then I don't know how NTFS works. I don't know why the POSIX one is bad, or why the Windows one is good.

[gojul]

I don't really know the difference. I just know r=read, w=write, x=execute, and there are 3 sets of them for user, group and world. Then I don't know how NTFS works. I don't know why the POSIX one is bad, or why the Windows one is good.

NTFS permissions are much more fine-grained than POSIX permissions, and they go far beyond setfacl abilities. However NTFS performance is not exactly... good : http://blog.zorinaq.com/i-contribute...an-other-oper/ - thus relying on a proprietary file system may not be the best thing to do.

[Nth_man]

I don't really know the difference. I just know r=read, w=write, x=execute, and there are 3 sets of them for user, group and world. Then I don't know how NTFS works. I don't know why the POSIX one is bad, or why the Windows one is good.

Linux-Unix "user-group-other" permissions have the advantage that they are clearly auditable (and easily understandable). For example, when you see the permissions of a file... you quickly know who can read it (unlike what happens with ACLs, where you have to see the inheritances of the previous folders, the exclusions, the changes that will be inherited, the changes which will be not inherited, etc. --and many previous folders can exist). Having difficulties knowing who can read a file ends up causing serious troubles (sometimes legal ones).

When creating users of the same kind: in some cases it's better to use an auxiliary script e.g. in order to add each user to some groups. That script also comes in handy for automating other jobs that have to be done when creating a user (even if ACLs are used).

[onlyLinuxLuvUBack]

NTFS permissions are much more fine-grained than POSIX permissions, and they go far beyond setfacl abilities. However NTFS performance is not exactly... good : http://blog.zorinaq.com/i-contribute...an-other-oper/ - thus relying on a proprietary file system may not be the best thing to do.

A phoronix shootout benchmark with Linux+root=ntfs vs Linux+root=ext4 would solve this.

[jacob]

I don't really know the difference. I just know r=read, w=write, x=execute, and there are 3 sets of them for user, group and world. Then I don't know how NTFS works. I don't know why the POSIX one is bad, or why the Windows one is good.

For one thing, the POSIX model only allows read, write and execute. It can't distinguish between allowing a user to overwrite a file or simply appending to a file (important for log files in particular), it provides no permissions for manipulating attributes or making changes to the permissions themselves, renaming a file, or other permissions that may not apply to files but are meaningful for other objects (be able to bind a socket to a port, for example, or tracing permissions on a process etc.) One of my pet peeves in POSIX is that by default there is no permissions to delete a file. It's handled by write permissions to the containing directory, which means that if you can create a file somewhere, then by the same token you can also delete any file in that same dir (including files you don't own), which is utter madness. In Linux some of these issues are handled by additional attr flags, but those are not part of the permissions, can't be set separately for users, groups etc and are lost in any tool that only preserves permissions and not other attributes.

Then as you say, POSIX only handles the user, one single group and the world. It can't set various permissions discretely for multiple individual users or groups. This is called ACLs (Access Control Lists) and Linux supports it but the way it's implemented makes it a huge pain to use, it's still limited to the r/w/x model and it can only apply to actual files, not to other types of file descriptors.