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Based on kernel version 3.9. Page generated on 2013-05-02 23:06 EST.

1	USING VFAT
2	----------------------------------------------------------------------
3	To use the vfat filesystem, use the filesystem type 'vfat'.  i.e.
4	  mount -t vfat /dev/fd0 /mnt
5	
6	No special partition formatter is required.  mkdosfs will work fine
7	if you want to format from within Linux.
8	
9	VFAT MOUNT OPTIONS
10	----------------------------------------------------------------------
11	uid=###       -- Set the owner of all files on this filesystem.
12			 The default is the uid of current process.
13	
14	gid=###       -- Set the group of all files on this filesystem.
15			 The default is the gid of current process.
16	
17	umask=###     -- The permission mask (for files and directories, see umask(1)).
18	                 The default is the umask of current process.
19	
20	dmask=###     -- The permission mask for the directory.
21	                 The default is the umask of current process.
22	
23	fmask=###     -- The permission mask for files.
24	                 The default is the umask of current process.
25	
26	allow_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	
41	codepage=###  -- Sets the codepage number for converting to shortname
42			 characters on FAT filesystem.
43			 By default, FAT_DEFAULT_CODEPAGE setting is used.
44	
45	iocharset=<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	
58	utf8=<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	
63	uni_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	
74	nonumtail=<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	                  
81	usefree       -- 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	
88	quiet         -- Stops printing certain warning messages.
89	
90	check=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	
95	nocase        -- This was deprecated for vfat. Use shortname=win95 instead.
96	
97	shortname=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	
107	tz=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	time_offset=minutes
115		      -- Set offset for conversion of timestamps from local time
116			 used by FAT to UTC. I.e. <minutes> minutes will be subtracted
117			 from each timestamp to convert it to UTC used internally by
118			 Linux. This is useful when time zone set in sys_tz is
119			 not the time zone used by the filesystem. Note that this
120			 option still does not provide correct time stamps in all
121			 cases in presence of DST - time stamps in a different DST
122			 setting will be off by one hour.
123	
124	showexec      -- If set, the execute permission bits of the file will be
125			 allowed only if the extension part of the name is .EXE,
126			 .COM, or .BAT. Not set by default.
127	
128	debug         -- Can be set, but unused by the current implementation.
129	
130	sys_immutable -- If set, ATTR_SYS attribute on FAT is handled as
131			 IMMUTABLE flag on Linux. Not set by default.
132	
133	flush         -- If set, the filesystem will try to flush to disk more
134			 early than normal. Not set by default.
135	
136	rodir	      -- FAT has the ATTR_RO (read-only) attribute. On Windows,
137			 the ATTR_RO of the directory will just be ignored,
138			 and is used only by applications as a flag (e.g. it's set
139			 for the customized folder).
140	
141			 If you want to use ATTR_RO as read-only flag even for
142			 the directory, set this option.
143	
144	errors=panic|continue|remount-ro
145		      -- specify FAT behavior on critical errors: panic, continue
146			 without doing anything or remount the partition in
147			 read-only mode (default behavior).
148	
149	discard       -- If set, issues discard/TRIM commands to the block
150			 device when blocks are freed. This is useful for SSD devices
151			 and sparse/thinly-provisoned LUNs.
152	
153	nfs           -- This option maintains an index (cache) of directory
154			 inodes by i_logstart which is used by the nfs-related code to
155			 improve look-ups.
156	
157			 Enable this only if you want to export the FAT filesystem
158			 over NFS
159	
160	<bool>: 0,1,yes,no,true,false
161	
162	TODO
163	----------------------------------------------------------------------
164	* Need to get rid of the raw scanning stuff.  Instead, always use
165	  a get next directory entry approach.  The only thing left that uses
166	  raw scanning is the directory renaming code.
167	
168	
169	POSSIBLE PROBLEMS
170	----------------------------------------------------------------------
171	* vfat_valid_longname does not properly checked reserved names.
172	* When a volume name is the same as a directory name in the root
173	  directory of the filesystem, the directory name sometimes shows
174	  up as an empty file.
175	* autoconv option does not work correctly.
176	
177	BUG REPORTS
178	----------------------------------------------------------------------
179	If you have trouble with the VFAT filesystem, mail bug reports to
180	chaffee@bmrc.cs.berkeley.edu.  Please specify the filename
181	and the operation that gave you trouble.
182	
183	TEST SUITE
184	----------------------------------------------------------------------
185	If you plan to make any modifications to the vfat filesystem, please
186	get the test suite that comes with the vfat distribution at
187	
188	  http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://bmrc.berkeley.edu/
189	  people/chaffee/vfat.html
190	
191	This tests quite a few parts of the vfat filesystem and additional
192	tests for new features or untested features would be appreciated.
193	
194	NOTES ON THE STRUCTURE OF THE VFAT FILESYSTEM
195	----------------------------------------------------------------------
196	(This documentation was provided by Galen C. Hunt <gchunt@cs.rochester.edu>
197	 and lightly annotated by Gordon Chaffee).
198	
199	This document presents a very rough, technical overview of my
200	knowledge of the extended FAT file system used in Windows NT 3.5 and
201	Windows 95.  I don't guarantee that any of the following is correct,
202	but it appears to be so.
203	
204	The extended FAT file system is almost identical to the FAT
205	file system used in DOS versions up to and including 6.223410239847
206	:-).  The significant change has been the addition of long file names.
207	These names support up to 255 characters including spaces and lower
208	case characters as opposed to the traditional 8.3 short names.
209	
210	Here is the description of the traditional FAT entry in the current
211	Windows 95 filesystem:
212	
213	        struct directory { // Short 8.3 names 
214	                unsigned char name[8];          // file name 
215	                unsigned char ext[3];           // file extension 
216	                unsigned char attr;             // attribute byte 
217			unsigned char lcase;		// Case for base and extension
218			unsigned char ctime_ms;		// Creation time, milliseconds
219			unsigned char ctime[2];		// Creation time
220			unsigned char cdate[2];		// Creation date
221			unsigned char adate[2];		// Last access date
222			unsigned char reserved[2];	// reserved values (ignored) 
223	                unsigned char time[2];          // time stamp 
224	                unsigned char date[2];          // date stamp 
225	                unsigned char start[2];         // starting cluster number 
226	                unsigned char size[4];          // size of the file 
227	        };
228	
229	The lcase field specifies if the base and/or the extension of an 8.3
230	name should be capitalized.  This field does not seem to be used by
231	Windows 95 but it is used by Windows NT.  The case of filenames is not
232	completely compatible from Windows NT to Windows 95.  It is not completely
233	compatible in the reverse direction, however.  Filenames that fit in
234	the 8.3 namespace and are written on Windows NT to be lowercase will
235	show up as uppercase on Windows 95.
236	
237	Note that the "start" and "size" values are actually little
238	endian integer values.  The descriptions of the fields in this
239	structure are public knowledge and can be found elsewhere.
240	
241	With the extended FAT system, Microsoft has inserted extra
242	directory entries for any files with extended names.  (Any name which
243	legally fits within the old 8.3 encoding scheme does not have extra
244	entries.)  I call these extra entries slots.  Basically, a slot is a
245	specially formatted directory entry which holds up to 13 characters of
246	a file's extended name.  Think of slots as additional labeling for the
247	directory entry of the file to which they correspond.  Microsoft
248	prefers to refer to the 8.3 entry for a file as its alias and the
249	extended slot directory entries as the file name. 
250	
251	The C structure for a slot directory entry follows:
252	
253	        struct slot { // Up to 13 characters of a long name 
254	                unsigned char id;               // sequence number for slot 
255	                unsigned char name0_4[10];      // first 5 characters in name 
256	                unsigned char attr;             // attribute byte
257	                unsigned char reserved;         // always 0 
258	                unsigned char alias_checksum;   // checksum for 8.3 alias 
259	                unsigned char name5_10[12];     // 6 more characters in name
260	                unsigned char start[2];         // starting cluster number
261	                unsigned char name11_12[4];     // last 2 characters in name
262	        };
263	
264	If the layout of the slots looks a little odd, it's only
265	because of Microsoft's efforts to maintain compatibility with old
266	software.  The slots must be disguised to prevent old software from
267	panicking.  To this end, a number of measures are taken:
268	
269	        1) The attribute byte for a slot directory entry is always set
270	           to 0x0f.  This corresponds to an old directory entry with
271	           attributes of "hidden", "system", "read-only", and "volume
272	           label".  Most old software will ignore any directory
273	           entries with the "volume label" bit set.  Real volume label
274	           entries don't have the other three bits set.
275	
276	        2) The starting cluster is always set to 0, an impossible
277	           value for a DOS file.
278	
279	Because the extended FAT system is backward compatible, it is
280	possible for old software to modify directory entries.  Measures must
281	be taken to ensure the validity of slots.  An extended FAT system can
282	verify that a slot does in fact belong to an 8.3 directory entry by
283	the following:
284	
285	        1) Positioning.  Slots for a file always immediately proceed
286	           their corresponding 8.3 directory entry.  In addition, each
287	           slot has an id which marks its order in the extended file
288	           name.  Here is a very abbreviated view of an 8.3 directory
289	           entry and its corresponding long name slots for the file
290	           "My Big File.Extension which is long":
291	
292	                <proceeding files...>
293	                <slot #3, id = 0x43, characters = "h is long">
294	                <slot #2, id = 0x02, characters = "xtension whic">
295	                <slot #1, id = 0x01, characters = "My Big File.E">
296	                <directory entry, name = "MYBIGFIL.EXT">
297	
298	           Note that the slots are stored from last to first.  Slots
299	           are numbered from 1 to N.  The Nth slot is or'ed with 0x40
300	           to mark it as the last one.
301	
302	        2) Checksum.  Each slot has an "alias_checksum" value.  The
303	           checksum is calculated from the 8.3 name using the
304	           following algorithm:
305	
306	                for (sum = i = 0; i < 11; i++) {
307	                        sum = (((sum&1)<<7)|((sum&0xfe)>>1)) + name[i]
308	                }
309	
310		3) If there is free space in the final slot, a Unicode NULL (0x0000) 
311		   is stored after the final character.  After that, all unused 
312		   characters in the final slot are set to Unicode 0xFFFF.
313	
314	Finally, note that the extended name is stored in Unicode.  Each Unicode
315	character takes two bytes.
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