COVER STORY Linux Filesystems in Vista Jür gen A ck er , pho t oc as e . c om

Vista is no better than its prede- cessors at accessing Linux parti- tions. If you need to access a Linux filesystem from Vista, you will need a third-party tool.

BY JÜRGEN DONAUER

Accessing Linux partitions with Vista THE BIGGER PICTURE

indows has traditionally Ext2IFS sible via Windows Explorer just like any avoided the challenge of The free Ext2IFS (Ext2 Installable File normal NTFS drive. To change drive W providing access to Linux System for Windows) [1] tool is proba- mappings or to add new Linux filesys- file systems. If you run Linux and bly the most popular candidate in the tems, you just click on IFS Drives in Sys- Windows on a single machine, for field. Ext2IFS gives Windows the ability tem Controls. Again, you will need to re- example, you must either rely on the to read and write Ext2/ 3 partitions. start Vista in order to see your changes. legacy approach of saving shared files To install Ext2IFS on Windows Vista, On some Vista machines, the new se- with the FAT filesystem or experiment you need to download the setup pro- curity posture prevents users from with some of the new Linux tools for gram from the Ext2IFS website, accessing NTFS partitions. (For a right-click the program icon, thorough look at NTFS with Linux, and select Run as administrator see the January 2007 issue of Linux in the drop-down menu. Magazine.) Our first attempt to install the In the past, various third-party tools software failed. However, the have offered access to Linux partitions Windows Vista Program com- from Windows. Some of these tools inte- patibility wizard quickly grate seamlessly with Windows and sup- stepped in to resolve the prob- port transparent access – just like native lem. The installation that fol- Windows drives – other tools rely on lowed took us to a selection di- their own file manager. alog in which we could assign In the lab, we sought to discover drive letters to existing Linux whether these common tools are able to partitions (see Figure 1). Figure 1: The Ext2IFS drive manager gives users the run just as reliably on Vista as they did After restarting our machine, ability to assign drive letters to Ext2/ 3 partitions. The on Windows XP. the Linux filesystem was acces- letters then appear in Windows Explorer.

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launching the Ext2IFS drive supports drive mappings, it manager. If this is the case on also supports changes to the your machine, proceed as fol- current character set. lows: According to the Ext2Fsd • Open the System properties developers, after completing window in Start | System the install, you need to boot Controls | System | Ex- Vista in Disable force driver tended System Settings. signature mode ([F8]). This • In the Performance tab, setting only applies to the click Settings…. current session, and you need • In the new view, change to to repeat it whenever you re- File execution prevention boot your machine. and enable the Enable file Again, the software showed execution prevention for all different behavior patterns on programs and services ex- different machines. In some cept selected. cases, the drives were acces- • Next, press the Add… but- sible, and in other cases, the ton and select the C:\Win- Volume Manager merely dows\System32 directory. showed the DVD drive. In the text box at the bot- tom of the dialog, type the Part-Time Job name IfsDrives.cpl – Vista Explore2fs [3] is a useful tool will only show you pro- for occasional access to Ext2/ grams with known file ex- 3 filesystems. The tool will tensions; it does not know show you the existing parti- the .cpl extension. tions when run, but in read- After restarting, Vista will let only mode. You can then drag you run the IFS Drives man- and drop in the Explore2fs ager – in most cases. Tests on file manager to copy files to multiple systems showed two the Windows partition where different patterns of behavior. you need them. In some cases, Vista requires Paragon [4] used to have a you to be a local administra- couple of commercial solu- tor to run the file; the up side tions for accessing Ext2/ 3 of this is that the program partitions on Windows: compatibility wizard, which “Mount Everything” or then launches, will make sure “Ext2FS Anywhere.” Accord- the program launches. ing to the vendor, these prod- Other systems failed to ucts do not support Windows launch the manager. At- Vista right now, as our test tempts to work around the results confirmed. On a problem by running C:\Win- brighter note, Paragon will dows\System32\IfsDrives.cpl be releasing Vista-compatible as the administrator via the versions of its programs in drop-down menu failed with the near future. a rundll32.exe access error message. We needed to en- Vista and ReiserFS able execution of rundll32. First the bad news: If you exe in Data execution preven- need to access a ReiserFS par- tion to run IfsDrives.cpl as the tition from Windows Vista, administrator. access will be read-only; none of the current crop of Ext2Fsd tools support write access. Ext2Fsd [2] seamlessly inte- This also applies to the rfs- grates Ext2/ 3 partitions into tool [5] command-line pro- the Windows filesystem, thus gram. To run rfstool, you first supporting read and write unpack the zip archive in any access. The Ext2 Volume directory and then, working Manager (Figure 2) not only as the administrator, change COVER STORY Linux Filesystems in Vista

Figure 2: The convenient management front-end with Ext2Fsd has Figure 3: Virtual Volumes will mount ReiserFS partitions in read-only far more options than Ext2IFS. However, drive access was not fully mode and Ext2/ 3 filesystems in write mode, although write access is supported on Vista. broken right now. to the directory. Typing rfstools --help at CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Man- your Vista partitions. the command line outputs instructions ager\DOS Devices Registry entry and Access is read-only right now. Al- on using the program. Because rfstools create a new string, which you will be though Virtual Volumes will let you is fairly complex, you might like to in- using as the name of the drive you want mount Ext2/ 3 partitions in write mode, stall the rfsgui [6] front-end, which to map, such as X:. The partition desig- our attempts to store data from Win- makes the whole process far more intui- nation should be assigned a value such dows partitions on Ext2/ 3 failed. tive. as \Device\Harddisk0\Partition9. Note The front-end requires version 7.1 of that Windows starts enumerating drives Conclusions the MS Visual C++ Runtime Library at 0, but counts partitions from 1. Thus, Transparent support for Linux filesys- (msvcr71.dll), which you can download \Device\Harddisk0\Partition9 is the tems on Windows Vista is far from com- [7]. After copying the file to C:\Win- ninth partition on the first hard disk. plete right now. Neither Ext2IFS nor dows\System32, you can launch rfsgui To apply the changes to the Registry, Ext2Fsd will cooperate gracefully with as the administrator. you need to reboot. After rebooting, Microsoft’s latest operating system. YAReG (Yet Another ReiserFStool GUI) you also need to launch the rfsd service Instant variants that use their own file [8] is another front-end for rfstool that manually. To do so, enter net start browsers for access will at least run on resembles the familiar Windows Ex- rfsdfsd at the command line, working Vista for the most part. ■ plorer. YAReG also supports drag and as the administrator. drop copying between Reiser and Win- Our test quickly revealed that the INFO dows partitions. The program needs ad- driver is not yet suitable for use with [1] Ext2IFS: http:// www. fs-driver. org ministrative privileges to run properly. Vista; our attempts to access files with, [2] Ext2Fsd: say, a text editor simply crashed the http:// ext2fsd. sourceforge. net Rfsd Reiser Driver Windows machine. The rfsd ReiserDriver [9] is possibly the [3] Explore2fs: http:// www. chrysocome. most interesting approach. It works in a Multi-Talented Virtual net/ explore2fs way similar to Ext2IFS, integrating Reiser Volumes [4] Paragon’s “Mount Everything”: partitions transparently into Windows, Virtual Volumes [10] (Figure 3) is still http:// www. mount-everything. com but again in read-only mode. After beta, but it has an amazing feature set. [5] Rfstool: http:// p-nand-q. com/ downloading and unpacking the Among other things, it supports read download/ rfstool. html program archive, you should copy the and write access to Ext2/ 3 and VMware [6] Rfsgui: http:// www. wolfsheep. com/ rfsdfsd.sys file to your C:\Windows\ disks via LVM2 and SFTP, and it can map/ rfsgui/ System32\drivers\ directory then add read ReiserFS partitions. [7] msvcr71.dll: http:// www. dlldump. the rfsdfsd.reg to your Registry by Although the developers are still com/ download-dll-files. php/ dllfiles/ M/ double-clicking the file. working on Vista support, the software MSVCR71. dll/ download. html To map Reiser drives, you need to will already install and launch. After [8] YAReG: http:// yareg. akucom. de launch the Registry editor by typing re- completing the install, you can use the [9] Rfsd: http:// rfsd. sourceforge. net gedit in the search bar (Start search…) of graphical interface to map the required the start menu. First, you navigate to the Linux partitions as Windows drives and [10] Virtual Volumes: http:// www. chrysocome. net/ virtualvolumes HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ then drag and drop files from Linux to

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