Advanced NTFS-3G Features

Updated: Apr 8th, 2013

While the NTFS-3G project globally aims at providing a stable NTFS driver for several operating systems such as Linux, FreeBSD, Mac OS X, Solaris etc., the advanced branch specifically aims at developing, maturing, and releasing features to get user feedback before they are integrated into the main branch.

The advanced releases are designed as add-ons to the latest stable release, so they benefit from all the improvements and fixes integrated in the main branch. This facilitates the subsequent integration of the newer features both for the developer and the user.

The documentation on the features which were developped as part of former advanced versions is still available and updated on this site to reflect the latest advanced versions. The equivalent pages on the Tuxera web site are related to the latest NTFS-3G version released by Tuxera.

File ownership and permissions : the ownership and permissions of files, implemented according to POSIX rules, are interoperable with Windows.
POSIX ACLs : the ACLs, are an extension to ownership and permissions, as defined in a POSIX draft.
Junction points : the junction points and symbolic links created by Windows are seen as symbolic links.
Access to NTFS Internal data : a few useful internal data are mapped to extended attributes for easier access.
Compression : creating and updating compressed files are supported.
Tools for managing ownership, permissions and ACLs : secaudit checks the integrity of ownership, permissions and ACL, usermap gives help to configure ownership.

A general presentation of NTFS, NTFS-3G and Tuxera NTFS was made at the CELF Embedded Linux Conference at Grenoble, France, on Oct 16, 2009. This presentation is available here.

UltraDefrag for Linux

UltraDefrag is a powerful Open Source Defragmentation tool for the Windows Platform. It can defragment any system files including registry hives and paging file. Also one of the main goals of UltraDefrag is doing the job as fast and reliable as possible.
It is being ported to Linux and NTFS-3G for defragmenting NTFS partitions. Currently only a test version in console mode is available. Please read the included file README.linux for compiling and testing.

Downloads

The available packages are extensions to recent stable versions. They pass standard tests, they have been tested on top of i386 and x86_64 (small-endian) and M68K (big-endian) CPUs, and their interoperability has been tested against Windows (XP and later versions). Nevertheless problems may have crept in, so you should backup your valuable data regularly.

OpenIndiana users : please see the OpenIndiana page

Double-booting Linux and Windows 8

When Windows 8 is restarted using its fast restarting feature, part of the metadata of all mounted partitions are restored to the state they were at the previous closing down. As a consequence, changes made on Linux may be lost. This can happen on any partition of an internal disk when leaving Windows 8 by selecting "Shut down" or "Hibernate". Leaving Windows 8 by selecting "Restart" is apparently safe.

To avoid any loss of data, be sure the fast restarting of Windows 8 is disabled. This can be achieved by issuing as an administrator the command :

powercfg /h off

You can check the current settings on :
Control Panel > Hardware and Sound > Power Options > System Setting > Choose what the power buttons do
The box "Turn on fast startup" should either be disabled or missing.

2013.1.13AR.2 release	Source tarball	ntfs-3g_ntfsprogs-2013.1.13AR.2.tgz
	Fedora 18 RPM for i386	ntfs-3g-2013.1.13AR.2-1.fc18.i386.rpm ntfsprogs-2013.1.13AR.2-1.fc18.i386.rpm
	Fedora 18 RPM for x86_64	ntfs-3g-2013.1.13AR.2-1.fc18.x86_64.rpm ntfsprogs-2013.1.13AR.2-1.fc18.x86_64.rpm
	Executable for Knoppix 5.1.1 (Posix ACL enabled)	linked-ntfs-3g-2013.1.13AR.2.zip
	A few ntfsprogs executables for Windows	ntfsprogs-windows-2013.1.13AR.2.zip
2013.1.13AR.1 release	Source tarball	ntfs-3g_ntfsprogs-2013.1.13AR.1.tgz
	Fedora 17 RPM for i386	ntfs-3g-2013.1.13AR.1-1.fc17.i386.rpm ntfsprogs-2013.1.13AR.1-1.fc17.i386.rpm
	Fedora 17 RPM for x86_64	ntfs-3g-2013.1.13AR.1-1.fc17.x86_64.rpm ntfsprogs-2013.1.13AR.1-1.fc17.x86_64.rpm
	Executable for Knoppix 5.1.1 (Posix ACL enabled)	linked-ntfs-3g-2013.1.13AR.1.zip
Global	Changelog	changelog
	Miscellaneous tools for NTFS	tools.zip
	md5 for integrity checks	advanced-ntfs-3g.md5
UltraDefrag beta test	Source for Windows and Linux	ultradefrag-5.0.0AB.7.zip

To install these versions, just follow the directions for a base version. To benefit from some features, you may have to define options at mount time and insert configuration files in the directory .NTFS-3G of the NTFS partition. See the relevant pages for details.

To report any problem, please post to the support forum hosted by Tuxera

Page is maintained by Jean-Pierre André