1 .TH WIMLIB-IMAGEX "1" "August 2016" "wimlib 1.10.0" "User Commands"
3 wimlib-imagex-capture, wimlib-imagex-append \- Create or append a WIM image
5 \fBwimlib-imagex capture\fR \fISOURCE\fR \fIWIMFILE\fR [\fIIMAGE_NAME\fR \
6 [\fIIMAGE_DESCRIPTION\fR]] [\fIOPTION\fR...]
8 \fBwimlib-imagex append\fR \fISOURCE\fR \fIWIMFILE\fR [\fIIMAGE_NAME\fR \
9 [\fIIMAGE_DESCRIPTION\fR]] [\fIOPTION\fR...]
11 The \fBwimlib-imagex capture\fR and \fBwimlib-imagex append\fR commands
12 create a Windows Imaging (WIM) image from a directory tree. The
13 \fBwimlib-imagex capture\fR command creates a new WIM file containing the
14 captured image, while the \fBwimlib-imagex append\fR command appends the
15 captured image to an existing WIM file.
16 These commands are also available as simply \fBwimcapture\fR and \fBwimappend\fR
17 if the appropriate hard links or batch files are installed.
19 Background information: A WIM image is an independent directory tree in a WIM
20 file. A WIM file may contain any number of separate images. WIM files are
21 single-instancing with regards to file data, so a file is stored only one time
22 in the entire WIM, regardless of how many images the file appears in.
24 \fISOURCE\fR specifies the location of the files to create the new WIM image
25 from. If \fISOURCE\fR is a directory, the WIM image is captured from that
26 directory (see \fBDIRECTORY CAPTURE (UNIX)\fR or \fBDIRECTORY CAPTURE
27 (WINDOWS)\fR). Alternatively, if the \fB--source-list\fR option is specified,
28 \fISOURCE\fR is interpreted as a file that itself provides a list of
29 files and directories to include in the new WIM image. Still
30 alternatively, only on UNIX-like systems, if \fISOURCE\fR is a
31 regular file or block device, it is interpreted as an NTFS volume from
32 which a WIM image is to be captured using libntfs-3g (see \fBNTFS VOLUME CAPTURE
35 \fIIMAGE_NAME\fR and \fIIMAGE_DESCRIPTION\fR specify the name and description to
36 give the new WIM image. If \fIIMAGE_NAME\fR is not specified, it defaults to
37 the base name (excluding path to parent directory) of \fISOURCE\fR, but if this
38 name already exists in \fIWIMFILE\fR, a unique suffix is added. Otherwise,
39 \fIIMAGE_NAME\fR must be either a name that does not already exist as an image in
40 \fIWIMFILE\fR, or the empty string to create an image with no name. If
41 \fIIMAGE_DESCRIPTION\fR is not specified, no description is given to the new
44 As a special case, if \fIWIMFILE\fR is "-", the \fB--pipable\fR option is
45 assumed and the WIM file is written to standard output in a special pipable
46 format. See the documentation for \fB--pipable\fR for more details.
47 .SH DIRECTORY CAPTURE (UNIX)
48 This section documents how \fBwimlib-imagex\fR captures files from a
49 directory tree on UNIX-like systems. See \fBDIRECTORY CAPTURE (WINDOWS)\fR for
50 the corresponding documentation for Windows.
52 On UNIX-like systems, when \fISOURCE\fR specifies a directory or a symbolic link
53 to a directory, the WIM image will be captured from the directory tree rooted at
54 this directory. This directory can be on any type of filesystem, and
55 mountpoints are followed recursively. In this mode, wimlib will store the
56 following types of information:
58 Directories and regular files, and the contents of regular files
62 Symbolic links (translated losslessly to Windows reparse points)
64 Last modification times (mtime) and last access times (atime) with 100
65 nanosecond granularity
67 With \fB--unix-data\fR: UNIX owners, groups, and modes
69 With \fB--unix-data\fR: device nodes, FIFOs, and UNIX domain sockets
71 There is no support for storing extended attributes (e.g. SELinux security
72 labels and POSIX ACLs), last status change times (ctimes), or hard link
73 information for symbolic link files (each symbolic link will be stored as an
74 independent file). In addition, filenames and symbolic link targets on UNIX
75 filesystems which are not valid UTF-8 with the addition of surrogate codepoints
76 are unsupported. Note: if you have a filesystem containing filenames in another
77 multibyte encoding, such as ISO-8859-1, and you wish to archive it with wimlib,
78 you may be able to mount it with an option which causes its filenames to be
80 .SH NTFS VOLUME CAPTURE (UNIX)
81 This section documents how \fBwimlib-imagex\fR captures files directly from
82 an NTFS volume image on UNIX-like systems.
84 On UNIX-like systems, a special image capture mode is entered when \fISOURCE\fR
85 is a regular file or block device. In this mode, \fISOURCE\fR is assumed to be
86 an NTFS volume or volume image, and \fBwimlib-imagex\fR will capture a WIM
87 image containing the full contents of the NTFS volume, including NTFS-specific
88 data. This is done using libntfs-3g.
90 Note that the NTFS volume capture mode is \fInot\fR entered if \fISOURCE\fR is a
91 directory, even if an NTFS filesystem is mounted on \fISOURCE\fR using ntfs-3g.
92 You must specify the NTFS volume itself (and it must be unmounted, and you must
93 have permission to read from it).
95 The NTFS volume capture mode attempts to capture as much data and metadata as
98 All data streams of all unencrypted files, including the unnamed data stream as
99 well as all named data streams.
101 Reparse points, including symbolic links, junction points, and other reparse
104 File and directory creation, access, and modification timestamps, using the
105 native NTFS resolution of 100 nanoseconds.
107 Windows security descriptors, including all components (owner, group, DACL, and
110 DOS/Windows file attribute flags.
112 All names of all files, including names in the Win32 namespace, DOS namespace,
113 Win32+DOS namespace, and POSIX namespace. This includes hard links.
117 However, the main limitations of this NTFS volume capture mode are:
119 Encrypted files are excluded by default. Although libntfs-3g can read their
120 data, they need to be stored in the WIM file in a special format that wimlib
121 does not yet support (except on Windows, where wimlib can treat the data as
122 opaque and hand it off to the appropriate API function).
124 The sparse attribute on sparse files will be saved, but the data stored will be
125 the full data of the file rather than the "sparse" data. (The data is, however,
126 subject to the WIM format's compression.)
127 .SH DIRECTORY CAPTURE (WINDOWS)
128 On Windows, \fBwimlib-imagex capture\fR and \fBwimlib-imagex append\fR
129 natively support Windows-specific and NTFS-specific data. They therefore act
130 similarly to the corresponding commands of Microsoft's ImageX or DISM. For best
131 results, the directory being captured should be on an NTFS volume and
132 \fBwimlib-imagex\fR should be run with Administrator privileges; however,
133 non-NTFS filesystems and running without Administrator privileges are also
136 On Windows, \fBwimlib-imagex capture\fR and \fBwimlib-imagex append\fR
137 try to archive as much data and metadata as possible, including:
139 All data streams of all files.
141 Reparse points, including symbolic links, junction points, and other reparse
142 points, if supported by the source filesystem. (Note: see \fB--rpfix\fR and
143 \fB--norpfix\fR for documentation on exactly how absolute symbolic links and
144 junctions are captured.)
146 File and directory creation, access, and modification timestamps. These are
147 stored with Windows NT's native timestamp resolution of 100 nanoseconds.
149 Security descriptors, if supported by the source filesystem and \fB--no-acls\fR
150 is not specified. However, beware that unless \fB--strict-acls\fR is specified,
151 the security descriptors for individual files or directories may be omitted or
152 only partially captured if the user does not have permission to read them, which
153 can be a problem if \fBwimlib-imagex\fR is run as a non-Administrator.
155 File attributes, including hidden, sparse, compressed, encrypted, etc.
156 Encrypted files will be stored in encrypted form rather than in plain text.
157 Transparently compressed files will be read as uncompressed and stored subject
158 to the WIM's own compression. There is no special handling for storing sparse
159 files, but they are likely to compress to a small size.
161 DOS names (8.3) names of files; however, the failure to read them is not
162 considered an error condition.
164 Hard links, if supported by the source filesystem.
166 Object IDs, if supported by the source filesystem.
168 There is no support for storing NTFS extended attributes.
170 The capture process is reversible, since when \fBwimlib-imagex apply\fR (on
171 Windows) extracts the captured WIM image, it will extract all of the above
172 information, at least to the extent supported by the destination filesystem.
174 Pedantic note: since Windows is not fully compatible with its own filesystem
175 (NTFS), on Windows wimlib cannot archive certain files that may exist on a valid
176 NTFS filesystem but are inaccessible to the Windows API, for example two files
177 with names differing only in case in the same directory (unless
178 ObCaseInsensitive has been set to 0 in the Windows registry), or a file whose
179 name contains certain characters considered invalid by Windows. If you run into
180 problems archiving such files consider using the \fBNTFS VOLUME CAPTURE
181 (UNIX)\fR mode from Linux.
185 Specifies that the new image is to be made the bootable image of the WIM archive.
188 For \fBwimlib-imagex append\fR, before performing the append operation,
189 check the integrity of \fIWIMFILE\fR if an integrity table is present.
190 Furthermore, include an integrity table in the new WIM file
191 (\fBwimlib-imagex capture\fR) or the modified WIM file (\fBwimlib-imagex
192 append\fR). If this option is not specified, no integrity table is included in
193 a WIM file created with \fBwimlib-imagex capture\fR, while a WIM file
194 updated with \fBwimlib-imagex append\fR will be written with an integrity
195 table if and only if one was present before.
197 \fB--compress\fR=\fITYPE\fR[:\fILEVEL\fR]
198 Specifies the compression format for the new WIM file. \fITYPE\fR may be
199 "none", "XPRESS" (alias: "fast"), "LZX" (alias: "maximum"), or "LZMS" (alias:
200 "recovery"). \fITYPE\fR is matched case-insensitively. The default is "LZX".
202 You can optionally also specify an integer compression \fILEVEL\fR. The
203 compression level specifies how hard the compression algorithm for the specified
204 compression \fITYPE\fR will work to compress the data. The values are scaled so
205 that 20 is quick compression, 50 is medium compression, and 100 is high
206 compression. However, you can choose any value, and not just these particular
207 values. The default is 50.
209 This option only affects the compression type used in non-solid WIM resources.
210 If you are creating a solid WIM (using the \fB--solid\fR option), then you
211 probably want \fB--solid-compress\fR instead.
213 Be careful if you choose LZMS compression. It is not compatible with wimlib
214 before v1.6.0, WIMGAPI before Windows 8, DISM before Windows 8.1, and 7-Zip
217 Also note that choosing LZMS compression does not automatically imply solid-mode
218 compression, as it does with DISM. Use \fB--solid\fR if you want to create a
219 solid WIM, or "ESD file".
221 \fB--chunk-size\fR=\fISIZE\fR
222 Set the compression chunk size to \fISIZE\fR bytes. A larger compression chunk
223 size results in a better compression ratio. wimlib supports different chunk
224 sizes depending on the compression type:
227 XPRESS: 4K, 8K, 16K, 32K, 64K
229 LZX: 32K, 64K, 128K, 256K, 512K, 1M, 2M
231 LZMS: 32K, 64K, 128K, 256K, 512K, 1M, 2M, 4M, 8M, 16M, 32M, 64M, 128M, 256M, 512M, 1G
234 You can provide the full number (e.g. 32768), or you can use one of the K, M, or
235 G suffixes. KiB, MiB, and GiB are also accepted.
237 This option only affects the chunk size used in non-solid WIM resources. If you
238 are creating a solid WIM (using the \fB--solid\fR option), then you probably
239 want \fB--solid-chunk-size\fR instead.
241 Use this option with caution if compatibility with Microsoft's implementation is
242 desired, since their implementation has limited support for non-default chunk
246 Create a "solid" WIM file that compresses files together rather than
247 independently. This results in a significantly better compression ratio, but it
248 comes at the cost of various tradeoffs, including: slow compression with very
249 high memory usage; slow random access to the resulting WIM file; and reduced
252 Compatibility-wise, the first version of Microsoft's WIMGAPI to support solid
253 WIM files was released with Windows 8, and the first version of DISM to do so
254 was released with Windows 8.1.
256 If you want to create an "ESD file", then use this option. An (unencrypted)
257 "ESD file" is a solid WIM file.
259 By default, this option has an effect equivalent to DISM's option
260 \fB/compress:recovery\fR. The options for wimlib-imagex are different because
261 they try not to conflate the compression type (e.g. LZX or LZMS) with solid-mode
262 compression, as these are two different things.
264 \fB--solid-chunk-size\fR=\fISIZE\fR
265 Like \fB--chunk-size\fR, but set the chunk size used in solid resources. The
266 default, assuming LZMS compression, is 64MiB (67108864); this requires about
267 640MiB of memory per thread. This option only has an effect when \fB--solid\fR
268 is also specified. Note: Microsoft's implementation is not compatible with LZMS
269 chunk sizes larger than 64MiB.
271 \fB--solid-compress\fR=\fITYPE\fR[:\fILEVEL\fR]
272 Like \fB--compress\fR, but set the compression type used in solid resources.
273 The default is LZMS compression. This option only has an effect when
274 \fB--solid\fR is also specified.
276 \fB--threads\fR=\fINUM_THREADS\fR
277 Number of threads to use for compressing data. Default: autodetect (number of
281 For \fBwimlib-imagex append\fR: rebuild the entire WIM rather than appending the new
282 data to the end of it. Rebuilding the WIM is slower, but will save a little bit
283 of space that would otherwise be left as a hole in the WIM. Also see \fBwimlib-imagex
286 \fB--flags\fR=\fIEDITIONID\fR
287 Specify a string to use in the <FLAGS> element of the XML data for the new
290 \fB--image-property\fR \fINAME\fR=\fIVALUE\fR
291 Specify an arbitrary per-image property to set in the XML document of the WIM
292 file. \fIVALUE\fR is the string to set as the property value. \fINAME\fR is
293 the name of the image property, for example "NAME", "DESCRIPTION", or
294 "TOTALBYTES". The name can contain forward slashes to indicate a nested XML
295 element; for example, "WINDOWS/VERSION/BUILD" indicates the BUILD element nested
296 within the VERSION element nested within the WINDOWS element. A bracketed
297 number can be used to indicate one of several identically-named elements; for
298 example, "WINDOWS/LANGUAGES/LANGUAGE[2]" indicates the second "LANGUAGE" element
299 nested within the "WINDOWS/LANGUAGES" element. When adding a list of elements
300 in this way, they must be specified in sequential order. Note that element
301 names are case-sensitive. This option may be specified multiple times.
304 (UNIX-like systems only) Follow symbolic links and archive the files they point
305 to, rather than archiving the links themselves.
307 \fB--config\fR=\fIFILE\fR
308 Specifies a configuration file (UTF-8 or UTF-16LE encoded; plain ASCII also
309 works) for capturing the new image. The configuration file specifies files that
310 are to be treated specially during the image capture.
312 The format of the configuration file is INI-style; that is, it is arranged in
313 bracketed sections. Currently, the following sections are recognized:
316 [ExclusionList] --- contains a list of path globs to exclude from capture. If
317 a directory is matched, both the directory and its contents are excluded.
319 [ExclusionException] --- contains a list of path globs to include in the
320 capture, even when the file or directory also matches a glob in [ExclusionList].
322 [PrepopulateList] --- this does not affect capture, but if the image is applied
323 later with \fB--wimboot\fR, these are globs of files that shall be extracted
324 normally, not as WIMBoot "pointer files". If a directory is matched, all files
325 and subdirectories are also matched recursively.
328 Path globs may contain the '*' and '?' meta-characters. Relative globs (e.g.
329 *.mp3) match against a filename in any directory. Absolute globs (e.g.
330 /dir/file), are treated as paths starting at the main directory being captured,
331 or the root of the NTFS volume for NTFS volume capture mode. Do not use drive
332 letters in the paths; they will be ignored. Path separators may be either
333 forwards slashes or backwards slashes.
335 Lines beginning with the '#' or ';' characters are treated as comments and
336 ignored. Globs with whitespace in them need not be quoted; however, if they
337 are, both double and single quotes are accepted.
339 If this option is not specified the following default configuration file is
350 \\System Volume Information
357 However, special behavior applies if \fB--wimboot\fR is also specified. By
358 default, with \fB--wimboot\fR specified, the file
359 Windows/System32/WimBootCompress.ini in the directory being captured will be
360 used as the configuration file. However, this can be overridden using
361 \fB--config\fR; and this also causes the specified configuration file to be
362 saved in the WIM image as Windows/System32/WimBootCompress.ini, overriding any
363 that may be present on the filesystem.
366 (UNIX-like systems only) Store the UNIX owner, group, mode, and device ID (major
367 and minor number) of each captured file. Since wimlib v1.7.0, you can backup
368 and restore not only the standard UNIX file permission information, but also
369 character device nodes, block device nodes, named pipes (FIFOs), and UNIX domain
372 wimlib stores UNIX data by adding a special tagged metadata item to each
373 directory entry of each file that contains this information. This extra
374 information is ignored by the Microsoft implementation. Note: UNIX data stored
375 by wimlib before v1.7.0 used a different format that is no longer supported. If
376 you have old WIM files with UNIX data, apply them with v1.6.2 and recapture them
377 with v1.7.0 or later.
380 Do not capture files' security descriptors.
383 Fail immediately if the full security descriptor of any file cannot be read. On
384 Windows, the default behavior without this option is to first try omitting the
385 SACL from the security descriptor, then to try omitting the security descriptor
386 entirely. The purpose of this is to capture as much data as possible without
387 always requiring Administrator privileges. However, if you desire that all
388 security descriptors be captured exactly, you may wish to provide this option,
389 although the Administrator should have permission to read everything anyway.
391 \fB--rpfix\fR, \fB--norpfix\fR
392 Set whether to fix targets of absolute symbolic links (reparse points in Windows
393 terminology) or not. When enabled (\fB--rpfix\fR), absolute symbolic links that
394 point inside the directory tree being captured will be adjusted to be absolute
395 relative to the root of the directory tree being captured. When disabled
396 (\fB--norpfix\fR), absolute symbolic links will be captured exactly as is.
398 The default behavior for \fBwimlib-imagex capture\fR is equivalent to
399 \fB--rpfix\fR. The default behavior for \fBwimlib-imagex append\fR will be
400 \fB--rpfix\fR if reparse point fixups have previously been done on
401 \fIWIMFILE\fR, otherwise \fB--norpfix\fR.
403 In the case of a multi-source capture, (\fB--source-list\fR specified), passing
404 \fB--norpfix\fR is recommended. Otherwise, reparse point fixups will be
405 disabled on all capture sources destined for non-root locations in the WIM
406 image, while capture sources destined for the WIM root will get the default
407 behavior from the previous paragraph.
410 \fBwimlib-imagex capture\fR and \fBwimlib-imagex append\fR support
411 creating a WIM image from multiple separate files or directories. When
412 \fB--source-list\fR is specified, the \fISOURCE\fR argument specifies the name
413 of a text file, each line of which is either 1 or 2 whitespace separated file
414 paths. The first file path, the source, specifies the path to a file or
415 directory to capture into the WIM image. It may be either absolute or relative
416 to the current working directory. The second file path, if provided, is the
417 target and specifies the path in the WIM image that this file or directory will
418 be saved as. Leading and trailing slashes in the target are ignored, except if
419 it consists entirely of slashes (e.g. "/"), which indicates that the directory
420 is to become the root of the WIM image. If omitted, the target string defaults
421 to the same as the source string.
423 An example source list file is as follows:
428 # Make the WIM image from the 'winpe' directory
431 # Send the 'overlay' directory to '/overlay' in the WIM image
434 # Overlay a separate directory directly on the root of the WIM image.
440 Subdirectories in the WIM are created as needed. Multiple source directories
441 may share the same target, which implies an overlay. In the event that this
442 results a nondirectory file being added to the WIM image multiple times, the
443 last version (as listed in the source list file) overrides any earlier version.
445 File paths containing whitespace may be quoted with either single quotes or
446 double quotes. Quotes may not be escaped.
448 Lines consisting only of whitespace and lines beginning with '#' preceded by
449 optional whitespace are ignored.
451 As a special case, if \fISOURCE\fR is "-", the source list is read from standard
452 input rather than an external file.
454 The NTFS volume capture mode on UNIX-like systems cannot be used with
455 \fB--source-list\fR, as only capturing a full NTFS volume is supported.
458 Create a "pipable" WIM, which can be applied fully sequentially, including from
459 a pipe. An image in the resulting WIM can be applied with \fBwimlib-imagex
460 apply\fR, either normally by specifying the WIM file name, or with
461 \fBwimlib-imagex apply -\fR to read the WIM from standard input. See
462 \fBwimlib-imagex apply\fR(1) for more details.
464 For append operations, this option will result in a full rebuild of the WIM to
465 make it pipable. For capture operations, the captured WIM is simply created as
466 pipable. Beware that the more images you add to a pipable WIM, the less
467 efficient piping it will be, since more unneeded data will be sent through the
470 When wimlib creates a pipable WIM, it carefully re-arranges the components of
471 the WIM so that they can be read sequentially and also makes several other
472 modifications. As a result, these "pipable" WIMs are \fInot compatible with
473 Microsoft's software\fR, so keep this in mind if you're going to use them. If
474 desired, you can use \fBwimlib-imagex optimize --not-pipable\fR to re-write
475 a pipable WIM as a regular WIM. (\fBwimlib-imagex export\fR also provides
476 the capability to export images from a pipable WIM into a non-pipable WIM, or
479 For the most part, wimlib operates on pipable WIMs transparently. You can
480 modify them, add or delete images, export images, and even create split pipable
481 WIMs. The main disadvantages are that appending is (currently) less efficient
482 (\fB--rebuild\fR is always implied), and also they aren't compatible with
483 Microsoft's software.
485 \fBwimlib-imagex capture\fR and \fBwimlib-imagex append\fR can both
486 write a pipable WIM directly to standard output; this is done automatically if
487 \fIWIMFILE\fR is specified as "-". (In that case, \fB--pipable\fR is assumed.)
490 Ensure the resulting WIM is in the normal, non-pipable WIM format. This is the
491 default for \fBwimlib-imagex capture\fR, except when writing to standard
492 output (\fIWIMFILE\fR specified as "-"), and also for \fBwimlib-imagex
493 append\fR, except when appending to a WIM that is already pipable.
495 \fB--update-of\fR=[\fIWIMFILE\fR:]\fIIMAGE\fR
496 Declares that the image being captured or appended from \fISOURCE\fR is mostly the same as
497 the existing image \fIIMAGE\fR in \fIWIMFILE\fR, but captured at a later point
498 in time, possibly with some modifications in the intervening time. This is
499 designed to be used in incremental backups of the same filesystem or directory
500 tree. \fIIMAGE\fR can be a 1-based index or name of an existing image in
501 \fIWIMFILE\fR. It can also be a negative integer to index backwards into the
502 images (e.g. -1 means the last existing image in \fIWIMFILE\fR).
504 When this option is provided, the capture or append of the new image will be
505 optimized by not reading files that, based on metadata such as timestamps,
506 appear not to have been modified since they were archived in the existing
507 \fIIMAGE\fR. Barring manipulation of timestamps, this option only affects
508 performance and does not change the resulting WIM image (but see note below).
510 As shown, the full syntax for the argument to this option is to specify the WIM
511 file, a colon, and the image; for example, "--update-of mywim.wim:1". However,
512 the WIM file and colon may be omitted, in which case the WIM file will default
513 to the WIM file being appended to for append operations, or the WIM file from
514 which a delta is being taken (only if \fB--delta-from\fR is specified exactly
515 once) for capture operations.
517 Note: in the Windows version of wimlib, it has been observed that
518 \fB--update-of\fR mode is not completely reliable at detecting changes in file
519 contents, sometimes causing the old contents of a few files to be archived
520 rather than the current contents. The cause of this problem is that Windows
521 does not immediately update a file's last modification timestamp after every
522 write to that file. Unfortunately, there is no known way for applications like
523 wimlib to automatically work around this bug. Manual workarounds are possible;
524 theoretically, taking any action that causes the problematic files to be closed,
525 such as restarting applications or the computer itself, should cause the files'
526 last modification timestamps to be updated. Also note that wimlib compares file
527 sizes as well as timestamps in determining whether a file has changed, which
528 helps make the problem less likely to occur; and the problem does not occur on
529 other operating systems such as Linux which maintain files' last modification
530 timestamps correctly.
532 \fB--delta-from\fR=\fIWIMFILE\fR
533 For \fBwimlib-imagex capture\fR only: capture the new WIM as a "delta" from
534 \fIWIMFILE\fR. Any streams that would ordinarily need to be archived in the new
535 WIM are omitted if they are already present in the \fIWIMFILE\fR on which the
536 delta is being based. The new WIM will still contain a full copy of the image
537 metadata, but this is typically only a small fraction of a WIM's total size.
539 This option can be specified multiple times, in which case the resulting delta
540 WIM will only contain streams not present in any of the specified base WIMs.
542 To operate on the resulting delta WIM using other commands such as
543 \fBwimlib-imagex apply\fR, you must specify the delta WIM as the WIM file to
544 operate on, but also reference the base WIM(s) using the \fB--ref\fR option.
545 Beware: to retain the proper functioning of the delta WIM, you can only add, not
546 delete, files and images to the base WIM(s) following the capture of a delta
549 \fB--delta-from\fR may be combined with \fB--update-of\fR to increase the
550 speed of capturing a delta WIM.
552 As an example, consider the following backup and restore sequence:
558 $ wimcapture /some/directory bkup-base.wim
560 (some days later, create second backup as delta from first)
562 $ wimcapture /some/directory bkup-2013-08-20.dwm \\
563 --update-of bkup-base.wim:-1 --delta-from bkup-base.wim
565 (restoring the second backup)
567 $ wimapply bkup-2013-08-20.dwm --ref=bkup-base.wim 1 \\
572 However, note that as an alternative to the above sequence that used a delta
573 WIM, the second backup could have simply been appended to the WIM as new image
574 using \fBwimlib-imagex append\fR. Delta WIMs should be used only if it's
575 desired to base the backups or images on a separate, large file that is rarely
578 Note: unlike "pipable" WIMs (created with the \fB--pipable\fR option), "delta"
579 WIMs (created with the \fB--delta-from\fR option) are compatible with
580 Microsoft's software. For example, you can use the /ref option of ImageX to
581 reference the base WIM(s), similar to above.
583 Additional note: \fBwimlib-imagex\fR is generalized enough that you can in
584 fact combine \fB--pipable\fR and \fB--delta-from\fR to create pipable delta
585 WIMs. In such cases, the base WIM(s) must be captured as pipable as well as the
586 delta WIM, and when applying an image, the base WIM(s) must be sent over the
587 pipe after the delta WIM.
590 Mark the image as WIMBoot-compatible. See Microsoft's
591 documentation for more information about WIMBoot. This option will, by default,
592 set the compression type to XPRESS and the chunk size to 4096 bytes; these
593 can, however, still be overridden through the \fB--compress\fR and
594 \fB--chunk-size\fR parameters, respectively. In addition, this option will, by
595 default, set the configuration file to
596 \fISOURCE\fR\\Windows\\System32\\WimBootCompress.ini if present and accessible;
597 however, this may still be overridden through the \fB--config\fR parameter.
599 \fB--unsafe-compact\fR
600 For \fBwimlib-imagex append\fR: compact the WIM archive in-place and append any
601 new data, eliminating "holes". In general, this option should \fInot\fR be used
602 because a failed or interrupted compaction will corrupt the WIM archive. For
603 more information, see the documentation for this option in
604 \fBwimlib-imagex-optimize\fR (1).
607 Create a temporary filesystem snapshot of the source directory and capture the
608 files from it. Currently, this option is only supported on Windows, where it
609 uses the Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS). Using this option, you can create a
610 consistent backup of the system volume of a running Windows system without
611 running into problems with locked files. For the VSS snapshot to be
612 successfully created, \fBwimlib-imagex\fR must be run as an Administrator, and
613 it cannot be run in WoW64 mode (i.e. if Windows is 64-bit, then
614 \fBwimlib-imagex\fR must be 64-bit as well).
616 \fBwimlib-imagex append\fR does not support appending an image to a split WIM.
618 Except when using \fB--unsafe-compact\fR, it is safe to abort a \fBwimlib-imagex
619 append\fR command partway through; however, after doing this, it is recommended
620 to run \fBwimlib-imagex optimize\fR to remove any data that was appended to the
621 physical WIM file but not yet incorporated into the structure of the WIM, unless
622 the WIM was being fully rebuilt (e.g. with \fB--rebuild\fR), in which case you
623 should delete the temporary file left over.
625 \fBwimlib-imagex\fR creates WIMs compatible with Microsoft's software
626 (WIMGAPI, ImageX, DISM), with some caveats:
628 With \fBwimlib-imagex\fR on UNIX-like systems, it is possible to create a
629 WIM image containing files with names differing only in case, or files with
630 names containing the characters ':', '*', '?', '"', '<', '>', '|', or '\\',
631 which are valid on POSIX-compliant filesystems but not Windows. Be warned that
632 such files will not be extracted by default by the Windows version of
633 \fBwimlib-imagex\fR, and (even worse) Microsoft's ImageX can be confused by
634 such names and quit extracting the image partway through. (It perhaps is worth
635 pointing out that Windows' own default filesystem, NTFS, supports these
636 characters, although Windows does not!)
638 Pipable WIMs are incompatible with Microsoft's software. Pipable WIMs are
639 created only if \fIWIMFILE\fR was specified as "-" (standard output) or if
640 the \fB--pipable\fR flag was specified.
642 WIMs captured with a non-default chunk size (with the \fB--chunk-size\fR option)
643 or as solid archives (with the \fB--solid\fR option) or with LZMS
644 compression (with \fB--compress\fR=LZMS or \fB--compress\fR=recovery) have
645 varying levels of compatibility with Microsoft's software. Generally, more
646 recent versions of Microsoft's software are more compatible.
648 First example: Create a new WIM 'mywim.wim' with LZX ("maximum") compression
649 that will contain a captured image of the directory tree 'somedir'. Note that
650 the image name need not be specified and will default to 'somedir':
653 wimlib-imagex capture somedir mywim.wim
656 or, if the \fBwimcapture\fR hard link or batch file has been installed, the
657 abbreviated form can be used:
660 wimcapture somedir mywim.wim
663 The remaining examples will use the long form, however. Next, append the image
664 of a different directory tree to the WIM created above:
667 wimlib-imagex append anotherdir mywim.wim
670 Easy enough, and the above examples of imaging directory trees work on both
671 UNIX-like systems and Windows. Next, capture a WIM with several non-default
672 options, including XPRESS ("fast") compression, an integrity table, no messing
673 with absolute symbolic links, and an image name and description:
676 wimlib-imagex capture somedir mywim.wim --compress=fast \\
678 --check --norpfix "Some Name" "Some Description"
682 Capture an entire NTFS volume into a new WIM file and name the image "Windows
683 7". On UNIX-like systems, this requires using the special mode described in
684 \fBNTFS VOLUME CAPTURE (UNIX)\fR where \fISOURCE\fR is a file or block device
685 containing an NTFS filesystem:
688 wimlib-imagex capture /dev/sda2 windows7.wim "Windows 7"
691 or, on Windows, to capture a full NTFS volume you instead need to specify the
692 root directory of the mounted volume, for example:
695 wimlib-imagex capture E:\\ windows7.wim "Windows 7"
698 Same as above example with capturing an NTFS volume from \fBwimlib-imagex\fR
699 running on a UNIX-like system, but capture the WIM in the wimlib-specific
700 "pipable" format that can be piped to \fBwimlib-imagex apply\fR:
703 wimlib-imagex capture /dev/sda2 windows7.wim "Windows 7" \\
710 Same as above, but instead of writing the pipable WIM to the file
711 "windows7.wim", write it directly to standard output through a pipe into some
712 other program "someprog", which could, for example, be a program or script that
713 streams the data to a server. Note that \fB--pipable\fR need not be explicitly
714 specified when using standard output as the WIM "file":
717 wimlib-imagex capture /dev/sda2 - "Windows 7" | someprog
720 .BR wimlib-imagex (1),
721 .BR wimlib-imagex-apply (1)
git://wimlib.net / wimlib / blob