imagex-apply.1.in: Add notes about Windows permissions being annoying

[wimlib] / doc / imagex-apply.1.in

diff --git a/doc/imagex-apply.1.in b/doc/imagex-apply.1.in
index 46bf7ec1708700a61e17b410a01b7364594d55e2..c1ede60b6a66ed0aa8cd2063695793fdd4b70f6f 100644 (file)
--- a/doc/imagex-apply.1.in
+++ b/doc/imagex-apply.1.in
@@ -232,6 +232,24 @@ be extracted by default; see \fB--include-invalid-names\fR.
 Files with full paths over 260 characters (the so-called MAX_PATH) will be
 extracted, but beware that such files will be inaccessible to most Windows
 software and may not be able to be deleted easily.
+.IP \[bu]
+On Windows, unless the \fB--no-acls\fR option is specified, wimlib will attempt
+to restore files' security descriptors exactly as they are provided in the WIM
+image.  Beware that typical Windows installations contain files whose security
+descriptors do not allow the Administrator to delete them.  Therefore, such
+files will not be able to be deleted, or in some cases even read, after
+extracting, unless processed with a specialized program that knows to acquire
+the SE_RESTORE_NAME and/or SE_BACKUP_NAME privileges which allow overriding
+access control lists.  This is not a bug in wimlib, which works as designed to
+correctly restore the data that was archived, but rather a problem with the
+access rights Windows uses on certain files.  But if you just want the file data
+and don't care about security descriptors, use \fB--no-acls\fR to skip restoring
+all security descriptors.
+.IP \[bu]
+A similar caveat to the above applies to file attributes such as Readonly,
+Hidden, and System.  By design, on Windows wimlib will restore such file
+attributes; therefore, extracted files may have those attributes.  If this is
+not what you want, use the \fB--no-attributes\fR option.
 .SH SPLIT WIMS
 You may use \fB@IMAGEX_PROGNAME@ apply\fR to apply images from a split WIM.  The
 \fIWIMFILE\fR argument must specify the first part of the split WIM, while the
@@ -352,6 +370,9 @@ combined with \fB--unix-data\fR to cause \fB@IMAGEX_PROGNAME@\fR to fail
 immediately if the UNIX owner, group, or mode on an extracted file cannot be set
 for any reason.
 .TP
+\fB--no-attributes\fR
+Do not restore Windows file attributes such as readonly, hidden, etc.
+.TP
 \fB--include-invalid-names\fR
 Extract files and directories with invalid names by replacing characters and
 appending a suffix rather than ignoring them.  Exactly what is considered an
@@ -386,6 +407,12 @@ WIMs, which usually contain LZMS-compressed solid blocks and may carry the
 \fI.esd\fR file extension rather than \fI.wim\fR.  However, \fI.esd\fR files
 downloaded directly by the Windows 8 web downloader have encrypted segments, and
 wimlib cannot extract such files until they are first decrypted.
+.PP
+\fIDirectory traversal attacks\fR:  wimlib validates filenames before extracting
+them and is not vulnerable to directory traversal attacks.  This is in contrast
+to Microsoft WIMGAPI/Imagex/Dism which can overwrite arbitrary files on the
+target drive when extracting a malicious WIM file containing files named
+\fI..\fR or containing path separators.
 .SH EXAMPLES
 Extract the first image from the Windows PE image on the Windows Vista/7/8
 installation media to the directory "boot":