-.TH IMAGEX "1" "November 2012" "imagex (wimlib) wimlib @VERSION@" "User Commands"
+.TH IMAGEX "1" "December 2012" "imagex (wimlib) wimlib @VERSION@" "User Commands"
.SH NAME
imagex-mount, imagex-mountrw, imagex-unmount \- Mount and unmount an image from a WIM archive
\fBimagex mountrw\fR \fIWIMFILE\fR \fIIMAGE\fR \fIDIRECTORY\fR [--check]
[--streams-interface=\fIINTERFACE\fR] [--staging-dir=\fIDIR\fR]
.br
-\fBimagex unmount\fR \fIDIRECTORY\fR [--commit] [--check]
+\fBimagex unmount\fR \fIDIRECTORY\fR [--commit] [--check] [--rebuild]
.SH DESCRIPTION
.PP
to set or get DOS names, file attributes, or security
descriptors in a mounted WIM.
+By default, changes to a read-write WIM are made in-place by appending to the
+WIM. This is nice for big WIM files, since the entire file doesn't have to be
+rebuilt to make a small change. But, if you are making many changes to a
+read-write mounted WIM, especially deleting large files, it is suggested to
+provide the \fB--rebuild\fR option to \fBimagex unmount\fR to force the WIM to
+be rebuilt, or else run \fBimagex optimize\fR on the WIM afterwards.
+
.SH MOUNT OPTIONS
.TP
.TP
\fB--commit\fR
-Recreate the WIM file with the changes that have been made. Has no effect if
-the mount is read-only.
-.TP 6
+Update the WIM file with the changes that have been made. Has no effect if the
+mount is read-only.
+.TP
\fB--check\fR
When writing \fIWIMFILE\fR, include an integrity table. Has no effect if the
mount is read-only or if --commit was not specified.
+.TP
+\fB--rebuild\fR
+Rebuild the entire WIM rather than appending any new data to the end of it.
+Rebuilding the WIM is slower, but will save a little bit of space that would
+otherwise be left as a hole in the WIM. Even more space will be saved if the
+read-write mount resulted in streams being deleted from the WIM. Also see
+\fBimagex optimize\fR. Has no effect if the mount is read-only or if --commit
+was not specified.
.SH IMPLEMENTATION DETAILS
temporary staging directory to contain files that are created or modified. This
directory is located in the same directory as \fIWIMFILE\fR by default, but the
location can be set using the \fB--staging-dir\fR option. When the filesystem
-is unmounted with \fB--commit\fR, the WIM is rebuilt, merging in the staging
-files as needed. Then, the temporary staging directory is deleted.
-
-\fBimagex unmount\fR executes the \fBfusermount\fR (1) program, which should be
-installed as part of libfuse, to unmount the filesystem. It then uses a POSIX
-message queue (see \fBmq_overview\fR (7)) to communicate with the filesystem
-daemon (the instance of \fBimagex\fR that has mounted the WIM image) so that it
-can know whether whether changes are to be committed and whether an integrity
-table is to be included. A message is then sent from the filesystem daemon to
-unmounting process when the unmounting has been completed, and this message
-indicates whether the unmounting was successful or not.
-
-If the filesystem daemon has crashed or been killed, is possible for \fBimagex
-unmount\fR to wait a very long time before timing out. A solution to this
-problem may be implemented in the future.
+is unmounted with \fB--commit\fR, the WIM is modified in-place (or rebuild
+completely with \fB--rebuild\fR), merging in the staging files as needed. Then,
+the temporary staging directory is deleted.
+
+\fBimagex unmount\fR runs in a separate process from the process that previously
+ran \fBimagex mount\fR, and these two processes communicate using POSIX message
+queue. See \fIsrc/mount_image.c\fR in the sources for details. Note: As of wimlib
+v1.2.1, \fBimagex unmount\fR correctly fails with an error within a reasonable
+amount of time (1 second) if the filesystem daemon is abnormally terminated.
.SH SEE ALSO
.BR imagex (1)
git://wimlib.net / wimlib / blobdiff