-.TH WIMLIB-IMAGEX "1" "March 2016" "wimlib 1.9.1" "User Commands"
+.TH WIMLIB-IMAGEX "1" "August 2016" "wimlib 1.10.0" "User Commands"
.SH NAME
wimlib-imagex-capture, wimlib-imagex-append \- Create or append a WIM image
.SH SYNOPSIS
With \fB--unix-data\fR: device nodes, FIFOs, and UNIX domain sockets
.PP
There is no support for storing extended attributes (e.g. SELinux security
-labels and POSIX ACLs). Also note that last status change times (ctime) are not
-stored.
-.PP
-Pedantic note: A limitation of the WIM format prevents the unusual case where a
-single symbolic link file itself has multiple names (hard links); in this
-unlikely case, each symbolic link is stored as an independent file.
+labels and POSIX ACLs), last status change times (ctimes), or hard link
+information for symbolic link files (each symbolic link will be stored as an
+independent file). In addition, filenames and symbolic link targets on UNIX
+filesystems which are not valid UTF-8 with the addition of surrogate codepoints
+are unsupported. Note: if you have a filesystem containing filenames in another
+multibyte encoding, such as ISO-8859-1, and you wish to archive it with wimlib,
+you may be able to mount it with an option which causes its filenames to be
+presented as UTF-8.
.SH NTFS VOLUME CAPTURE (UNIX)
This section documents how \fBwimlib-imagex\fR captures files directly from
an NTFS volume image on UNIX-like systems.
All data streams of all unencrypted files, including the unnamed data stream as
well as all named data streams.
.IP \[bu]
-Reparse points, including symbolic links, junction points, and other reparse
-points.
+Reparse points. See \fBREPARSE POINTS AND SYMLINKS\fR for details.
.IP \[bu]
File and directory creation, access, and modification timestamps, using the
native NTFS resolution of 100 nanoseconds.
The sparse attribute on sparse files will be saved, but the data stored will be
the full data of the file rather than the "sparse" data. (The data is, however,
subject to the WIM format's compression.)
+.IP \[bu]
+Some types of reparse points are transparently dereferenced by Windows but not
+by NTFS-3G. See \fBREPARSE POINTS AND SYMLINKS\fR.
.SH DIRECTORY CAPTURE (WINDOWS)
On Windows, \fBwimlib-imagex capture\fR and \fBwimlib-imagex append\fR
natively support Windows-specific and NTFS-specific data. They therefore act
.IP \[bu] 4
All data streams of all files.
.IP \[bu]
-Reparse points, including symbolic links, junction points, and other reparse
-points, if supported by the source filesystem. (Note: see \fB--rpfix\fR and
-\fB--norpfix\fR for documentation on exactly how absolute symbolic links and
-junctions are captured.)
+Reparse points, if supported by the source filesystem. See \fBREPARSE POINTS
+AND SYMLINKS\fR for details.
.IP \[bu]
File and directory creation, access, and modification timestamps. These are
stored with Windows NT's native timestamp resolution of 100 nanoseconds.
Pedantic note: since Windows is not fully compatible with its own filesystem
(NTFS), on Windows wimlib cannot archive certain files that may exist on a valid
NTFS filesystem but are inaccessible to the Windows API, for example two files
-with names differing only in case in the same directory, or a file whose name
-contains certain characters considered invalid by Windows. If you run into
+with names differing only in case in the same directory (unless
+ObCaseInsensitive has been set to 0 in the Windows registry), or a file whose
+name contains certain characters considered invalid by Windows. If you run into
problems archiving such files consider using the \fBNTFS VOLUME CAPTURE
(UNIX)\fR mode from Linux.
+.SH REPARSE POINTS AND SYMLINKS
+A "symbolic link" (or "symlink") is a special file which "points to" some other
+file or directory. On Windows, a "reparse point" is a generalization of a
+symlink which allows access to a file or directory to be redirected in a more
+complex way. Windows uses reparse points to support symlinks, and sometimes
+uses them for various other features as well. Normally, applications can choose
+whether they want to "dereference" reparse points and symlinks or not.
+.PP
+The default behavior of \fBwimcapture\fR is that reparse points and symlinks are
+\fInot\fR dereferenced, meaning that the reparse points or symlinks themselves
+are stored in the archive rather than the files or data they point to. There is
+a \fB--dereference\fR option, but it is currently only supported by the UNIX
+version of \fBwimcapture\fR on UNIX filesystems (it's not yet implemented for
+Windows filesystems).
+.PP
+Windows also treats certain types of reparse points specially. For example,
+Windows applications reading from deduplicated, WIM-backed, or system-compressed
+files always see the dereferenced data, even if they ask not to. Therefore,
+\fBwimcapture\fR on Windows will store these files dereferenced, not as reparse
+points. But \fBwimcapture\fR on UNIX in NTFS-3G mode cannot dereference these
+files and will store them as reparse points instead. This difference can be
+significant in certain situations, e.g. when capturing deduplicated files which,
+to be readable after extraction, require that the chunk store also be present.
.SH OPTIONS
.TP 6
\fB--boot\fR
git://wimlib.net / wimlib / blobdiff