X-Git-Url: https://wimlib.net/git/?p=wimlib;a=blobdiff_plain;f=README;h=504c2f92b4042537196a2ae197f6f1df9821da4b;hp=8e7f45424682068f9db82b3e1201fa07d1fa08a9;hb=bbedc3e1934278c2ff2746b25b688477cffc9d83;hpb=cc83d5eb50869a6168be5c3b45a449fa2a5d2c97 diff --git a/README b/README index 8e7f4542..504c2f92 100644 --- a/README +++ b/README @@ -1,198 +1,330 @@ - WIMLIB - -This is wimlib version 0.7.2 (May 2012). wimlib can be used to read, write, -and mount files in the Windows Imaging Format (WIM files). These files are -normally created by using the `imagex.exe' utility on Windows, but this library -provides a free implementetion of imagex for UNIX-based systems. - -The main use of this library is to create customized images of Windows PE, the -Windows Preinstallation Environment, without having to rely on Windows. Windows -PE is a lightweight version of Windows that can run entirely from memory and can -be used to install Windows from local media or a network drive or perform -maintenance. Windows PE is the operating systems runs when you boot from the -Windows DVD. - -You can find Windows PE on the ISO filesystem on the installation DVD for both -Windows 7 and Windows 8. I don't have a DVD for Vista but it should be on there -too. The Windows PE image a WIM file, `sources/boot.wim', on the ISO -filesystem. Windows PE can also be found in the Windows Automated Installation -Kit (WAIK), which is free to download from Microsoft, inside the `WinPE.cab' -file, which you can extract if you install the `cabextract' program. - -wimlib provides a public API for other programs to use, but also comes with two -programs: `imagex' and `mkwinpeimg'. - -`imagex' is intended to be like the imagex.exe program from Windows. `imagex' -can be used to create, extract, and mount WIM files. Both read-only and -read-write mounts are supported. See the man page `doc/imagex.1' for more -details. - -`mkwinpeimg' is shell script that makes it easy to create a customized bootable -image of Windows PE that can be put on a CD or USB drive, or published on a -server for PXE booting. See the main page `doc/mkwinpeiso.1' for more details. - -Wimlib can also be used to handle larger WIM files such as the `install.wim' -file that comes on the Windows DVD; however, this has not been well tested. - -An earlier version of Wimlib is being used to deploy Windows 7 from the Ultimate -Deployment Appliance. For more information see -http://www.ultimatedeployment.org/. - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - CONFIGURATION - -Besides the various well-known options, the following options can be passed to -wimlib's `configure' script: + INTRODUCTION + +This is wimlib version 1.5.3 (December 2013). wimlib is a C library for +creating, modifying, extracting, and mounting files in the Windows Imaging +Format (WIM files). These files are normally created using the ImageX +(imagex.exe) or Dism (Dism.exe) utilities on Windows, but wimlib is distributed +with a free implementation of ImageX called "wimlib-imagex" for both UNIX-like +systems and Windows. + + INSTALLATION + +To install wimlib and wimlib-imagex on Windows you simply need to download and +extract the ZIP file containing the latest binaries from the SourceForge page +(http://sourceforge.net/projects/wimlib/), which you may have already done. + +To install wimlib and wimlib-imagex on UNIX-like systems (with Linux being the +primary supported and tested platform), you must compile the source code, which +is also available at http://sourceforge.net/projects/wimlib/. Alternatively, +check if a package has been prepared for your Linux distribution. Example files +for Debian and RPM packaging are in the debian/ and rpm/ directories. + + WIM FILES + +A Windows Imaging (WIM) file is an archive designed primarily for archiving +Windows filesystems. However, it can be used on other platforms as well, with +some limitations. Like some other archive formats such as ZIP, files in WIM +archives may be compressed. WIM files support two compression formats: LZX and +XPRESS *. Both are supported by wimlib. + +A WIM file consists of one or more "images". Each image is an independent +top-level directory structure and is logically separate from all other images in +the WIM. Each image has a name as well as a 1-based index in the WIM file. To +save space, WIM archives automatically combine all duplicate files across all +images. + +A WIM file may be either stand-alone or split into multiple parts. Split WIMs +are read-only and cannot be modified. + +* Note: The Windows 8 WIMGAPI apparently adds a third format, LZMS, but it is + not documented and is incompatible with ImageX and Dism. It is unclear if + this new format is actually being used for anything. + + IMAGEX IMPLEMENTATION + +wimlib itself is a C library, and it provides a documented public API (See: +http://wimlib.sourceforge.net) for other programs to use. However, it is also +distributed with a command-line program called "wimlib-imagex" that uses this +library to implement an imaging tool similar to Microsoft's ImageX. +wimlib-imagex supports almost all the capabilities of Microsoft's ImageX as well +as additional capabilities. wimlib-imagex works on both UNIX-like systems and +Windows, although some features differ between the platforms. + +Run `wimlib-imagex' with no arguments to see an overview of the available +commands and their syntax. For additional documentation: + + * If you have installed wimlib-imagex on a UNIX-like system, you will find + further documentation in the man pages; run `man wimlib-imagex' to get + started. + + * If you have downloaded the Windows binary distribution, you will find the + documentation for wimlib-imagex in PDF format in the "doc" directory, + ready for viewing with any PDF viewer. Please note that although the PDF + files are converted from UNIX-style "man pages", they do document + Windows-specific behavior when appropriate. + + COMPRESSION RATIO + +wimlib (and wimlib-imagex) can create XPRESS or LZX compressed WIM archives. +The following tables compare the compression ratio and performance for creating +a compressed x86_64 Windows PE image. Note: these timings were done on Windows +so that the times would be fully comparable; however, wimlib may have even +better performance on other operating systems such as Linux. Timings were done +with 2 CPUs available, both of which automatically are used by wimlib for both +XPRESS and LZX, and also by imagex.exe but apparently only for LZX. + + Table 1. WIM size + + XPRESS Compression LZX Compression + wimlib-imagex (v1.5.3): 207,444,390 bytes 188,106,091 bytes + Microsoft imagex.exe (Windows 7): 209,960,209 bytes 188,224,481 bytes + + Table 2. Time to create WIM + + XPRESS Compression LZX Compression + wimlib-imagex (v1.5.3): 73 sec 202 sec + Microsoft imagex.exe (Windows 7): 90 sec 149 sec + +The above LZX data are using explicitly specified maximum compression +('--compress=maximum') as of wimlib v1.5.3. If `wimlib-imagex capture' or +`wimlib-imagex capture' is instead run with no '--compress' argument, then a +faster LZX compressor is used; it will produce results in between those given +for XPRESS and LZX above. + +Note: if the absolute maximum (but still compatible) compression ratio is +desired, `wimlib-imagex optimize WIMFILE --recompress --compress-slow' on one of +the above LZX-compressed WIMs produces a WIM of 187,089,943 bytes in about 400 +seconds. + + NTFS SUPPORT + +WIM images may contain data, such as alternate data streams and +compression/encryption flags, that are best represented on the NTFS filesystem +used on Windows. Also, WIM images may contain security descriptors which are +specific to Windows and cannot be represented on other operating systems. +wimlib handles this NTFS-specific or Windows-specific data in a +platform-dependent way: + + * In the Windows version of wimlib and wimlib-imagex, NTFS-specific and + Windows-specific data are supported natively. + + * In the UNIX version of wimlib and wimlib-imagex, NTFS-specific and + Windows-specific data are ordinarily ignored; however, there is also special + support for capturing and extracting images directly to/from unmounted NTFS + volumes. This was made possible with the help of libntfs-3g from the + NTFS-3g project. + +For both platforms the code for NTFS capture and extraction is complete enough +that it is possible to apply an image from the "install.wim" contained in recent +Windows installation media (Vista, Windows 7, or Windows 8) directly to a NTFS +filesystem, and then boot Windows from it after preparing the Boot Configuration +Data. In addition, a Windows installation can be captured (or backed up) into a +WIM file, and then re-applied later. + + WINDOWS PE + +A major use for wimlib and wimlib-imagex is to create customized images of +Windows PE, the Windows Preinstallation Environment, on either UNIX-like systems +or Windows without having to rely on Microsoft's software and its restrictions +and limitations. + +Windows PE is a lightweight version of Windows that can run entirely from memory +and can be used to install Windows from local media or a network drive or +perform maintenance. It is the operating system that runs when you boot from +the Windows installation media. + +You can find Windows PE on the installation DVD for Windows Vista, Windows 7, or +Windows 8, in the file `sources/boot.wim'. Windows PE can also be found in the +Windows Automated Installation Kit (WAIK), which is free to download from +Microsoft, inside the `WinPE.cab' file, which you can extract natively on +Windows, or on UNIX-like systems if you install either the `cabextract' or +`p7zip' programs. + +In addition, Windows installations and recovery partitions frequently contain a +WIM containing an image of the Windows Recovery Environment, which is similar to +Windows PE. + +A shell script `mkwinpeimg' is distributed with wimlib on UNIX-like systems to +ease the process of creating and customizing a bootable Windows PE image. + + DEPENDENCIES + +This section documents the dependencies of wimlib and the programs distributed +with it, when building for a UNIX-like system from source. If you have +downloaded the Windows binary distribution of wimlib and wimlib-imagex then all +dependencies were already included and this section is irrelevant. + +* libxml2 (required) + This is a commonly used free library to read and write XML files. You + likely already have it installed as a dependency for some other program. + For more information see http://xmlsoft.org/. + +* libfuse (optional but highly recommended) + Unless configured with --without-fuse, wimlib requires a non-ancient + version of libfuse to be installed. Most Linux distributions already + include this, but make sure you have the libfuse package installed, and + also libfuse-dev if your distribution distributes header files + separately. FUSE also requires a kernel module. If the kernel module + is available it will automatically be loaded if you try to mount a WIM + file. For more information see http://fuse.sourceforge.net/. FUSE is + also available for FreeBSD. + +* libntfs-3g (optional but highly recommended) + Unless configured with --without-ntfs-3g, wimlib requires the library + and headers for libntfs-3g version 2011-4-12 or later to be installed. + Versions dated 2010-3-6 and earlier do not work because they are missing + the header xattrs.h (and the file xattrs.c, which contains functions we + need). libntfs-3g version 2013-1-13 is compatible only with wimlib + 1.2.4 and later. + +* OpenSSL / libcrypto (optional) + wimlib can use the SHA1 message digest code from OpenSSL instead of + compiling in yet another SHA1 implementation. (See LICENSE section.) + +* cdrkit (optional) +* mtools (optional) +* syslinux (optional) +* cabextract (optional) + The `mkwinpeimg' shell script will look for several other programs + depending on what options are given to it. Depending on your Linux + distribution, you may already have these programs installed, or they may + be in the software repository. Making an ISO filesystem requires + `mkisofs' from `cdrkit' (http://www.cdrkit.org). Making a disk image + requires `mtools' (http://www.gnu.org/software/mtools) and `syslinux' + (http://www.syslinux.org). Retrieving files from the Windows Automated + Installation Kit requires `cabextract' (http://www.cabextract.org.uk). + + CONFIGURATION + +This section documents the most important options that may be passed to the +"configure" script when building from source: + +--without-ntfs-3g + If libntfs-3g is not available or is not version 2011-4-12 or later, + wimlib can be built without it, in which case it will not be possible to + apply or capture images directly to/from NTFS volumes. --without-fuse If libfuse or the FUSE kernel module is not available, wimlib can be compiled with --without-fuse. This will remove the ability to mount and - unmount WIM files. wimlib_mount() and wimlib_unmount() will fail with - WIMLIB_ERR_UNSUPPORTED. + unmount WIM files. --without-libcrypto Build in functions for SHA1 rather than using external SHA1 functions from libcrypto (part of OpenSSL). The default is to use libcrypto if it is found on the system. +--enable-xattr, --disable-xattr + Enable or disable support for the extended-attributes interface to NTFS + alternate data streams in mounted WIMs. To support these, wimlib + requires that the setxattr() function and the attr/xattr.h header are + available. The default is to autodetect whether support is possible. + +--disable-multithreaded-compression + By default, data will be compressed using multiple threads when writing + a WIM, unless only 1 processor is detected. Specify this option to + disable support for this. + --enable-ssse3-sha1 Use a very fast assembly language implementation of SHA1 from Intel. Only use this if the build target supports the SSSE3 instructions. ---disable-custom-memory-allocator - If this option is given, MALLOC(), FREE(), CALLOC(), and STRDUP() will - directly call the appropriate functions in the C library. - wimlib_set_memory_allocator() will fail with WIMLIB_ERR_UNSUPPORTED. - ---disable-verify-compression - Unless this option is given, every time wimlib compresses a data block - it will decompress it into a temporary buffer and abort() the program - with an error message if the decompressed data does not exactly match - the original data. This is to find bugs. - ---disable-security-data - Wimlib cannot create or modify WIM security data, but by default it will - copy existing security data when modifying a WIM or exporting an image. - Passing this flag will disable this support; then wimlib will always - write WIMs without security data. - --disable-error-messages - Removes all error messages from the library. If left in, they still - have to explicitly turned on with wimlib_set_print_errors() in order to - see them. Also, error codes will still be returned regardless of - whether error messages are printed or not. - - If --disable-error-messages is given, wimlib_set_print_errors() will - fail with WIMLIB_ERR_UNSUPPORTED if the action is to turn error messages - on. + Save some space by removing all error messages from the library. --disable-assertions - Remove all assertions. Without this option, wimlib will abort() the - program if an assertion fails. An assertion failure should only occur - if there is a bug in wimlib. - ---enable-debug - Include debugging messages. Only use this option if you have found a - bug in the library. - ---enable-more-debug - Include more debugging messages. Only use this option if you have found - a bug in the library. - - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - DEPENDENCIES + Remove assertions included by default. -Wimlib requires libxml2 to build. This is a commonly used free library to read -and write XML files. You likely already have it installed as a dependency for -some other program. For more information see http://xmlsoft.org/. + PORTABILITY -Wimlib also requires libfuse to build (unless configured with --without-fuse; -see above). Most GNU/Linux distributions already include this, but make sure -you have the libfuse package installed (libfuse-dev if your distribution -distributes header files separately). FUSE also requires a kernel module. If -the kernel module is available it will automatically be loaded if you try to -mount a WIM file. Wimlib has only been tested with the Linux version of FUSE. -For more information see http://fuse.sourceforge.net/. +wimlib has primarily been tested on Linux and Windows (primarily Windows 7, but +also Windows XP and Windows 8). -The `mkwinpeimg' shell script will look for several other programs depending on -what options are given to it. Depending on your GNU/Linux distribution, you may -already have these programs installed, or they may be in the software -repository. Making an ISO filesystem requires `mkisofs' from `cdrkit' -(http://www.cdrkit.org). Making a disk image requires `mtools' -(http://www.gnu.org/software/mtools) and `syslinux' (http://www.syslinux.org). -Retrieving files from the Windows Automated Installation Kit requires -`cabextract' (http://www.cabextract.org.uk). +wimlib may work on FreeBSD and Mac OS X. However, this is not well tested. If +you do not have libntfs-3g 2011-4-12 or later available, you must configure +wimlib with --without-ntfs-3g. On FreeBSD, before mounting a WIM you need to +load the POSIX message queue module (run `kldload mqueuefs'). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- +The code has primarily been tested on x86 and x86_64 CPUs, but it's written to +be portable to other architectures and I've also tested it on ARM. However, +although the code is written to correctly deal with endianness, it has not yet +actually been tested on a big-endian architecture. - PORTABILITY - -wimlib has mostly been developed and tested on x86_64 (64-bit) GNU/Linux. - -It has been tested on x86 (32-bit) GNU/Linux occasionally. - -It can also be compiled and run on FreeBSD. - -wimlib should work on big endian machines but it has not been tested. - -There are no plans to port wimlib to Windows since the programming interface on -Windows is very different and Microsoft's imagex.exe is already available. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - REFERENCES + REFERENCES The WIM file format is specified in a document that can be found in the Microsoft Download Center. There is a similar document that specifies the LZX compression format, and a document that specifies the XPRESS compression format. -However, some aspects of these formats are poorly documented. Some particularly -poorly documented parts of the formats have had comments added in various places -in the library. - -lzx-decomp.c, the code to decompress WIM file resources that are compressed -using LZX compression, is originally based on code from the cabextract project -(http://www.cabextract.org.uk). - -lzx-comp.c, the code to compress WIM file resources using LZX compression, is -originally based on code written by Matthew Russotto (www.russotto.net/chm/). - -lz.c, the code to find LZ77 matches, is based on code from zlib. - -A very limited number of other free programs can handle some parts of the WIM -file format. 7-zip is able to extract and create WIMs and files in many other -archive formats. However, WIMLIB is designed specifically to handle WIM files -and provides features previously only available in Microsoft's imagex.exe, such -as the ability to mount WIMs read-write. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - MORE INFORMATION - -See the manual pages for `imagex', the manual pages for the subcommands of -`imagex', and the manual page for `mkwinpeimg'. - -As of version 0.5.0, Wimlib's public API is documented. Doxygen is required to -build the documentation. To build the documentation, run `configure', then -enter the directory `doc' and run `doxygen'. The HTML documentation will be -created in a directory named `html'. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - LICENSE - -Wimlib is released under the GNU LGPL version 2.1 or later. The files in the -`programs' directory are released under the GPL version 3. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - DISCLAIMER - -Wimlib is experimental. Use Microsoft's `imagex.exe' if you want to make sure -your WIM files are made correctly. Please submit a bug report (to -ebiggers3@gmail.com) if you find a bug. - -Some parts of the WIM file format are poorly documented or even completely -undocumented, so these parts had to be reverse engineered. +However, many parts of these formats are poorly documented, and some parts have +no documentation whatsoever. Some particularly poorly documented parts of the +formats have had comments added in various places in the library code. Please +see the code and/or ask me if you have any questions about the WIM file format +as it exists in reality and not as it exists in Microsoft's poorly written +documentation. + +The code in ntfs-3g_apply.c and ntfs-3g_capture.c uses the NTFS-3g library, +which is a library for reading and writing to NTFS filesystems (the filesystem +used by recent versions of Windows). See +http://www.tuxera.com/community/ntfs-3g-download/ for more information. + +lzx-decompress.c, the code to decompress WIM file resources that are compressed +using LZX compression, was originally based on code from the cabextract project +(http://www.cabextract.org.uk) but has been rewritten. + +lzx-compress.c, the code to compress WIM file resources using LZX compression, +was originally based on code written by Matthew Russotto (www.russotto.net/chm/) +but has been rewritten. + +lz77.c, the code to find LZ77 matches (used for both XPRESS and LZX +compression), is based on code from zlib but has been rewritten. + +A limited number of other free programs can handle some parts of the WIM +file format: + + * 7-zip is able to extract and create WIMs (as well as files in many + other archive formats). However, wimlib is designed specifically to handle + WIM files and provides features previously only available in Microsoft's + imagex.exe, such as the ability to mount WIMs read-write as well as + read-only, the ability to create LZX or XPRESS compressed WIMs, and the + correct handling of security descriptors and hard links. + * ImagePyX (https://github.com/maxpat78/ImagePyX) is a Python program that + provides similar capabilities to wimlib-imagex. One thing to note, though, + is that it does not support compression and decompression by itself, but + instead relies on external native code, such as the codecs from wimlib. + +A very early version of wimlib is being used to deploy Windows 7 from the +Ultimate Deployment Appliance. For more information see +http://www.ultimatedeployment.org/. + +You can see the documentation about Microsoft's version of ImageX at +http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc749447(v=ws.10).aspx, so you can +see how it compares to wimlib-imagex. + +If you are looking for a UNIX archive format that provides features similar to +WIM, I recommend you take a look at SquashFS (http://squashfs.sourceforge.net/). + + LICENSE + +As of version 1.0.0, wimlib and all programs and scripts distributed with it are +released under the GNU GPL version 3.0 or later. + +wimlib is independently developed and does not contain any code, data, or files +copyrighted by Microsoft. It is not known to be affected by any patents. + +On UNIX-like systems, if you do not want wimlib to be dynamically linked with +libcrypto (OpenSSL), configure with --without-libcrypto. This replaces the SHA1 +implementation with built-in code and there will be no difference in +functionality. + + DISCLAIMER + +wimlib comes with no warranty whatsoever. Use Microsoft's `imagex.exe' if you +want to make sure your WIM files are made "correctly" (but beware: Microsoft's +version contains some bugs). + +Please submit a bug report (to ebiggers3@gmail.com) if you find a bug in wimlib +and/or wimlib-imagex. + +Be aware that some parts of the WIM file format are poorly documented or even +completely undocumented, so I've just had to do the best I can to read and write +WIMs that appear to be compatible with Microsoft's software.