Mount points and links – Forumite.site

This topic has 18 replies, 5 voices, and was last updated 7 years, 7 months ago by Wheels-Of-Fire.

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July 26, 2018 at 1:55 pm #23449
Wheels-Of-Fire
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@grahamdearsley
Forumite Points: 4
Seeing as Les is having so much fun with mount points in Linux (two into one) I thought I would mention what you can do with NTFS.

The three things of most interest are Hardlinks, Softlinks and Mount points.

When a file is created in windows the data will normally be contained in a data stream and a file record referencing it will be created in the Master File Table. The data stream also keeps a count of the number of records that reference it (so normally one)

A hard link simply creates a new file record that points to an existing data stream with the stream updating its reference count by one (so now two).

If you had a file called “Test.txt” then the windows command for creating the hardlink “Hlink.txt” to it would be.

mklink Hlink.txt Test.txt /H

Hard links can only point to files and they must be on the same volume as the link.

From now on using the link name or the original name works the same. If you delete a link (meaning the file record) then the data stream will remain until its reference count reaches zero.

Oops got to go. Will get to softlinks and mount points later.
July 26, 2018 at 5:58 pm #23455
Wheels-Of-Fire
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@grahamdearsley
Forumite Points: 4
Where was I, oh yes Soft links.

When you create a Soft (Symbolic) link in Windows it adds a new record to the MFT but instead or referencing a data stream it is marked as a “Reparse Point”. Reparse Points are a complex subject but their use with Soft links is simple.

When you open a soft link NTFS finds its record in the MFT and returns the Reparse code for a soft link to the I/O manager along with the actual path of the link. The I/O manager then reissues the I/O request using the new path.

The command for creating a soft link is the same as for creating a Hard link but without the /H so:

mklink Slink.txt Test.txt

Soft links work with files AND directories and include a full path name so the link could even point to a remote file share. A point to note though is that as the file record doesn’t directly reference a data stream the reference count on the stream isn’t incremented. If you delete the original file then you are left with a soft link that points nowhere.

Soft links are useful for lifting deeply nested directory’s up the directory tree. If you had a directory C:\dir1\dir2\dir3\Project then you could lift it to C:\Project with:

mklinkC:\Project C:\dir1\dir2\dir3\Project

(All one line)

I will do mount points in a minute.
July 26, 2018 at 6:09 pm #23457
RSB
Keymaster
@bdthree
Forumite Points: 5,183
Why not use the blog section for posts like this ? Looks much more better. Every user has the ability to do so.

Americans: Over Sexed, Over Payed and Over here, Wat Wat!
July 26, 2018 at 7:13 pm #23459
Wheels-Of-Fire
Participant
@grahamdearsley
Forumite Points: 4
Blog section ?

Please do tell and move my posts as you see fit.
July 26, 2018 at 7:25 pm #23465
Wheels-Of-Fire
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@grahamdearsley
Forumite Points: 4
I found blog in the main menu but I haven’t got a clue how it may work.
July 26, 2018 at 7:38 pm #23468
Boris
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@boris
Forumite Points: 0
It seems to be ?

Click on Blog

Add New post

Never trust an atom - they make up everything !
July 26, 2018 at 7:41 pm #23469
Boris
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@boris
Forumite Points: 0
Having said that ……………… I now can’t find it again !

Never trust an atom - they make up everything !
July 26, 2018 at 7:43 pm #23470
Boris
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@boris
Forumite Points: 0
How about ?

Community

Activity

Click on Blog

Add New post

Never trust an atom - they make up everything !
July 26, 2018 at 9:12 pm #23480
Wheels-Of-Fire
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@grahamdearsley
Forumite Points: 4
Hmm. Well not on my mobile. That just takes me to my profile. I can find blog on the main menu under other but it only shows the few existing posts under Tech. I can’t see a way to add a new blog there or under my profile ?
July 26, 2018 at 9:45 pm #23484
D-Dan
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@d-dan
Forumite Points: 6
It’s nice information, but not quite equal. Linux supports softlinks and hardlinks, but the issue was with mount points. Pretty much any storage, anywhere (local or remote) can be mounted as a local drive in Linux, without setting up links.

Not to be a naysayer – if I was going to use an MS filesystem, it would be NTFS, but it’s still not as complete as, e.g. ext4 (look at permissions – which even NTFS can’t match, for example).

EDIT: NTFS does have one advantage over Linux filesystems (ext4, BTRFS etc.) and that’s that Windows can read them natively.

Of course, Linux can read all of them, with a simple apt-get, or pacman -S etc. depending on your distribution.

Arch Linux, on a Ryzen 7 1800X, 32 GB, 5 (yes -5) HDs inc 5 SSDs, 4 RPi 3Bs + 1 RPi 4B - one as an NFS server with two more drives, PiHole (shut yours), Plex server, cloud server, and other random Pi stuff. Nice CoolerMaster case, 2 x NV GTX 1070 8GB, and a whopping 32" AOC 1440P monitor.
July 26, 2018 at 10:19 pm #23489
Wheels-Of-Fire
Participant
@grahamdearsley
Forumite Points: 4
Im getting to mount points ?

If I can figure out how to start a blog I will put them there. If not they will appear here tomorrow.
July 27, 2018 at 8:41 am #23525
RSB
Keymaster
@bdthree
Forumite Points: 5,183
I would show you a video but it’s not playing ball today. On your mobile click on the little Man in a circle bottom right hand corner of your screen, then click on the Pencil and then New Post.

Enter your post title.

Then Content

Featured image

Select Catogory and submit.

I’ll be putting my perfected Keema Curry Recipe in there soon 🙂

Americans: Over Sexed, Over Payed and Over here, Wat Wat!
July 27, 2018 at 7:54 pm #23607
Wheels-Of-Fire
Participant
@grahamdearsley
Forumite Points: 4
Well I have put up a Blog post that contains SOME information about NTFS mount points and it is pending. I will post more as soon as I see that it works ?
July 27, 2018 at 8:24 pm #23613
D-Dan
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@d-dan
Forumite Points: 6
On Linux, ntfs-3g is your friend for NTFS partitions.

Arch Linux, on a Ryzen 7 1800X, 32 GB, 5 (yes -5) HDs inc 5 SSDs, 4 RPi 3Bs + 1 RPi 4B - one as an NFS server with two more drives, PiHole (shut yours), Plex server, cloud server, and other random Pi stuff. Nice CoolerMaster case, 2 x NV GTX 1070 8GB, and a whopping 32" AOC 1440P monitor.
July 27, 2018 at 9:49 pm #23621
Wheels-Of-Fire
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@grahamdearsley
Forumite Points: 4
On Windows Ext2fsd is your friend for Ext4. Read/Write but only limited journaling. As it is just another file system driver you could probably mount it from an NTFS Volume too.
July 28, 2018 at 2:19 pm #23684
Wheels-Of-Fire
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@grahamdearsley
Forumite Points: 4
Yay. My blog post is up and running. See if you can find it ?
July 28, 2018 at 3:18 pm #23689
Ed P
Participant
@edps
Forumite Points: 39
I cannot find the ‘little man in a circle’, all I see is a ‘go to top’ arrow!

However on the left hand side I have a ‘usb stick’ link to ‘My Blog’. Is that the same thing?

(Firefox on Linux PC)
July 28, 2018 at 4:11 pm #23694
Wheels-Of-Fire
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@grahamdearsley
Forumite Points: 4
On my mobile blogs appear on the main home page and on the main menu (Three bars) under other.
July 28, 2018 at 4:13 pm #23695
Wheels-Of-Fire
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@grahamdearsley
Forumite Points: 4
And new blogs are started with the little man ( Think that may just be mobiles).
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