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My systems runs on ext4, but I have a media mounted with NTFS file system, because at times it needs to be read in W10. I am running 22.04. I read about a change in the file system drivers, with a relatively new ntfs3 in the kernel, instead of the userland ntfs-3g. I decided to try it, and changed the line in fstab from

/dev/disk/by-uuid/BE8A61EB8A61A11F /my/dir ntfs-3g uid=1000,gid=1000,dmask=022,fmask=133,ro,noauto 0 0

to

/dev/disk/by-uuid/BE8A61EB8A61A11F /my/dir ntfs3 uid=1000,gid=1000,dmask=022,fmask=133,ro,noauto 0 0

That is, just replacing ntfs-3g by ntfs3. I umounted and re-mounted. It was successful, though with a strange output of mount. Before it was

/dev/sdb2 on /my/dir type fuseblk (ro,relatime,user_id=0,group_id=0,default_permissions,allow_other,blksize=4096)

Now it is

/dev/sdb2 on /my/dir type ntfs3 (ro,relatime,uid=1000,gid=1000,fmask=37777600133,dmask=37777600022,iocharset=utf8)

It looks closer to *nix, I'd say, with the intended uid and gid. What I fail to understand, however, are the values for fmask and dmask. And what does the iocharset do here for me? Where does it come from?

Appreciate any explanation, thanks in advance!

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  • Can I ask if it was working and you were unsure of why you would need the new driver why you would install it?
    – David DE
    Commented Aug 6 at 13:49
  • As you can see from my answer its not really a change but a whole new driver.
    – David DE
    Commented Aug 6 at 14:00
  • 1
    The "funny numbers" for fmask and dmask appear to be an artifact - see [PATCH] ntfs3: Fix showing umask option
    – steeldriver
    Commented Aug 6 at 14:08
  • @david-de It was working, but I think that a new, kernel-based driver could be more modern, and in any case, conceptually it is better than some userland app. I think, from my OP it is clear that I assumed a completely new driver. One can't have the same in userland that the kernel uses!
    – udippel
    Commented Aug 6 at 17:52
  • Thanks, @steeldriver, for the hint on artifact! That gives me some peace of mind.
    – udippel
    Commented Aug 6 at 17:55

1 Answer 1

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Re:

And what does the iocharset do here for me?

Quoting from the kernel documents for NTFS3:

This option informs the driver how to interpret path strings and translate them to Unicode and back.

Re:

Where does it come from?

I guess you mean the value of utf8 ... It comes from your kernels defaults, see:

$ grep 'CONFIG_NLS_DEFAULT' /boot/config-"$(uname -r)"
CONFIG_NLS_DEFAULT="utf8"

This has been in place for quite a long time as described here.

The NTFS3 kernel driver uses that if it is not otherwise explicitly set ... Quoting from the kernel documents for NTFS3 again:

iocharset=name

This option informs the driver how to interpret path strings and translate them to Unicode and back. If this option is not set, the default codepage will be used (CONFIG_NLS_DEFAULT).

Example: iocharset=utf8

And as @steeldriver says:

The "funny numbers" for fmask and dmask appear to be an artifact - see [PATCH] ntfs3: Fix showing umask option

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