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Old 6th October 2008
bsdnewbie999 bsdnewbie999 is offline
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Default mounting NTFS external hard disk.

What is the command to mount NTFS external hard disk?
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Old 6th October 2008
ocicat ocicat is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bsdnewbie999 View Post
What is the command to mount NTFS external hard disk?
As stated in Section 14.16 of the FAQ, NTFS support is experimental. In order to enable support, you will need to uncomment the NTFS option in /usr/src/sys/arch/i386/conf/GENERIC, & recompile the kernel. For more information, study Section 5.3 of the FAQ:

http://openbsd.org/faq/faq5.html#Bld

http://openbsd.org/faq/faq14.html#foreignfs

Once the kernel has been recompiled, installed, & rebooted, you should find NTFS partition information in disklabel(8) output. At that point, mount the partition via mount(8) additionally specifying the -t ntfs option.
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Old 8th October 2008
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cannot find /usr/src/sys/arch/i386/conf/GENERIC. I can only go until /usr/src/ nothing is inside the directory.
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Old 8th October 2008
ocicat ocicat is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bsdnewbie999 View Post
cannot find /usr/src/sys/arch/i386/conf/GENERIC. I can only go until /usr/src/ nothing is inside the directory.
The installation process does not install the source tree. You have to do this manually. You have two options:
  • Expand src.tar.gz & sys.tar.gz found on the official CD set, or obtain these files from /pub/OpenBSD/4.3 at any mirror.
  • Download the source tree from CVS. CVSync mirrors are discussed at the following:

    http://openbsd.org/cvsync.html
Regardless of which manner you choose, you will need to study Section 5.3 of the FAQ:

http://openbsd.org/faq/faq5.html#Bld

...very carefully before starting the process of building the kernel.

Again, NTFS support is experimental. Reading from a NTFS partition is a reasonably safe venture. Writing to a NTFS partition may be problematic depending upon what version of NTFS is used.

Last edited by ocicat; 8th October 2008 at 03:44 AM.
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Old 8th October 2008
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"Problematic" is not the way to describe it. "Dangerous" "Unsafe" "Data-destructive" are better descriptions.

I recommend always mounting read-only.
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Old 8th October 2008
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what if i format the external hard disk become fat32? openbsd can mount fat32 easily? If can; how do i format it?
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Old 8th October 2008
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Yes, OpenBSD supports FAT32. Read mount_msdos(8).

Formatting drives for FAT32 is most easily done from your Windows workstation. It is possible to do it with OpenBSD but I do not recommend it.
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Old 9th October 2008
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Quote:
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what if i format the external hard disk become fat32? openbsd can mount fat32 easily?
As mentioned before, study Section 14.16 of the FAQ:

http://openbsd.org/faq/faq14.html#foreignfs
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Old 20th August 2010
amorphousone amorphousone is offline
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i've been googling like crazy to read about users' experience mounting ntfs read-only on OBSD, but am not having much luck. being mostly ignorant myself, i'm wondering about the statement of ntfs being "reasonably safe" to mount read-only. i have a 1tb ntfs drive that i'd like to back up to my OBSD server from a (future) OBSD desktop. if something did happen, what's most likely? loss of data on the ntfs drive? corruption of data on the ntfs drive? loss or corruption of data on another drive? i know that last one sounds wacky, but since i'm still fairly ignorant about such stuff i have to assume murphy's law.
Old 20th August 2010
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Read only is perfectly safe. Not so read/write, which is likely to produce corruption of data.

What is important to realize is there is no development on NTFS, so any enhancements from Microsoft in recent years to the underlying file structure is likely not going to be available. If there are problems, file metadata will not be readable.

If networks are used with your Windows workstations, rather than SATA/PATA/SCSI/USB ... then there are many other solutions available, without a custom kernel. Examples: net/samba server and Microsoft Networking, Linux live media and ntfsclone with ssh, Bacula ... etc. Lots of choices.
Old 20th August 2010
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As said by jggimi, the worst case scenarios is that you won't be able to mount the filesystem or copy a few files.

If you're planning to switch to OpenBSD or any BSD in the near future, using NTFS for storage is probably not the best decision.

NTFS support isn't actively maintained, it might work, or not.
Old 3rd September 2010
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FreeBSD supports ntfs using the ntfs-3g driver, so what's the problem with OpenBSD?
Old 3rd September 2010
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The "problem," mechanic, is a small developer base, none of whom have either the time or the interest in completing NTFS support.

Had you asked this on misc@, someone would have asked you to stop complaining and submit your patches to complete the work.

I won't be quite that rude, but given that there are only 120-130 developers in total, some of them relatively inactive or only working on specialized sections of the OS... sometimes, things get delayed, deferred, or dropped.

The only way to ensure a development you want occurs on OpenBSD is to either a) jump in and do it yourself, or b) ask if there is any interest, and if not, find out if you can make the work interesting for someone. For example, donation of hardware to get specific hardware support sometimes happens.
Old 3rd September 2010
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OpenBSD doesn't support FUSE, needed by ntfs-3g, nobody's has offered to do the work.

Some basic read-only support is available, natively.. if that's not sufficient then consider maintaining the driver yourself.

I'm of the persuasion that FAT/NTFS support doesn't really belong in a Unix kernel, they typically bring in many kludges dealing with the fact that they're not really Unix filesystems.

There is a project called ntfsprogs which is like mtools, both are userland implementations of NTFS/FAT that can manipulate disk images or devices directly by providing alternative cp/ls/mv commands that don't require mounting them into the VFS hierarchy.

Someone inclined to port ntfsprogs would likely have an easier time doing so than the FUSE framework, let alone extending the kernel NTFS implementation.

Good luck, please remember that OpenBSD is not FreeBSD, and that it's not nice to troll enthusiasts anonymously.
Old 3rd September 2010
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mechanic View Post
FreeBSD supports ntfs using the ntfs-3g driver, so what's the problem with OpenBSD?
You can get even better than that. I hear that Windows supports NTFS **natively**. =)
Old 4th September 2010
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All I am hearing is "Not Invented Here". I thought that went out in the last millennium.
Old 4th September 2010
ocicat ocicat is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mechanic View Post
All I am hearing is "Not Invented Here".
No, this is a misrepresentation of the information already presented.

The OpenBSD project is small. It takes time to implement features, & it takes developers who are interested in those features to put in the time to see implementation through to completion. The priorities of the developers are such that NTFS support is currently incomplete. End of story. If this doesn't meet your needs, other operating systems exist which may be better alternatives for your situation.

Of greater concern is the divisive tone you are increasingly displaying as discussion continues. Some will interpret this as trolling. Because this can only degenerate into counterproductive argument. this thread ends here.

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