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Diffstat (limited to 'NEWS')
| -rw-r--r-- | NEWS | 157 |
1 files changed, 157 insertions, 0 deletions
@@ -1,3 +1,160 @@ +dosfstools 4.2 - released 2021-01-31 +==================================== + +fatlabel now accepts two new options. When given the -i or --volume-id option, +fatlabel changes to an alternate mode where it displays or changes the volume +serial number instead of the volume label. With the -r or --reset option, it +will remove the label or (in the alternate mode) generate a new volume serial +number. + +The user prompting for interactive fsck has been overhauled. Now it will +directly react to a pressed key without the user having to additionally press +enter. The changed prompting is also consistently repeating the prompt when +invalid input is given. + +The legacy check whether it is running on Atari hardware when compiled for 68k +in order to automatically switch to Atari mode is now disabled by default. It +can be compiled in with the new configure switch --enable-atari-check. + +Both mkfs and fsck now have a new option --variant=TYPE where TYPE can be +'standard' or 'atari' to explicitly select one of those variants rather than +having to toggle between them with -A. + +fsck, mkfs and fatlabel were fixed to process volume label correctly. Previously +there were many issues during processing labels. Fixes issues are: leading byte +0xE5 of root label needs to be handled in special way, label cannot contain some +special characters, label itself is stored according to the current DOS codepage +which may be specified by a new --codepage option. fatlabel now reads volume +label only from the root directory to be compatible with existing systems like +MS-DOS 5.00, MS-DOS 6.22, MS-DOS 7.10, Windows 98, Windows XP, Windows 7, 8, 10 +and also with the Linux mlabel from mtools project. fsck was extended to fix +incorrect volume labels and ensure that volume label from the root directory is +same as the volume label stored in boot sector. Old versions of dosfslabel read +label only from the boot sector. So with all these changes fsck now ensures +compatibility with both MS-DOS/Windows and old Linux/dosfslabel world. + +fsck now allows spaces in the middle of SFNs. Previous behavior (when spaces +are disallowed) can be achieved by a new option -S. + +Both mkfs and fsck now have fixed Year 2038 Bug. mkfs may still set filesystem +timestamp to 1980-01-01 00:00:00 (beginning of the FAT era) in case operating +system has Year 2038 Bug and cannot provide current time in time_t variable. + +Some memory leaks were fixed in fatlabel and fsck to make valgrind happy. + +Processing of command line arguments in all tools were fixed to ensure that +invalid options are not accepted anymore and proper error message is thrown +instead of trying to continue with uninitialized or undefined value. + +In fsck and fatlabel were fixed issues that faulty filesystems were able to +trigger integer overflows during reading them. + +mkfs now has a new option --offset for specifying offset at which filesystem +would start. This is useful when formatting FAT filesystem on disk image with +MBR table without need to use loopback kernel driver with partx to access only +specific partition. + +All tools now can be compiled without iconv library and in this case they +support only CP850 codepage which is integrated into tools. This internal +CP850 codepage can be used also when tools were compiled with iconv library +which do not support CP850 (e.g. iconv from GNU libc without installed gconv +shared libraries). + +Manual pages were updated to clarify some ambiguous options and descriptions. +fatlabel has a new section with details about volume label and codepage issues. + +mkfs now has a new option --mbr which fills (fake) MBR table with one partition +which spans whole disk device. This (fake) MBR table is needed only for +non-removable disks used on Microsoft Windows systems and only when formatting +whole unpartitioned disk. + +mkfs now calculates CHS geometry according to the SD Card Part 2 File System +Specification. For SD cards with more than 256MB capacity is this new CHS +calculation same as CHS calculation defined for hard disks via LBA-Assist +Translation. So CHS geometry calculation in mkfs is now compatible with both +SD Card specification and also LBA-Assist Translation. Moreover mkfs now has +also a new option -g for specifying CHS geometry manually if it is needed for +compatibility with some SD card readers. CHS geometry is part of FAT boot +sector which mkfs.fat must fill. + +fsck now checks for DOS Clean Shutdown bit and marks filesystem as clean after +successful run. This is for compatibility with Microsft Windows 98 and also with +Windows NT-based variants. + +Dependency on systemd/udev was completely removed from mkfs tool. But there is +no lost or removed functionality. Existing systemd/udev code was rewritten to +directly access sysfs and new implementation has less lines of code as previous +implementation which used systemd/udev libraries. + +mkfs was fixed to setup FAT32 backup boot sector correctly. + +mkfs's -D option (BIOS drive number) was relaxed to support also higher level +hard disk and floppy devices (second, third, ...). + +fsck now preserve reserved fields in info sector. They are used by other systems +(e.g. FSIBOOT stage of lDOS boot32.asm), hence why are reserved. + +fsck was extended to check and fix that first two entires in directory +structures are . and .. + +mkfs now aligns total number of sectors to be multiple of the value of sectors +per track which is stored in FAT boot sector. This requirement is needed by DOS +systems and also by Linux FAT tools from mtools project. Alignment can be turned +off by -a option. + +mkfs is now able to calculate FAT32 cluster size also for disks which have +sector size different than 512 bytes. Note that this calculation is not optimal. +It is just first step which ensures that mkfs does not fail during formatting +Native 4K disks. + +mkfs cluster calculation was fixed to correctly handle differences between +FAT12 and FAT16 variants. mkfs now explicitly disallow to create FAT filesystem +with 4085 or 4086 clusters because Windows fastfat.sys detects such filesystem +as FAT12 but Linux msdos.ko/vfat.ko detects it as FAT16. mkfs now avoids this +situation to happen by fully automatic increasing or decreasing cluster size. + +fsck now has a new option -F which can be used to specify FAT table used for +reading whole FAT filesystem. It can be useful in situation when user wants +to do recovery and filesystem repairing from second FAT table independently +of what fsck thinks that is the best. + +fsck was extended to try fixing first FAT cluster but only when -F option is +specified. Previously when first FAT cluster was broken, fsck just printed +error: "Both FATs appear to be corrupt. Giving up." and failed. + +fatlabel was fixed to not call parts of fsck procedure and to not print +warning or log messages on stdout as it conflicts with expected label +output on stdout. + +A test suite was heavily extended and now it also checks that fsck repairs +broken filesystem into the expected state. + +List of fixed issues: +https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=803391 +https://github.com/dosfstools/dosfstools/issues/13 +https://github.com/dosfstools/dosfstools/issues/18 +https://github.com/dosfstools/dosfstools/issues/22 +https://github.com/dosfstools/dosfstools/issues/29 +https://github.com/dosfstools/dosfstools/issues/32 +https://github.com/dosfstools/dosfstools/issues/38 +https://github.com/dosfstools/dosfstools/issues/39 +https://github.com/dosfstools/dosfstools/issues/43 +https://github.com/dosfstools/dosfstools/issues/45 +https://github.com/dosfstools/dosfstools/issues/52 +https://github.com/dosfstools/dosfstools/issues/53 +https://github.com/dosfstools/dosfstools/issues/54 +https://github.com/dosfstools/dosfstools/issues/64 +https://github.com/dosfstools/dosfstools/issues/66 +https://github.com/dosfstools/dosfstools/issues/69 +https://github.com/dosfstools/dosfstools/issues/70 +https://github.com/dosfstools/dosfstools/issues/74 +https://github.com/dosfstools/dosfstools/issues/88 +https://github.com/dosfstools/dosfstools/issues/99 +https://github.com/dosfstools/dosfstools/issues/111 +https://github.com/dosfstools/dosfstools/issues/139 +https://github.com/dosfstools/dosfstools/issues/151 + + dosfstools 4.1 - released 2017-01-24 ==================================== |