Month: March 2021

SharpExt4, a .Net library, provides read/write Linux ext2/3/4 file system from Windows application (continue)

Follow my last post SharpExt4, a .Net library, provides read/write Linux ext2/3/4 file system from Windows application.

The lwext4 is a great start point for me (thanks the author of lwext4), and it provides the core implementation of Linux ext2/3/4 filesystem.

What I need to do:

  1. To port the entire lwext4 project over to Visual Studio C/C++ (MSVC) environment, and compile it as a static library.
  2. To create a clr wrapper around the lwext4 static library and compiled as a .Net assembly DLL.
  3. To provide a .Net friendly interface for .Net Application to use.

When creating this .Net library, I would like to access not only physical Linux disk directly, but also Linux disk image file.

SharpExt4 provides two open disk APIs: 

//Open physical Linux disk
ExtDisk SharpExt4.ExtDisk.Open(int DiskNumber);
//Open Linux disk image file
ExtDisk SharpExt4.ExtDisk.Open(String imagePath);

Open Linux disk image allows developer to directly manipulate the saved Linux disk image file, e.g. Raspberry Pi OS image or Debian OS image. The saved Linux disk image must be raw format. This API doesn’t support Virtual Machine disk files (VHD, VDI, XVA, VMDK, etc).

This API also support open USB/Hard drive as physical disk by giving disk number. If you have a USB disk or hard drive formatted as ext2/3/4 file system, this API allows the developer to read/write directly.

To be continue…

Next post: https://www.nickdu.com/?p=912

SharpExt4, a .Net library, provides read/write Linux ext2/3/4 file system from Windows application

As a day to day Windows user, it’s not easy to access Linux file system. Windows doesn’t natively supports Linux Extended file system access.

I have been working on Linux ARM IoT device, and it’s so annoying to be back and forth between Windows working PC and Linux development PC. I regularly need to burn/flash SD card, read/write file, remove/open directory in Linux device image.

These are the findings so far:

  1. DiscUtils, is a .NET library to read and write ISO files and Virtual Machine disk files (VHD, VDI, XVA, VMDK, etc). DiscUtils also provides limited access to ext2/3/4 filesystem.
  2. Ext2Fsd is another Windows file system driver for the Ext2, Ext3, and Ext4 file systems. It allows Windows to read Linux file systems natively, providing access to the file system via a drive letter that any program can access. But it stops developing since 2017.
  3. DiskInternals Linux Reader is a freeware application from DiskInternals, developers of data recovery software. But it doesn’t have API for .Net Framework.
  4. Ext2explore is an open-source application that works similarly to DiskInternals Linux Reader—but only for Ext4, Ext3, and Ext2 partitions. It stops developing for a long time and is read only.

I decided to implement my own library. Finally, I found this, lwext4, a C library to provide ext2/3/4 filesystem for microcontrollers. According to the author, the library has some cool and unique features in microcontrollers world:

  • directory indexing – fast file find and list operations
  • extents – fast big file truncate
  • journaling transactions & recovery – power loss resistance

Lwext4 is an excellent choice for SD/MMC card, USB flash drive or any other wear leveled memory types. However it is not good for raw flash devices.

To be continue.

Next post https://www.nickdu.com/?p=896