ntfssecaudit - Man Page

ntfssecaudit [options] args

Where options is a combination of :

and args define the parameters and the set of files acted upon.

Typing secaudit with no args will display a summary of available options.

ntfssecaudit displays the ownership and permissions of a set of files on an NTFS file system, and checks their consistency. It can be started in terminal mode only (no graphical user interface is available.)

When a volume is required, it has to be unmounted, and the command has to be issued as root. The volume can be either a block device (i.e. a disk partition) or an image file.

When acting on a directory or volume, the command may produce a lot of information. It is therefore advisable to redirect the output to a file or pipe it to a text editor for examination.

Below are the valid combinations of options and arguments that ntfssecaudit accepts. All the indicated arguments are mandatory and must be unique (if wildcards are used, they must resolve to a single name.)

-h file

Displays in an human readable form the hexadecimal security descriptors saved in file. This can be used to turn a verbose output into a very verbose output.

-a[rv] volume

Audits the volume : all the global security data on volume are scanned and errors are displayed. If option -r is present, all files and directories are also scanned and their relations to global security data are checked. This can produce a lot of data.

This option is not effective on volumes formatted for old NTFS versions (pre NTFS 3.0). Such volumes have no global security data.

When errors are signalled, it is advisable to repair the volume with an appropriate tool (such as chkdsk on Windows.)

[-v] volume file

Displays the security parameters of file : its interpreted Linux mode (rwx flags in octal) and Posix ACL[1], its security key if any, and its security descriptor if verbose output.

-r[v] volume directory

displays the security parameters of all files and subdirectories in directory : their interpreted Linux mode (rwx flags in octal) and Posix ACL[1], their security key if any, and their security descriptor if verbose output.

-b[v] volume [directory]

Recursively extracts to standard output the NTFS ACLs of files in volume and directory.

-s[ev] volume [backup-file]

Sets the NTFS ACLS as indicated in backup-file or standard input. The input data must have been created on Linux. With option -e, also sets extra parameters (currently Windows attrib).

volume perms file

Sets the security parameters of file to perms. Perms is the Linux requested mode (rwx flags, expressed in octal form as in chmod) or a Posix ACL[1] (expressed like in setfacl -m). This sets a new ACL which is effective for Linux and Windows.

-r[v] volume perms directory

Sets the security parameters of all files and subdirectories in directory to perms. Perms is the Linux requested mode (rwx flags, expressed in octal form as in chmod), or a Posix ACL[1] (expressed like in setfacl -m.) This sets new ACLs which are effective for Linux and Windows.

[-v] mounted-file

Displays the security parameters of mounted-file : its interpreted Linux mode (rwx flags in octal) and Posix ACL[1], its security key if any, and its security descriptor if verbose output. This is a special case which acts on a mounted file (or directory) and does not require being root. The Posix ACL interpretation can only be displayed if the full path to mounted-file from the root of the global file tree is provided.

-u[v] mounted-file

Displays a proposed contents for a user mapping file, based on the ownership parameters set by Windows on mounted-file, assuming this file was created on Windows by the user who should be mapped to the current Linux user. The displayed information has to be copied to the file .NTFS-3G/UserMapping where .NTFS-3G is a hidden subdirectory of the root of the partition for which the mapping is to be defined. This will cause the ownership of files created on that partition to be the same as the original mounted-file.

[1] provided the POSIX ACL option was selected at compile time. A Posix ACL specification looks like "[d:]{ugmo}:[id]:[perms],..." where id is a numeric user or group id, and perms an octal digit or a set from the letters r, w and x.

Audit the global security data on /dev/sda1

Display the ownership and permissions parameters for files in directory /audio/music on device /dev/sda5, excluding sub-directories :

Set all files in directory /audio/music on device /dev/sda5 as writeable by owner and read-only for everybody :

ntfssecaudit exits with a value of 0 when no error was detected, and with a value of 1 when an error was detected.

Please see

for common questions and known issues. If you would find a new one in the latest release of the software then please send an email describing it in detail. You can contact the  development team on the ntfs-3g-devel@lists.sf.net address.

ntfssecaudit has been developed by Jean-Pierre André.

Several people made heroic efforts, often over five or more years which resulted the ntfs-3g driver. Most importantly they are  Anton Altaparmakov, Richard Russon, Szabolcs Szakacsits, Yura Pakhuchiy, Yuval Fledel, and the author of the groundbreaking FUSE filesystem development  framework, Miklos Szeredi.

ntfsprogs(8), attr(5), getfattr(1)