[Linux4christians] ACCESS YOUR LINUX PARTITIONS FROM WINDOWS!

[David Fierbaugh]

On Tuesday 13 June 2006 13:17, Warren Sanders wrote:
> Michael Hipp wrote:
> > Yes. But for the machines where it is necessary to dual-boot or
> > access a shared volume it could be really nice to have access to a
> > shared file system that was a good-quality filesystem. Being able
> > to use ext2 in place of FAT32 could be a real win. FAT is a
> > tinkertoy and not a very good one. No security. Cobbled-in long
> > name support. Poor timestamp support. Even Microsoft wisely doesn't
> > use it much anymore.
>
> That just brings up more items to think about.  I wouldn't trust
> writing to the ext2/3 fs from the non-native OS.  I feel equally about
> writing to NTFS from Linux too.  I just don't do it even on accident.
> As for the security issue... I see a loss of security to the ext2 fs
> in this case.  Because I gained access to my wifes Linux home
> partition without root privileges, I see the lack of regard to user
> rights here.
>
> I haven't tested, but how does it handle multiple user logins such as
> changing users?  Does it still give access to Linux or only to the
> user who installed the patch?  Anyway... I see some good but too many
> bad with this to validate its use.
>
> --
> Warren Sanders

Although this has some obvious uses in the dual-boot world, I see much more 
application in virtualization. It could be handy to mount a filesystem on all 
the linux and windows virtual systems that a system is running. Of course, 
you can just do this with Samba, but it's the thought that counts right?

Is anyone actually using ext2? The only thing I use it on is my /boot 
partitions, because I'm sure I can have emergency access to it from any 
rescue CD. Everyone should be migrating towards the journaled filesystems 
(one more thing M$ is behind on).

-- David