===========================
Apple File System for Linux
===========================

The Apple File System (APFS) is the copy-on-write filesystem currently used on
all Apple devices. This module provides a degree of experimental support on
Linux. It's intended to work with all kernel versions since 4.12, but testing
is focused on 5.18 and above.

To help test write support, a set of userland tools is also under development.
The git tree can be retrieved from https://github.com/eafer/apfsprogs.git.

Known limitations
=================

This module is the result of reverse engineering and testing has been limited.
If you make use of the write support, there is a real risk of data corruption,
so mounts are read-only by default. Please report any issues that you find.

Writes to fusion drives will likely never be supported, though I might
reconsider this if people actually need it. Encryption is not yet implemented
even in read-only mode.

Reporting bugs
==============

If you encounter any problem, the first thing you should do is run (as root)::

	dmesg | grep -i apfs

to see all the error messages. If that doesn't help you, please file a github
issue at https://github.com/eafer/linux-apfs-rw/issues. Or send me an email if
you prefer.

Build
=====

Note that at this point the driver has been packaged for several distros, so
it may be more convenient to install it from there instead of building it
yourself. The distro packages are often outdated though, so be sure to check
the version.

In order to build a module out-of-tree, you will first need the Linux kernel
headers. Depending on your distro, you can get them by running (as root)::

	# Debian/Ubuntu
	apt-get install linux-headers-$(uname -r)

	# Arch/Manjaro
	pacman -Sy linux-headers

	# RHEL/Rocky/CentOS/Fedora
	yum install kernel-headers kernel-devel

Now you can just cd to the linux-apfs-rw directory and run::

	make

The resulting module is the apfs.ko file. Before you can use it you must insert
it into the kernel, as well as its dependencies. Again as root::

	modprobe libcrc32c
	insmod apfs.ko

Mount
=====

Like all filesystems, apfs is mounted with::

	mount [-o options] device dir

where ``device`` is the path to your device file or filesystem image, and
``dir`` is the mount point. The following options are accepted:

============   =================================================================
vol=n	       Volume number to mount. The default is volume 0.

snap=label     Volume snapshot to mount (in read-only mode).

tier2=path     Path to the tier 2 device. For fusion drives only.

uid=n, gid=n   Override on-disk inode ownership data with given uid/gid.

cknodes	       Verify the checksum on all metadata nodes. Right now this has a
	       severe performance cost, so it's not recommended.

readwrite      Enable the experimental write support. This may corrupt your
	       container.
============   =================================================================

So for instance, if you want to mount volume number 2, and you want the metadata
to be checked, you should run (as root)::

	mount -o cknodes,vol=2 device dir

To unmount it, run::

	umount dir

Credits
=======

Originally written by Ernesto A. Fernández <ernesto@corellium.com>, with
several contributions from Gabriel Krisman Bertazi <krisman@collabora.com>,
Arnaud Ferraris <arnaud.ferraris@collabora.com> and Stan Skowronek
<skylark@disorder.metrascale.com>. For attribution details see the historical
git tree at https://github.com/eafer/linux-apfs.git.

Work was first based on reverse engineering done by others [1]_ [2]_, and later
on the (very incomplete) official specification [3]_. Some parts of the code
imitate the ext2 module, and to a lesser degree xfs, udf, gfs2 and hfsplus.

.. [1] Hansen, K.H., Toolan, F., Decoding the APFS file system, Digital
   Investigation (2017), https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.diin.2017.07.003
.. [2] https://github.com/sgan81/apfs-fuse
.. [3] https://developer.apple.com/support/apple-file-system/Apple-File-System-Reference.pdf
