One of the most prominent changes with the upcoming [1]Linux 7.1 kernel release is the introduction of [2]the new NTFS driver in the Linux 7.1 kernel . This new driver provides more features and better performance than the Paragon NTFS3 driver that's been in the kernel the past few years and far better off than the original NTFS read-only driver that previously was in the kernel and for which this new driver is based. Needless to say it's also a big improvement over the NTFS-3G user-space FUSE driver too.

This new and modern NTFS driver successfully made it to the mainline kernel after years of work by kernel developer Namjae Jeon. Following that " [3]NTFS resurrection " there was [4]an initial batch of fixes last week given the increased exposure now to this file-system driver. Similarly, this week another batch of fixes were ready to land thanks to the uptick in usage as well as code fuzzing/testing now that the driver is in mainline.

Among the fixes this week to the C-based driver are addressing some possible memory and page reference leaks, null pointer dereference, and other coding issues being resolved:

"- Fix a NULL pointer dereference in ntfs_index_walk_down() by validating index block allocation

- Fix a memory leak of the symlink target string in ntfs_reparse_set_wsl_symlink() during error paths

- Prevent VCN overflow and validate lowest_vcn in ntfs_mapping_pairs_decompress() to avoid runlist corruption

- Fix a page reference leak in ntfs_write_iomap_end_resident() when attribute search context allocation fails

- Fix an invalid PTR_ERR() usage on a valid folio pointer in __ntfs_bitmap_set_bits_in_run()

- Correct directory link counting by dropping nlink only when the MFT record link count reaches zero for WIN32/DOS aliases

- Fix an uninitialized variable in ntfs_mapping_pairs_decompress() by returning an error pointer directly"

Nothing too major this week but that's also a good sign for the current state of this new NTFS driver ahead of the Linux 7.1 stable release in June.

These fixes are [5]merged as of Saturday to the mainline kernel and will be part of today's Linux 7.1-rc2 release.



[1] https://www.phoronix.com/search/Linux+7.1

[2] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-7.1-New-NTFS-Driver

[3] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-7.1-New-NTFS-Driver

[4] https://www.phoronix.com/news/New-NTFS-Driver-Fixes-Linux-7.1

[5] https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=4c2ed2a3dbda5cad4d7b2f5f394c91522abbaa92