Releases: plougher/squashfs-tools
Releases · plougher/squashfs-tools
Squashfs tools 4.7.2
Squashfs tools 4.7.1
4.7.1 18 AUG 2025 Minor improvements and bug fix release
1. Fix regression in -offset (-o) where it stopped working in Mksquashfs
and Sqfstar.
2. Allow arguments (spaces) in the PAGER environment variable, rather
than just a command name. Also support quoted strings, string
concatenation and backslashes.
3. Don't use a pager to display the help text if the PAGER environment
variable is empty.
4. Add -no-pager option which if specified means a pager won't be used
to display the help text.
5. Add -cols option which specifies the number of columns used to
display the help text. This is useful if output is not to a
terminal.
6. Fix regression in tar file reading, where file exclusion would leak
cache (memory) leading in some cases to Sqfstar hanging.
7. Handle negative dates in tar files (before the start of the epoch of
1970-01-01), and round them up to the start of the epoch.
8. Add --version spelling in addition to -version, as this appears to be
a common mistake.
9. Add missing include files in print_pager.c (Ros Burton).
10. Add missing include file in thread.c (Shiji Yang).
11. Fix BLOCK_READER_THREADS typo in Makefile (Alexandru Ardelean).
Squashfs tools 4.7
4.7 03 JUNE 2025 Parallel file reading, new help system, new
reproducible filesystem image options, removal
of "fragment block stall"
1. Mksquashfs now reads files in parallel from the input directories
1.1 This can significantly increase I/O when reading lots of
small files, and/or the input media benefits from parallel
reading e.g. modern SSD drives, or network filesystems etc.
1.2 In cases where speed of I/O is the bottleneck in Mksquashfs,
this can make Mksquashfs run significantly faster, in some
cases Mksquashfs can be more than ten times faster.
1.3 New -small-readers option to specify number of parallel
small file reader threads (files less than a block size).
Default 4 threads.
1.4 New -block-readers option to specify number of parallel
block reader threads (files one block or larger). Default
4 threads.
1.5 New -single-reader option to specify a single reader thread,
similar to previous Mksquashfs versions.
2. Rewritten and improved help system (Mksquashfs/Unsquashfs)
2.1 Help text now uses the full width of the terminal (rather
than being pre-formatted to 80 columns).
2.2 The help text is now automatically paged (using pager, less
or more).
2.3 The tools now print a summary on failure to parse the
command line (or encountering other errors that prevent the
tool from running), rather than displaying the help text.
2.4 The help text can be displayed in full, by section, or by
option using regex matching.
2.5 New -help-all option to display all help text
2.6 New -help-section option to display help for a particular
section
2.7 New -help-option to display all options matching regex.
2.8 New -help-comp option to display compressor options for
given compressor.
3. New options for building reproducible filesystems (Mksquash/Sqfstar)
3.1 Low level timestamp setting options extended:
-mkfs-time inode sets filesystem creation time to the
latest inode timestamp
-inode-time inode sets all inode timestamps to the
latest inode timestamp
-root-time inode sets the root directory timestamp to
the latest inode timestamp
3.2 New easier to remember shorthand options
-repro builds a reproducible filesystem image, it is
shorthand for -mkfs-time inode.
-repro-time <time> builds a reproducible image, it is
shorthand for specifying -mkfs-time <time>
and -inode-time <time>.
4. Elimination of "fragment block stall" and -(not-)reproducible options
A technical issue called "the fragment block stall" has been
eliminated in this release in a way that generates a
reproducible ordering of files in the filesystem image. This
can increase performance by 20% or more, in addition to the
parallel reader performance improvements.
This "fragment block stall" was introduced in release 4.4 (2019)
to produce a reproducible ordering of files in the filesystem,
but which led to a reduction in parallelisation and performance.
Due to this reduction, the previous behaviour was retained and
enabled using the -not-reproducible option. As the "fragment
block stall" has now been removed, the options -not-reproducible
and -reproducible now do nothing, but are still recognised for
backwards compatibility.
5. Other improvements for Mksquashfs/Sqfstar
3.1 New -force-file-mode option, which sets all file
(non-directory) permissions to the given mode.
3.2 New -force-dir-mode option, which sets all directory
permissions to the given mode.
3.3 -root-mode and above new -force-file-mode/-force-dir-mode
options now take a symbolic mode in addition to an octal
mode.
3.4 New -info-file option, which prints files written to the
filesystem to a file rather than stdout. Allows -info-file
to be used in conjunction with the progress bar.
3.5 New -pseudo-dir (or -pd) option which supplies a default
directory if any directories in a pseudo file definition
pathname doesn't exist.
3.6 New pseudo file 'h' definition which creates a hard link to
a file, and follows symbolic links.
3.7 Previously if a directory was missing (or not a directory)
in a Pseudo file definition pathname, the pseudo file
definition would be ignored. This has been hardened to a
fatal error.
6. Other improvements for Unsquashfs/Sqfscat
4.1 New -mem option, which sets the amount of memory to be used,
K, M and G can be used to specify Kbytes, Mbytes and Gbytes.
4.2 New -mem-percent option, which sets the anount of memory to
be used as percentage of available physical memory.
4.3 Memory specified is limited to 75% of physical memory or
less.
7. New environment variable SQFS_CMDLINE (Mksquashfs/Unsquashfs)
If set, this is used as the directory to write the file
sqfs_cmdline which contains the command line arguments given to
Mksquashfs etc. Intended to be used to debug scripts/discover
what is being passed to Mksquashfs.
Squashfs tools 4.6.1
4.6.1 25 MAR 2023 Bug fix release to fix race condition and XATTRs
code
1. Race condition which can cause corruption of the "fragment table"
fixed. This is a regression introduced in August 2022, and it has
been seen when tailend packing is used (-tailends option).
2. Fix build failure when the tools are being built without extended
attribute (XATTRs) support.
3. Fix XATTR error message when an unrecognised prefix is found
(Christian Hesse).
4. Fix incorrect free of pointer when an unrecognised XATTR prefix is
found.
Squashfs tools 4.6
4.6 17 MAR 2023 Major improvements in extended attribute handling,
pseudo file handling, and miscellaneous new options and
improvements
1. Extended attribute handling improved in Mksquashfs and Sqfstar
1.1.New -xattrs-exclude option to exclude extended attributes
from files using a regular expression.
1.2 New -xattrs-include option to include extended attributes
from files using a regular expression.
1.3 New -xattrs-add option to add extended attributes to files.
1.4 New Pseudo file xattr definition to add extended attributes
to files.
1.5 New xattrs-add Action to add extended attributes to files
(Mksquashfs only).
2. Extended attribute handling improved in Unsquashfs
2.1 New -xattrs-exclude option to exclude extended attributes
from files using a regular expression.
2.2 New -xattrs-include option to include extended attributes
from files using a regular expression.
2.3 Extended attributes are now supported in Pseudo file output.
3. Other major improvements
3.1 Unsquashfs can now output Pseudo files to standard out.
3.2 Mksquashfs can now input Pseudo files from standard in.
3.3 Squashfs filesystems can now be converted (different block
size compression etc) without unpacking to an intermediate
filesystem or mounting, by piping the output of Unsquashfs
to Mksquashfs.
3.4 Pseudo files are now supported by Sqfstar.
3.5 "Non-anchored" excludes are now supported by Unsquashfs.
4. Mksquashfs minor improvements
4.1 A new -max-depth option has been added, which limits
the depth Mksquashfs descends when creating the filesystem.
4.2 A new -mem-percent option which allows memory for caches to
be specified as a percentage of physical RAM, rather than
requiring an absolute value.
4.3 A new -percentage option added which rather than generating
the full progress-bar instead outputs a percentage. This
can be used with dialog --gauge etc.
4.4 -mkfs-time, -all-time and -root-time options now take
a human date string, in addition to the seconds since
the epoch of 1970 00:00 UTC. For example "now",
"last week", "Wed Mar 8 05:55:01 GMT 2023" are supported.
4.5 -root-uid, -root-gid, -force-uid and -force-gid options now
take a user/group name in addition to the integer uid/gid.
4.6 A new -mem-default option which displays default memory
usage for caches in Mbytes.
4.7 A new -no-compression option which produces no compression,
and it is a short-cut for -noI, -noD, -noF and -noX.
4.8 A new -pseudo-override option which makes pseudo file uids
and gids override -all-root, -force-uid and -force-gid
options. Normally these options take precedence.
5. Unsquashfs minor improvements
5.1 New -all-time option which sets all file timestamps to
<time>, rather than the time stored in the filesystem
inode. <time> can be an integer indicating seconds since
the epoch (1970-01-01) or a human string value such as
"now", "last week", or "Wed Feb 15 21:02:39 GMT 2023".
5.2 New -full-precision option which uses full precision when
displaying times including seconds. Use with -linfo, -lls,
-lln and -llc options.
5.3 New -match option where Unsquashfs will abort if any
extract file does not match on anything, and can not be
resolved.
5.4 New -percentage option added which rather than generating
the full progress-bar instead outputs a percentage. This
can be used with dialog --gauge etc.
6. Sqfstar minor improvements
6.1 A new -ignore-zeros option added which allows tar files to
be concatenated together and fed to Sqfstar. Normally a
tarfile has two consecutive 512 byte blocks filled with
zeros which means EOF and Sqfstar will stop reading after
the first tar file on encountering them. This option makes
Sqfstar ignore the zero filled blocks.
6.2 A new -mem-percent option which allows memory for caches to
be specified as a percentage of physical RAM, rather than
requiring an absolute value.
6.3 A new -percentage option added which rather than generating
the full progress-bar instead outputs a percentage. This
can be used with dialog --gauge etc.
6.4 -mkfs-time, -all-time and -root-time options now take
a human date string, in addition to the seconds since
the epoch of 1970 00:00 UTC. For example "now",
"last week", "Wed Mar 8 05:55:01 GMT 2023" are supported.
6.5 -root-uid, -root-gid, -force-uid and -force-gid options now
take a user/group name in addition to the integer uid/gid.
6.6 A new -mem-default option which displays default memory
usage for caches in Mbytes.
6.7 A new -no-compression option which produces no compression,
and it is a short-cut for -noI, -noD, -noF and -noX.
6.8 A new -pseudo-override option which makes pseudo file uids
and gids override -all-root, -force-uid and -force-gid
options. Normally these options take precedence.
6.9 Do not abort if ZERO filled blocks indicating end of the
TAR archive are missing.
7. Other minor improvements
7.1 If Mksquashfs/Unsquashfs fails to execute generating the
manpages because they have been cross-compiled, fall back
to using the pre-built manpages.
7.2 Add new Makefile configure option USE_PREBUILT_MANPAGES
to always use pre-built manpages rather than generating
them when "make install" is run.
8. Major bug fixes
8.1 Following a symlink in Sqfscat or where -follow-symlinks
option is given with Unsquashfs, incorrectly triggered the
corrupted filesystem loop detection code.
8.2 In Unsquashfs if a file was not writable it could not add
extended attributes to it.
8.3 Sqfstar would incorrectly reject compressor specific
options that have an argument.
8.4 Sqfstar would incorrectly strip pathname components in PAX
header linkpath if symbolic.
8.5 Sqfstar -root-uid, -root-gid and -root-time options were
documented but not implemented.
8.6 Mksquashfs -one-file-system option would not create empty
mount point directory when filesystem boundary crossed.
8.7 Mksquashfs did not check the close() return result.
Squashfs tools 4.5.1
This release adds Manpages, a fix for CVE-2021-41072 and the usual minor
improvements and bug fixes.
1. Major improvements
1.1 This release adds Manpages for Mksquashfs(1), Unsquashfs(1),
Sqfstar(1) and Sqfscat(1).
1.2 The -help text output from the utilities has been improved
and extended as well (but the Manpages are now more
comprehensive).
1.3 CVE-2021-41072 which is a writing outside of destination
exploit, has been fixed.
2. Minor improvements
2.1 The number of hard-links in the filesystem is now also
displayed by Mksquashfs in the output summary.
2.2 The number of hard-links written by Unsquashfs is now
also displayed in the output summary.
2.3 Unsquashfs will now write to a pre-existing destination
directory, rather than aborting.
2.4 Unsquashfs now allows "." to used as the destination, to
extract to the current directory.
2.5 The Unsquashfs progress bar now tracks empty files and
hardlinks, in addition to data blocks.
2.6 -no-hardlinks option has been implemented for Sqfstar.
2.7 More sanity checking for "corrupted" filesystems, including
checks for multiply linked directories and directory loops.
2.8 Options that may cause filesystems to be unmountable have
been moved into a new "experts" category in the Mksquashfs
help text (and Manpage).
3. Bug fixes
3.1 Maximum cpiostyle filename limited to PATH_MAX. This
prevents attempts to overflow the stack, or cause system
calls to fail with a too long pathname.
3.2 Don't always use "max open file limit" when calculating
length of queues, as a very large file limit can cause
Unsquashfs to abort. Instead use the smaller of max open
file limit and cache size.
3.3 Fix Mksquashfs silently ignoring Pseudo file definitions
when appending.
3.4 Don't abort if no XATTR support has been built in, and
there's XATTRs in the filesystem. This is a regression
introduced in 2019 in Version 4.4.
3.5 Fix duplicate check when the last file block is sparse.