ntfs3 support?

[BlueMax]

Hallo,
how can i mount an NTFS partition with 'ntfs3' (instead of 'ntfs-3g') via GUI?
Manually unmounting and remounting as ntfs3 doesn't work either (mount -t ntfs3 /dev/mapper/veracrypt2 /tmp/folder). Doing this with 'ntfs-3g' does work though.

'ntfs3' has been introduced in kernel 5.15.

Arch Linux 5.15.2
Veracrypt 1.24.update7

[RealTehreal]

Could be something on your end. After mounting the volume, without mounting the fs, typing
mount -t ntfs3 /dev/mapper/veracrypt1 /where/ever
actually mounts it for me.

Ubuntu 20.04 LTS
VeraCrypt 1.24-update7

[BlueMax]

Yes, looks like its 'dirty'. Will try to fix this on Windows. Veracrypt cannot fix this with its own 'repair' function.
It nevertheless doesn't seem to mount it automatically with NTFS3.

[12396.796442] ntfs3: dm-1: volume is dirty and "force" flag is not set!

Edit: Works now. Until VeraCrypt GUI supports NTFS3 i will use native Cryptsetup instead i think.

[andresbach]

Has been any news of VeraCrypt supporting ntfs3 directly in the GUI?
Tried this workaround unsuccessfully.

Arch Linux 6.2.8
VeraCrypt 1.25.9

[peteh]

Pushing this up nearly a year later.

Currently by default veracrypt is not using the ntfs3 driver even if it's available on the system.

[Alden20]

Right now, January 2025, I have the same problem (I'm using CachyOS, a derivative of Arch Linux). From VeraCrypt on Linux you can't mount an encrypted partition (or volume) of type NTFS, it always shows the error "unknown filesystem type 'ntfs'". I have tried various options but from the interface I have not been able to get it, no matter how many times I tell VeraCrypt the file system to use (ntfs3) to mount it, it always returns the same error, it seems that it always tries to mount it with the 'ntfs' system and not with 'ntfs3'.

However, from the command line, I have managed to do it in two steps, separating the decryption and the mounting of the partition or volume (note: it is very possible that these steps, literally, only work for Arch Linux or a derivative. You may have to modify some path depending on whether you use another Linux distro):

1- First I decrypt the partition or volume (assuming that I have already created the mounting directory in home/my_user/Data/ and that the path of the partition or volume that I am going to decrypt is /dev/nvme0n1p4):

veracrypt --filesystem=none --mount-options=nokernelcrypto /dev/nvme0n1p4 /home/my_user/Data/

(At this point the VeraCrypt window will appear asking me for the password to decrypt it).

2- Once the previous command has been executed successfully, I mount the unit indicating that it is of type ntfs3:

`sudo mount -t ntfs3 /dev/loop0 /home/my_user/Data/ -o rw,users,nosuid,nodev,user,exec,umask=000,relatime,iocharset=utf8

(VeraCrypt, at least in ArchLinux, generates for each decrypted partition or volume a file in '/dev/' with the name 'loop' and a number depending on how many drives are already decrypted at that time).

Once these steps are done, you can now access the decrypted content of the volume or unit in /home/my_user/Data/.

But, as I said, it doesn't work from the interface, it is always trying to mount the decrypted partition or volume with ntfs.

I have tried the following options and none of them have worked:

• Indicate in the interface, in the Mount Options tab of the configuration, that the mount option is: -t ntfs3. It doesn't work.

• I tried to put these lines in the configuration XML file, but it doesn't work either:

<config key="DefaultMountOptions">-t ntfs3</config>
<config key="FilesystemOptions">-t ntfs3 -o rw,users,nosuid,nodev,user,exec,umask=000,relatime,iocharset=utf8</config>
<config key="MountOptions">-t ntfs3</config>

• I tried to mount it with the following option, but it doesn't work either:

veracrypt --filesystem=ntfs3 /dev/nvme0n1p4 /home/my_user/Data/

As I said, the only option that worked for me was the one I indicated above, doing it in two steps from the Linux console, but there's no way to get it from the interface. I can decrypt it from the interface by activating the No Mount option in the window that asks for the password. But from there I have to mount it manually from the console.

So I've automated it into a script and it looks like this:

#!/bin/bash
veracrypt --filesystem=none --mount-options=nokernelcrypto /dev/nvme0n1p4 /home/my_user/Data/
sudo mount -t ntfs3 /dev/loop0 /home/my_user/Data/ -o rw,users,nosuid,nodev,user,exec,umask=000,relatime,iocharset=utf8

I hope that this problem with the interface, which apparently can't use ntfs3 -which is now the standard in Linux in 2025-, will be fixed in the short term, although I see that this problem has been around for a few years now...

[Jertzukka]

Whenever you call mount with type parameter, the program will always (unless --internal-only is used) use the helper function called mount.type so mount.ntfs in this case. You can run mount.ntfs --version to see what your current default is, and you can run which mount.ntfs then run for example ls -la /usr/bin/mount.ntfs and it should show where this program is symlinked to if anywhere. If you're using ntfs-3g this is probably symlinked to /usr/bin/ntfs-3g, otherwise probably nowhere. By choosing what mount.ntfs points to, you should get VeraCrypt to use the preferred version of ntfs driver you'd like to use.

If you'd like to use different mount program than what your mount defaults to, I don't know if that is possible. FreeBSD provides mountprog argument for specifying custom helper for this, but I don't think such exists for Linux version.

[anodynos]

This should be trivial to fix, at least for the CLI - it should only require one more ntfs3 option here

VeraCrypt/src/Main/CommandLineInterface.cpp

Line 342 in 97a715e

ArgFilesystem = VolumeCreationOptions::FilesystemType::NTFS;

as VeraCrypt says --filesystem=TYPE Filesystem type to mount. The TYPE argument is passed to mount(8) command with option -t.. Right now this is not recognised, hence we get Error: Unknown option: ntfs3

The UI doesn't have the option for --filesystem (I guess it defaults to auto) - it could be a nice addition!

I used @Alden20 suggestion (BTW, on Kubuntu 22.04, works fine)! cause when I was running a VMware VM from a mounted drive with the old fuse-based ntfs-3g, it was so sluggishly slow that it was unusable (NOTE: with or without VeraCrypt, i.e from a normal NTFS drive mounted as ntfs-3g fuse). Mounting with the new kernel based ntfs3 on a VeraCrypt volume (even with the old kernel 5.15) it made the VM usable again.

The shell script way though is brittle, cause it's not always /dev/loop0, in my case it's /dev/loop29 for some reason.

Also ntfs3 is not as reliable as the the old ntfs-3g from what I can gather... needs caution!

[idrassi]

Thank you everyone for the reports, testing notes, and workarounds shared here over the years.

This has been addressed for Linux in VeraCrypt 1.26.28.

The implementation adds explicit in-kernel NTFS driver selection for mounts:

• --filesystem=ntfs3 pins the Linux kernel ntfs3 driver and bypasses mount helpers such as mount.ntfs3.
• --filesystem=kernel-ntfs selects an available in-kernel NTFS driver for an NTFS volume.
• -m kernelntfs enables the same behavior for the current mount when NTFS is detected and no explicit filesystem type was supplied.
• GUI users can enable Settings -> Preferences -> Mount Options -> Mount NTFS volumes with an in-kernel Linux driver.

Examples:

veracrypt -t --filesystem=ntfs3 volume.hc /media/veracrypt1

or:

veracrypt -t --filesystem=kernel-ntfs volume.hc /media/veracrypt1

This is an opt-in path and doesn't change the default NTFS backend unless one of the options above, or the GUI preference, is used. It also doesn't override normal kernel NTFS behavior for dirty or hibernated NTFS volumes.

I will close this issue as fixed in 1.26.28. If anyone still sees failures with 1.26.28 beta4 or later, please open a new issue with the distribution, kernel version, VeraCrypt version, the exact command or GUI option used, and the full error output, including relevant dmesg output if available.