gvfs

gvfs is an open source and completely free software project that implements a Virtual File System (VFS) for the GNOME desktop environment. It is mainly used to display the progress of file transfers under GNOME, as well as to communicate to external storage devices.

It is a user-space virtual filesystem designed to work with the I/O abstractions of the GIO library, which is available on theGLib >= 2.15.1 library. The software is designed to install several modules, which will automatically used by apps via the libgio's API.

Supports the FUSE file system

The gvfs library also includes support for the FUSE filesystem, which is used by applications that do not use the GIO library. Among other features, gvfs comprises of several utilities that allow users to run commands like cat, stat, or ls, on files mounted in gvfs.

As you might expect, gvfs is extensible through plugins, which means that if you install the right plugin, you will be able to mount your Android mobile phone and access its storage. Plugins are available for download from the main software repositories of modern GNU/Linux operating systems.

Getting started with gvfs

To install the latest version of the gvfs project on your GNU/Linux distribution running the GNOME desktop environment, you must download the stable source package from Softoware and save it somewhere on your computer.

Open a terminal emulator application, use the ‘cd’ command to navigate to the location of the extracted archive files (e.g. cd /home/softoware/gvfs-1.23.3), where you will run the ‘./configure && make’ command to configure and compile the program.

After a successful compilation process, run the ‘sudo make install’ command as a privileged user or the ‘make install’ command as root to install gvfs system wide and make it available to all users on your installation.

What is new in this release:

• ftp: Add implicit TLS mode
• dav: Increase max number of connections to prevent lockups
• smb: Do not claim that mountable can be unmounted
• build: Add proper linker support check
• Several smaller bugfixes
• Translation updates

What is new in version 1.37.2:

• smb: Fix removal of non-empty dir
• programs: Remove deprecated gvfs utils
• gdu: Remove libgdu support
• gphoto2: Switch to a stable device uri
• mtp: Switch to a stable device uri
• Several smaller bugfixes
• Translation updates

What is new in version :

• mtp: Handle read-past-EOF ourselves to prevent hangs
• Port several parts to GTask
• Several smaller bugfixes
• Translation updates

What is new in version 1.35.2:

• metadata: Remove udev dependency in favor of gudev
• build: Enable elogind support in meson
• build: Port to meson build system
• gphoto2: Fix volume removal with current udev behavior
• mtp: Fix volume removal with current udev behavior
• Several smaller bugfixes
• Translation updates

What is new in version 1.35.1:

• sftp: Add support for setting timestamps

What is new in version 1.34.0:

• Translation updates.

What is new in version 1.33.3:

• Do not sent user invisible mounts in order to speed up g_volume_monitor_get
• mtp: Remove avoidance of file push for big files for better performance
• Various build fixes and cleanups
• Port several parts to GTask
• Several smaller bugfixes
• Translation updates

What is new in version 1.33.0:

• recent: Port from GtkRecentManager to GBookmarkFile (drop GTK+ dependency)
• sftp: Handle SecurID password prompt

What is new in version 1.32.0:

• Translation updates.

What is new in version 1.31.4:

• sftp: Limit writes to 32768 bytes
• udisks2: Improve unmount notifications
• daemon: Bump maximum read channel buffer size
• recent: Fix crashes when DISPLAY is not set
• Several smaller bugfixes
• Translation updates

What is new in version 1.31.3:

• dnssd: Fix crashes for uris with colons
• trash: Correctly determine fs type for paths with symlinks
• gdaemonfile: Pass GFileCreateFlags in write operations
• metadata: Various performance improvements
• Several smaller bugfixes
• Translation updates

What is new in version 1.31.2:

• dnssd: Fix crashes and leaks when mount fails
• network: Fix crashes when mount fails
• udisks2: Fix misleading notification when unmounting
• smb: Fix IPv6 uri handling
• smb: Improve read performance
• udisks2: Add support for uuid
• trash: Do not crash if home mount isn't found
• admin: Fix polkit errors caused by redundant translations
• Port several parts to GTask
• Several smaller bugfixes
• Translation updates

What is new in version 1.31.1:

• udisks2: Improve handling of volumes with multiple mountpoints
• man: Various man page updates
• hal: Drop hal volume monitor
• programs: Deprecate gvfs utils in favour of new gio tool
• Several smaller bugfixes

What is new in version 1.30.0:

• Translation updates.

What is new in version 1.29.3:

• afc: Many improvements and fixes for iOS support
• fuse: Add possibility to enable debug output
• test: Skip tests if dependencies are missing
• Several smaller bugfixes
• Translation updates

What is new in version 1.29.2:

• sftp: Fail cancelled jobs
• metadata: Avoid endless recursion when copying meta files
• mtp: Use phone icon for MTP devices
• udisks2: Do not show notification if unmount failed
• completion: Allow bash completion for gvfs-mount
• http: Return error if seek was not successful
• sftp: Handle "Too many authentication failures" error
• Several smaller bugfixes
• Translation updates

What is new in version 1.26.2:

• Accept XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/bus as a valid D-Bus session/user bus
• google: Fail in-fs copy/move if it leads to display name loss
• google: Mark files you can't see on the web as hidden
• Translation updates

What is new in version 1.25.4.1:

• monitor: Fix memory leak

What is new in version 1.25.3:

• common: Fix crashes with blank disks
• gvfs-open: Fix launching applications over d-bus
• monitor: Show notification always when device is unmounted
• sftp: Use separate data connection for pulling and pushing data
• Several smaller bugfixes
• Translation updates

What is new in version 1.25.2:

• gvfs-open: Do not alter uris before use
• mtp: Refresh storage information in query_info
• dav: Emit progress callbacks when copying and moving
• Several smaller bugfixes
• Translation updates

What is new in version 1.24 Beta 1:

• ftp: Implement backups for replace
• Add an nfs backend based on libnfs
• test: Various improvements and fixes
• ftp: Implement G_FILE_COPY_NOFOLLOW_SYMLINKS
• programs: Fix bash completion
• dav: Add support for server-side copying
• mtp: Set MTP filetype from mime type when uploading files
• gvfs-mount: Allow mounting as an anonymous user
• smb: Handle the anonymous flag
• Several smaller bugfixes
• Translation updates

What is new in version 1.23.4:

• gproxymount: Fix crashes if eject callback isn't specified
• metadata: Fix crashes if tree initilization failed
• Several smaller bugfixes
• Translation updates

What is new in version 1.23.3:

• Fix reported size for http and dav
• Several smaller bugfixes
• Translation updates

What is new in version 1.22.3:

• Fix metadata deamon crashes
• Several improvements to unmounting reliability
• Several smaller bugfixes
• Translation updates

What is new in version 1.19.5:

• gvfsdaemon: properly remove socket_dir
• ftp: Set etag::value
• daemon: Rate limit progress callbacks
• daemon: Set infinite timeout for enumerate response
• client: remove GVfsUriMountInfo
• sftp: force openpty(3) on BSD
• Several smaller bugfixes
• Translation updates

What is new in version 1.19.4:

• dav: Implement truncate for output streams
• dav: Implement seek for output streams
• gphoto2: Implement pull support
• Several smaller bugfixes
• Translation updates

What is new in version 1.18.3:

• Fix seeking past end of file for various backends
• fuse: Improve write performance
• archive: Handle open failure

What is new in version 1.19.3:

• Truncate support for output streams in various backends
• Convert libgvfscommon and libdaemon to a private shared library
• dav: Set the is_hidden property for files starting with a '.'
• http: Allow seek past end of file
• http: Various fixes
• afp: Don't free the handle if truncate fails
• gphoto2: Don't release the device multiple times
• smb: Require libsmbclient from Samba 3.4.0 or higher
• dav: Report number of bytes used on the filesystem
• gphoto2: Return the correct offset when seeking
• mtp: fix segfault when device not found
• mtp: Fail fast if in the middle of an unmount
• sftp: Implement try_query_fs_info using the OpenSSH statvfs extension
• sftp: Implement pull support
• Several smaller bugfixes and cleanups
• Translation updates

What is new in version 1.19.2:

• sftp: Implement GFileCreateFlags and improve permission handling
• sftp: Implement push support
• sftp: Various fixes
• smb: Report number of bytes used on the filesystem
• smb: Various fixes
• daemon: Make progress callbacks work with try methods
• afp: Report number of bytes used on the filesystem
• archive: Set filesystem size information
• archive: Set the is_hidden attribute when appropriate
• archive: Various fixes
• trash: Add " (invalid encoding)" to files with invalid encoding
• trash: Support enumerating non-UTF-8 filenames
• tests: Various fixes
• recent: Don't mark filesystem as read-only
• recent: Prevent spurious monitor notifications
• Several smaller bugfixes and cleanups
• Translation updates

What is new in version 1.19.1:

• Fix seeking past end of file for various backends
• archive: Set file executable bit from archive contents
• http: Set error to NULL to possibly prevent crash on close
• dav: Set file type to regular by default
• build: Remove unnecessary trailing slashes in path
• client: Fix usage of incorrect enum constant
• gvfs-info: Show URI
• gvfs-ls: Added option to output URIs
• fuse: Use the big_writes option to speed up writes
• Translation updates

What is new in version 1.18.2:

• Fix a client side regression in 1.18.1 where apps would stop responding
• Fix a race condition in job handling that could cause large copies to hang
• Various fixes to the fuse implementation

What is new in version 1.18 Beta 2:

• Handle large thumbnails as well as normal ones.

What is new in version 1.18 Beta 1:

• archive: Update to latest libarchive API
• http: Stop using deprecated apis

What is new in version 1.17.3:

• Clean shutdown implementation for various backends
• tests: Various fixes
• afc: Update to libimobiledevice new api

What is new in version 1.16.3:

• metadata: Fix a write regression introduced in 1.16.2
• http: Don't send network requests when reading only thumbnail
• goa: Don't show two icons for a mounted goa volume
• Documentation fixes

What is new in version 1.17.2:

• metadata: Fix write regression
• smb: Allow specifying custom port
• tests: Various fixes
• http: Don't do network i/o when reading just the thumbnail path
• goa: Make shadowed mounts work

What is new in version 1.16.2:

• mtp: Use standard name for SD Card icon
• metadata: Bear with broken journal files
• metadata: Put journal in $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR for shared NFS homedir case

What is new in version 1.17.0:

• daemon: Ensure monitors are not prematurely finalized
• daemon: Fix crash when cancelling channel operations
• daemon: Tweak read sizes
• daemon: Close channels belonging to the active mount only
• daemon: Add infrastructure for the backends to exit cleanly
• channel: Unqueue cancelled requests
• channel: Verify that replies are for the right serial
• channel: Fix readahead behaviour
• channel: Return proper error if we're out of free fds
• mtp: Refactor read path in preparation for supporting normal files
• mtp: Use Android extensions to support in place read and write of files
• mtp: Use normal filenames in paths
• mtp: When removing cache entries, remove children too
• mtp: Clear previous cache entries when refreshing a directory
• mtp: Clear cache and emit delete events when an object is removed
• mtp: Handle overwriting of files in do_push and do_pull correctly
• mtp: Use standard name for SD Card icon

What is new in version 1.16.1:

• daemon: Ensure file monitors are not prematurally finalized
• gvfschannel: Return proper error if we're out of free fds
• gvfschannel: Fix daemon crash when cancelling channel operations
• gvfschannel: Fix readahead behaviour
• obexftp: Fix crasher due to missing D-Bus threads support
• Fix compiler warnings
• Translation updates

What is new in version 1.16.0:

• cdda: Fix warnings for each track on the CD
• cdda: Remove unneeded function argument
• cdda: Remove leading '/' from the filenames
• mtp: Switch to version based checks for new libmtp features
• trash: Use the symbolic names for trash:: attributes
• tests: Update expected gvfs-mount -li output
• Translation updates

What is new in version 1.15.4:

• gdu,udisks2: Make use of new ID_FS_BOOT_SYSTEM_ID udev property
• fuse: Install systemd tmpfiles.d exclusion file
• mtp: Fix crash when libmtp operations fails without error message
• mtp: Respect remove_source when pulling a file
• mtp: Respect remove_source in do_push
• tests: Add gvfs-testbed to enable tests which need root
• tests: Check for URI string presence on CLI unmount
• Translation updates

What is new in version 1.15.3:

• New gnome-online-accounts volume monitor written by Debarshi Ray
• Various test suite fixes and improvements
• tests: Fix tar/zip ArchiveMounter tests
• tests: Fix race condition in Drive tests
• tests: Use apache2 binary directly
• daemon: Implement proper org.gtk.vfs.MountTracker.UnregisterMount()
• mtp: Fix race between on_uevent and do_unmount
• mtp: Fix leaked weak reference on monitors
• cdda: Adapt to new paranoia.h location
• smb: Implement proper unmount method
• computer: Fix volume monitoring
• build: Replace deprecated autoconf macros
• Translation updates

What is new in version 1.15.2:

• New MTP backend and volume monitor written by Philip Langdale
• test: Add Drive tests
• test: Drop genisoimage dependency
• test: Include */sbin in PATH
• Translation updates

What is new in version 1.14.1:

• client: Don't disable exit_on_close on session bus
• fuse: Don't crash on unmount
• udisks2: Add appropriate content type for media players
• gphoto2: Make sure to not call g_mutex_clear twice, causing a crash
• Fix OpenBSD portability issues
• Translation updates

What is new in version 1.11.2:

• gvfs-mime: List recommended applications
• daemon: Spawn fuse daemon in foreground for uClibc compatibility
• ftp: Make ftp.mount no longer conditionally built
• fuse: Remove the unused sys/vfs.h include
• build: Check for util.h to prevent implicit declaration
• Translation updates

What is new in version 1.10.1:

• daemon: Fix a crash on unmount, unref'ing a job source
• Translation updates

What is new in version 1.9.4:

• Brand new AFP backend written by Carl-Anton Ingmarsson
• Fixed several leaks of GSimpleAsyncResult objects
• Added simple gvfs-mime test application
• daemon: Ignore SIGPIPE signals to avoid process termination on cancelled transfer
• computer: Use 'drive-harddisk-system' as File System icon
• ftp: Fix return value of try_get_settable_attributes() on failure
• gvfs-open: Exit with error code > 0 when open fails
• String tweaks and translation updates

What is new in version 1.9.1:

• client: Handle error events when polling _g_vfs_daemon_call_sync ()
• client: Don't leak the GCancellable's fd in case of an g_poll error
• daemon: New logic to the backend to block requests
• daemon: Add logic to force close active channels
• daemon: Implement auto-busy on unmount
• daemonfile: Re-root the path in set_display_name ()
• http: Add http_backend_get_mount_base ()
• http: Get rid of unnecessary calls to uri_for_filename ()
• dav: Correctly encode URLs
• dav: Unescape the path when setting the mount_prefix of the GMountSpec
• dav: Include username and/or port in the backend's display-name
• dav: Decode the paths of the multistatus response before comparing them
• dav: Check for empty but present displayname dav-property
• dav: Implement query_fs_info and report used and free space
• dav: Use default unmount logic
• afc: Better error messages
• gphoto2: Use new default auto-busy code
• build: Change default tarball compression format to xz
• Translation updates

What is new in version 1.9.0:

• fuse: Make created files visible immediately on WebDAV
• fuse: Pretend created file exists even if backend didn't create it

What is new in version 1.8.1:

• Fix threadsafety of closing channels
• Don't leak dbus messages
• gdu: Fix setting the BDMV name
• gdu: Fix check for symlinks in /dev, was reversed
• Translation updates

What is new in version 1.8.0:

• afc: Fix renaming files moving them to the root dir
• Translation updates

What is new in version 1.7.2:

• ftp: Parse mode, user and group for unix listings
• ftp: Implement chmod
• sftp: Catch invalid argument type for chmod command
• smb: Catch invalid argument type when setting mtime
• Translation updates

What is new in version 1.7.1:

• Various build issues fixed
• Fix gvfs client code on ARM platform
• ftp: Fix refcounting of addresses when connecting
• ftp: Detect TLS and SSL support
• afc: Add ability to mount the house-arrest service
• afc: Add support for House Arrest protocol to access the Documents/ folder within applications
• Translation updates (nb, es, he, et)

What is new in version 1.6.6:

• Revert removal of app lookup extension for stable Gnome 2.32 line
• sftp: Close pty master in child process to prevent selinux denials
• fuse: Add O_TRUNC support for open() to prevent data loss

What is new in version 1.6.5:

• Remove app lookup extension (now handled internally in GIO)
• gphoto: Use correct address for GPhoto mounts with gudev
• sftp: Fix poll() timeout

What is new in version 1.6.3:

• translation updates
• fix the build against recent glib
• afc: remove com.apple.afc dependency
• afc: add password dialog
• ftp: fix undeclared variable
• ssh: improve password dialog

What is new in version 1.6.1:

• Translation updates
• client: Always return ERROR_CANCELLED for cancelled operations
• afc: Don't handle jailbroken phones
• afc: Detect ipad with right name and icon
• ftp: Better handling of some PWD results
• gdu: Support eject of blank cdroms
• client: Don't loop on problematic dbus input

What is new in version 1.5.5:

• Fix with-dbus-service-dir configure switch
• ftp: Cleanup (close the data connection unconditionally)
• archive: Use archive_errno() the correct way
• Correct return values on error for programs
• Translation updates

What is new in version 1.1.8:

• Fix crashers and leaks
• Handle file:// uris with anchors in gvfs-open
• fuse: Support ftruncate to the current file size
• escape/unescape hostname part in uris, allowing spaces in e.g. smb domains
• hal: Fix "No mount object" error on mount
• Change details of the new .xdg-volume-info file format
• Fix races in cancellation of gvfs streams
• Remove debug spew from backends
• ftp: Fix anonymous login
• gphoto2: Ignore broken storages with no capacity
• Don't globally modify COMP_WORDBREAKS in bash completion script
• Don't ask for username when getting ssh key passphrase

Requirements:

• GNOME