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FUSE filesystem list show some FuseFat and FatFuse. Both are old, FatFuse is read-only , FuseFat is non-buildable and probably depends on glib.

Now I'm using mountlo for the task (mounting USB drives in generic way without root access or suid things (except of fusermount itself)), but it looks too big for such task.

Using FUSE to mount external storage devices is good both for security and for flexibility reason: the kernel sees only block reads and writes while actual code that deals with filesystem details runs with user privileges, allowing user to use custom filesystems and preventing from kernel filesystem exploits.

Is there good vfat FUSE driver?

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    What's wrong with the kernel driver?
    – Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams
    May 23, 2010 at 16:04
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    @Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams, Kernel (and consequently mountlo) driver works OK. But using kernel driver is 1. giving user too much control over filesystems (user may deliberately put some malformed "specially crafted" filesystem), 2. Limiting filesystem types or partition table styles he can use. FUSE is good answer for both. And mountlo (start UML kernel and use "in-kernel" filesystem running in user-space) is solution with overhead (memory usage, for example).
    – Vi.
    May 23, 2010 at 16:10
  • One more thing: with FUSE I always forcibly unmount my drive in correct way (including when using mountlo).
    – Vi.
    May 23, 2010 at 16:16
  • see also fusefat in debian and "fuse fat" on github. all of them look unpopular, so probably are lacking features compared to the vfat kernel driver
    – milahu
    Feb 7, 2023 at 17:34

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I don't know which "FuseFat" you tried, but Debian & Ubuntu do have fusefat packages available in their repositories, so it is buildable somehow (maybe they have some useful patches?). And yes, it needs GLib, but I'm not sure why that would be a problem?

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  • However, it gives big warnings that rw is experimental .
    – OrangeDog
    Jan 6, 2023 at 16:02

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