forensic-vfs-engine

One Vfs::open(path) — point it at any disk image and get a mounted, read-only filesystem back.

forensic-vfs-engine is the registry + resolver over the forensic-vfs contracts: it sniffs the container → volume-system → filesystem stack of a piece of evidence and mounts the first filesystem it recognizes as a dyn FileSystem. It is the ORCHESTRATION crate that wires every SecurityRonin fleet reader into a single detect-and-mount call, so you never hand-code an image-format ladder again.

Above the fold

use forensic_vfs_engine::{walk, Vfs};
use std::path::Path;

// Detect the stack (EWF → MBR → NTFS, DMG → HFS+, raw ext4, …) and mount it.
let evidence = Vfs::new().open(Path::new("disk.E01"))?;

let Some(fs) = evidence.fs else {
    // A source nothing recognizes — a clean unknown, never a silent error.
    return Ok(());
};

// The locator records the exact open-recipe: e.g. "…/container:ewf/vol:mbr/fs:ntfs".
println!("{}", evidence.root.to_uri());

for entry in walk(fs.as_ref())? {
    if let Some(name) = entry.path.last() {
        println!("{}", String::from_utf8_lossy(name));
    }
}
# Ok::<(), forensic_vfs::VfsError>(())

[dependencies]
forensic-vfs-engine = "0.1"

Batteries-included — every fleet reader compiled in

The zero-config build registers the whole fleet; no --features dance on an evidence workstation.

Layer	Readers
Container	EWF/E01 ✅ · VHD ✅ · VHDX ✅ · VMDK ✅ · QCOW2 ✅ · DMG ✅ · AFF4 ✅
Volume system	MBR ✅ · GPT ✅ · APM ✅
Filesystem	NTFS ✅ · ext2/3/4 ✅ · XFS ✅ · ISO 9660 ✅ · APFS ✅ · HFS+/HFSX ✅ · exFAT ✅ · FAT12/16/32 ✅

Nesting resolves automatically — EWF → GPT → NTFS, DMG → APM → HFS+, AFF4(Zip) → ext4 — up to a bounded recursion depth (a decompression-bomb guard).

Snapshots — the [H] state-history seam

# use forensic_vfs_engine::Vfs;
# use std::path::Path;
let cohort = Vfs::new().snapshots(Path::new("mac.dmg"))?; // Vec<SnapshotView>, time-ordered
for view in &cohort {
    let mounted = Vfs::new().open_snapshot(Path::new("mac.dmg"), view.xid())?;
    let _ = mounted;
}
# Ok::<(), forensic_vfs::VfsError>(())

Evidence with no APFS filesystem yields an empty cohort — a genuinely clean "no snapshots here", not an error.

Trust but verify

• Input-fuzzed — fuzz_resolve drives Vfs::open_source over arbitrary bytes; the invariant is resolving attacker-controllable disk bytes must never panic. Each underlying reader carries its own per-structure fuzz targets.
• Panic-free by lint — unsafe_code = forbid, clippy::unwrap_used / expect_used = deny across production code, over bounds-checked readers.
• Validated against real artifacts — every end-to-end test resolves a real, oracle-validated fixture (TSK / hdiutil / qemu-img / pyewf) and confirms the known ground-truth file surfaces. See docs/validation.md.

How it resolves

flowchart LR
    P["Vfs::open(path)"] --> B["open base source
(EWF by path, else raw file)"]
    B --> S["sniff head + tail
(one bounded read)"]
    S --> C{"container?"}
    C -- yes --> B
    S --> V{"volume system?"}
    V -- yes --> B
    S --> F{"filesystem?"}
    F -- yes --> M["mount dyn FileSystem
+ record PathSpec locator"]
    F -- no --> N["Evidence { fs: None }
(clean unknown)"]

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