Documentation

Usage: analyzeMFT.py [options]

Options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -f FILE, --file=FILE  read MFT from FILE
  -o FILE, --output=FILE
                        write results to FILE
  -a, --anomaly         turn on anomaly detection
  -b FILE, --bodyfile=FILE
                        write MAC information to bodyfile
  -g, --gui             Use GUI for file selection
  -d, --debug           turn on debugging output


You can turn off all the GUI dependencies by setting the noGUI flag to 'True'. This is for installations
that don't want to install the tk/tcl libraries.

Version 1.0: Initial release
Version 1.1: Split parent folder reference and sequence into two fields. I'm still trying to figure out the
             significance of the parent folder sequence number, but I'm convinced that what some documentation
             refers to as the parent folder record number is really two values - the parent folder record number
             and the parent folder sequence number. 
Version 1.2: Fixed problem with non-printable characters in filenames. Any Unicode character is legal in a
             filename, including newlines. This presented some problems in my output. Characters that do not
             render well are now converted to hex and a note is added to the Notes column indicating this.
             (I've learned a lot about Unicode since I first wrote this.)
             Added "compile time" flag to turn off the inclusion of any GUI related modules and libraries
             for systems missing tk/tcl support. (Set noGUI to True in the code)
Version 1.3: Added new column to hold log entries relating to each record. For example, a note stating that
             some characters in the filename were converted to hex as they could not be printed.
Version 1.4: Credit: Spencer Lynch. I was misusing the flags field in the MFT header. The first bit is
             Active/Inactive. The second bit is File/Folder. 
Version 1.5: Fixed date/time reporting. I wasn't reporting useconds at all.
             Added anomaly detection. Adds two columns:
                    std-fn-shift:  If Y, entry's FN create time is after the STD create time
                    usec-zero: If Y, entry's STD create time's usec value is zero
Version 1.6: Various bug fixes
Version 1.7: Bodyfile support, with thanks to Dave Hull
Version 1.8: Added support for full path extraction, written by Kristinn Gudjonsson
Version 1.9: Added support for csv timeline output
Version 1.10: Just for Tom
                    
Purpose:

analyzeMFT.py is designed to fully parse the MFT file from an NTFS filesystem
and present the results as accurately as possible in a format that allows
further analysis with other tools. At present, it will read an entire MFT
through to the end without error, but it skips over parsing some of the
attributes. These will be filled in as time permits.

Caution:

This code is very much under development. You should not depend on its results without double checking
them against at least one other tool.

Output:

The output is currently written in CSV format. Due to the fact that Excel
automatically determines the type of data in a column, it is recommended that
you write the output to a file without the .csv extension, open it in Excel, and
set all the columns to "Text" rather than "General" when the import wizard
starts. Failure to do so will result in Excel formatting the columns in a way
that misrepresents the data.

I could pad the data in such a way that forces Excel to set the column type correctly
but this might break other tools.

Inspiration:

My original inspiration was a combination of MFT Ripper (thus the current output format) and the
SANS 508.1 study guide. I couldn't bear to read about NTFS structures again,
particularly since the information didn't "stick". I also wanted to learn Python
so I figured that using it to tear apart the MFT file was a reasonably sized
project.

Many of the variable names are taken directly from Brian Carrier's The Sleuth Kit. His code, plus his
book "File System Forensic Analysis", was very helpful in my efforts to write this code.

The output format is almost identical to Mark Menz's MFT Ripper. His tool really inspired me to learn
more about the structure of the MFT and to learn what additional information I could glean from
the data.

I also am getting much more interested in timeline analysis and figured that really understanding the
the MFT and having a tool that could parse it might serve as a good foundation
for further research in that area.

Limitations:

Future work:

1) Figure out how to write the CSV file in a manner that forces Excel to interpret the date/time
fields as text. If you add the .csv extension Excel will open the file without invoking the import
wizard and the date fields are treated as "General" and the date is chopped leaving just the time.
2) Add version switch
3) Add "mftr" switch - produce MFT Ripper compatible output
4) Add "extract" switch - extract or work on live MFT file
5) Finish parsing all possible attributes
6) Look into doing more timeline analysis with the information
7) Improve the documentation so I can use the structures as a reference and reuse the code more effectively
8) Clean up the code and, in particular, follow standard naming conventions
9) There are two MFT entry flags that appear that I can't determine the significance of. These appear in
    the output as Unknown1 and Unknown2
10) Parse filename based on 'nspace' value in FN structure
11) Test it and ensure that it works on all major Windows OS versions
12) Output HTML as well as CSV
13) If you specify a bad input filename and a good output filename, you get an
error about the output filename.


See other ToDos in the code

Useful Documentation:

1) http://data.linux-ntfs.org/ntfsdoc.pdf