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BULK_EXTRACTOR(1)	     General Commands Manual	       BULK_EXTRACTOR(1)

NAME
     bulk_extractor  - Scans a disk image for regular expressions and other con-
     tent.

SYNOPSIS
     bulk_extractor -o output_dir [options] [ image | -R dir ]

DESCRIPTION
     bulk_extractor scans a disk image (or any other file) for a large number of
     pre-defined regular expressions and other kinds of content. These items are
     called features.  When it finds a feature, bulk_extractor writes the output
     to an output file. Each line of the output file contains a byte  offset  at
     which the feature was found, a tab, and the actual feature. Features there-
     fore cannot contain the end-of-line character.

     bulk_extractor  includes native support for EnCase (.E01) and AFFLIB (.aff)
     files, if it compiled and linked on a system  containing  those  libraries.
     Alternatively,  the -R option can be used to recursively scan and process a
     directory of individual files (disk images in  such  a  directory	will  be
     treated as files, not as disk images).

     bulk_extractor  is  multi-threaded.  By  specifying the -j option, multiple
     copies of the program can be run. Each thread writes its results  into  its
     own  feature  file.  The files are then combined by the primary thread when
     all of the secondary threads complete.

     bulk_extractor is a two-phase program. In phase  1  the  features	are  ex-
     tracted. In phase 2 a histogram is created of relevant features.

     bulk_extractor  will also create a wordlist of all the words that are found
     in the disk image. This can be used as a dictionary  for  cracking  encryp-
     tion.

     The options are as follows:

     -o outdir
	    Specifies  the  output  directory, which will be created by bulk_ex-
	    tractor if necessary.  If the output directory contains data from  a
	    partial  bulk_extractor  run,  bulk_extractor will attempt to resume
	    where the previous run left off.

     -b bannerfile.txt
	    Read the contents of bannerfile.txt and stamp it at the beginning of
	    each output file. This might be useful if you have some kind of pri-
	    vacy banner that needs to be stamped at  the  top  of  all	of  your
	    files.

     -r alert_list.txt
	    Specifies  an  alert  list,  (or red list), which is a list of terms
	    that, if found, will be specifically flagged in a special alert file
	    that begins with the letters ALERT.  The alert list may contain  in-
	    dividual  terms, which must be found in their entirity and are case-
	    sensitive, or wildcards with standard  Unix  globbing  (e.g.  *@com-
	    pany.com). Globbed terms are case-insensitive.

     -w stop_list.txt
	    Specifies  a  stop	list,  (or white list), which is a list of terms
	    that, if found, will be placed in a  special  stopped  file  (rather
	    than  in  the  main  file).  The  whitelist may also contain globbed
	    terms.

     -s frac[:passes]
	    Specify random sampling parameters.

     -p path/format
	    Open a disk image and print the information found at path.	The for-
	    mat specification may be r for raw output and h for hex output.
	    Specify -p - for interactive mode.
	    Specify -p -http for HTTP mode.

     -F <rfile>
	    Specifies a file of regular expressions to be used as search terms.

     -f <regex>
	    Specifies a regular expression to be used as a search term.

     -q nn  Quiet mode. Only prints every nn status reports.
	    Specify -1 for no status.

     -Wn1:n2The scan_wordlist scanner should only extract words that are between
	    n1 and n2 characters in length.

TUNING
     These commands are useful for tuning operation:

     -C NN  Specifies the size of the context window.

     -S fr:<name>:window=NN
	    specifies context window for recorder <name> to NN.

     -S fr:<name>:window_before=NN
	    specifies context window after to NN for recorder <name>

     -S fr:<name>:window_after=NN
	    specifies context window before to NN for recorder <name>

     -G NN  specify the page size

     -g NN  Specifies the size of the margin in bytes.

     -j NN  Use n threads for analysis. Normally you do not need  specify  this,
	    as the default is the number of processors on the current computer.

     -m NN  Have  bulk_extractor  wait at most NN minutes for scanners to finish
	    after all data have been read.

DEBUGGING
     The following commands are useful for debugging:

     -V     Print the version number

     -R outdir
	    Restarts the program from where it left off for a particular  direc-
	    tory.

     -B nn  Set  the  dedup  Bloom  filter  to	nn  bits.  This  is  used by the
	    scan_wordlist scanner.

     -M nn  Specifies a maximum recursion depth of nn.

     -z pagenum
	    Start on page number pagenum.

     -Y <o1>[-<o2>]
	    Start at input offset o1 optionally ending at offset o2

     -dN    Enable debugging level N.

SCANNER CONTROL
     Finally, you can control scanners with these options:

     -P <dir>
	    Specifies a directory in which to find plugins.

     -E scanner
	    Turns off all scanners, then enabled scanner scanner.

     -e scanner
	    Enables a scanner.

     -x scanner
	    Disables a scanner.

HISTORY
     bulk_extractor is based on a feature extractor and named entity  recognizer
     developed	for SBook in 1991. The feature extractor was repurposed for disk
     images in 2003. The stand-alone bulk_extractor  program  was  rewritten  in
     2005  and	publicly released in 2007. The multi-threaded bulk_extractor was
     released in May 2010.

AUTHOR
     Simson Garfinkel <simsong@acm.org>

User Manuals			    OCT 2013		       BULK_EXTRACTOR(1)

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