XFS not available for / partition on RHEL6, why?
Have a project in our development environment that requires XFS, so we installed RHEL7.
This project may be approved for production use soon, however RHEL7 doesn't have a working DoD STIG, so we'll have to use RHEL6.
Experimenting with RHEL6 with XFS in development environment and noticed I can set partitions like, /var or /opt to XFS, however not / . I googled around to see if I could find the reason why, and couldn't.
And at this time too, we can't justify Scalable File System Add-On Entitlement. We have to work with what we have.
thanks
Responses
Hi Jamie,
I presume the context in which Christopher posted this query was to do with making root and boot file systems on XFS in RHEL6. As we all know root and boot file systems can't be made as XFS in case of RHEL6. I've seen a lot of setups where EXT4 is made as the default file system on root in RHEL7, but the other way is not noticed, also not possible with current release of RHEL6.
Also, my question or query is that .... is a mix of EXT4 (for data) and XFS (for root file systems) on RHEL7 is recommended one by Red Hat?
Thanks
We can't make a recommendation which applies to everyone. There will be workloads which function better for ext4, there will be workloads better for XFS, and there will be other reasons to use either filesystem.
For example, if your organisation has invested in a block-level backup tool which only works with ext4, and your disaster recovery processes are documented and tested with that tool, then you probably don't want to switch to XFS because the investment in that tool would be wasted.
With making XFS the root filesystem for RHEL 7, we suggest that most common enterprise workloads will probably benefit from being on XFS and we'd like to see it used in the majority of cases.
It's also a recognition that storage requirements are getting larger as time goes on and XFS is more suited (and supported) for large individual files and large filesystems. See RHEL Limits for exact numbers.
Both filesystems are supported for use, so customers can make that decision based on their needs. If anyone needs a hand making such a choice, we're glad to advise on a support case or a consulting engagement, depending on the specific queries and the complexity of the setup.
There seems to be some confusion on XFS for RHEL 6. Red Hat lets you setup XFS file systems while installing RHEL 6 but Red Hat does not give you the tools to manage or maintain the XFS file systems unless you subscribe to their ScalableFileSystem repository.
Quick and easy solution, If the RHEL 6 installer can create and format the XFS file systems during the install, you would have to think that the packages are on the DVD, right? Yes, you would be correct. If you mount the RHEL 6 DVD ISO you will see a \ScalableFileSystem directory with the packages you need. You can copy the packages that you need to another location or install them from the ISO. I usually install all three at once because xfsdump has a dependency on xfsprogs.
From my RHEL 6.9 ISOyum localinstall xfsprogs-3.1.1-20.el6.x86_64.rpm xfsdump-3.0.4-4.el6_6.1.x86_64.rpm xfsprogs-devel-3.1.1-20.el6.x86_64.rpm
Hope this helps. /Raj W.
Welcome! Check out the Getting Started with Red Hat page for quick tours and guides for common tasks.
