Is it possible to mount an exFAT filesystem on Red Hat Enterprise Linux?

Solution Verified - Updated -

Environment

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux

Issue

  • Is it possible to mount an exFAT filesystem on Red Hat Enterprise Linux?

Resolution

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 and earlier

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux does not support exFAT filesystem. Therefore, it won't be able to mount exFAT filesystem in a supported method.
  • For an unsupported method, you can use the EPEL repository
  • Once that repository is enabled, it's possible to install the required packages.
# yum install -y exfat-utils fuse fuse-exfat
# mkfs.exfat /dev/sdc1  
mkexfatfs 1.2.7
Creating... done.
Flushing... done.
File system created successfully.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9

  • An exFAT filesystem may be created by installing the exfatprogs package and using the # mkfs.exfat utility.
  • See the man 8 mkfs.exfat man page for details.

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13 Comments

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JG Community Member 23 points
16 November 2015 12:18 PM

Helpful only in that it told me that it wasn't supported, it's possible to do in other distros

CC Newbie 7 points
27 April 2016 5:39 PM

Supported or not, here we go...

sudo -i
yum group install 'Development Tools'
yum install fuse-devel
cd /usr/local/src && git clone https://github.com/relan/exfat.git
cd exfat
autoreconf --install
./configure --prefix=/usr
make && make install
make clean

In the GUI, the device becomes available automatically. Without the GUI...

tail -f /var/log/messages

Plug in the expat drive. Note the device name. [CTRL]+[C] out of tail.

sudo mount.exfat-fuse /dev/$sdXn /$mount_point
SZ Red Hat Newbie 7 points
27 May 2016 4:39 PM

Updated steps of @Christopher Cover:

sudo -i
yum group install 'Development Tools'
yum install fuse-devel gcc autoconf automake git
cd /usr/local/src && git clone https://github.com/relan/exfat.git
cd exfat
autoreconf --install
./configure --prefix=/usr
make && make install
make clean

Now you should be able to mount exfat (Works from GUI too)

RC Newbie 11 points
4 August 2019 11:43 PM

Confirmed this works RHEL 8

IB Newbie 9 points
17 February 2017 8:33 PM

A slightly easier solution is to install exfat-utils and fuse-exfat.

Disclaimer: these are from the nux-dextop third-party repo in Romania. It has a "use at your own risk" disclaimer on its home page. It has been approved by the CentOS community. The packages are available for CentOS/RHEL 6 and 7, but not for 5.

Enable the EPEL repository if you haven't done so already, see this solution.

Enable the nux-dextop repo:

[for RHEL 7]    yum install https://li.nux.ro/download/nux/dextop/el7/x86_64/nux-dextop-release-0-5.el7.nux.noarch.rpm
[for RHEL 6]    yum install https://li.nux.ro/download/nux/dextop/el6/x86_64/nux-dextop-release-0-2.el6.nux.noarch.rpm

Install the packages:

yum install exfat-utils fuse-exfat

To mount an exfat drive, find the partition or drive you want to mount using "cat /proc/partitions" or "tail /var/log/messages" or "file -s /dev/sd*" or similar. Exfat USB sticks are typically not partitioned, so that the drive (/dev/sdX) will likely not have any partitions under it in /proc/partitions.

mount /dev/sdX /$mount_point

or if it is partitioned,

mount /dev/sdXn /$mount_point
KA Community Member 69 points
28 September 2019 3:23 AM

this also works on RHEL 8 (use the RHEL 7 link)

AR Newbie 5 points
17 July 2017 6:57 PM

I am just trying my hands on RHEL 7 as a developer subscription for a year. I have been able to mount exFAT drives, as all my external HDDs are formatted in exFAT.

Kodiak Firesmith's picture Expert 1004 points
13 February 2018 8:31 PM

Since Microsoft and Red Hat Inc are all buddy-buddy now, perhaps Microsoft could grant Red Hat permission to move fuse-exfat & exfat-utils from RPMFusion into EPEL & Fedora repos?

DN Pro 687 points
29 October 2018 4:04 AM

Since you wrote that, Microsoft have joined the Open Invention Network[1], which I would imaging would make exFAT support less of a legal snag?

[1] https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/microsoft-joins-open-invention-network-to-help-protect-linux-and-open-source/

Kodiak Firesmith's picture Expert 1004 points
1 November 2018 10:28 AM

Right now they get moolah from exfat licensing so I doubt it.

AS Newbie 7 points
1 May 2020 10:49 AM

Thank you sir it is working well after the instruction followed

NH Community Member 27 points
14 October 2020 11:21 PM 
For Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8, there is no exFAT support in EPEL yet.

I haven't spotted it in EPEL 8 yet, nor in the Fedora EPEL bug report system. Is it planned that it will be added to EPEL8 for RHEL8 users in the future?

Nirmal Sudan's picture Newbie 7 points
22 October 2021 6:22 PM

Plugged in USB Drive in exFat format-was not recognised Logged in as root and ran the following command

yum install -y exfat-utils fuse fuse-exfat

and the USB exFat drive was recognised immediately