6

I'm trying to change an existing ext4 partition to reiserFS in Centos 6.3 64bit.

I've updated the kernel to Centos Plus:

First, I've updated /etc/yum.repos.d/CentOS-Base.repo:

  • In the [centosplus] section:

    enabled=1
includepkgs=kernel*

Then I ran yum ypdate and my Kernel was updated to Centos Plus:

[root@vappsil disk]# uname -r
2.6.32-279.11.1.el6.centos.plus.x86_64

Then, I've added this to /etc/yum.repos.d/CentOS-Base.repo

  • into the [centosplus] section:

    includepkgs=kernel* jfsutils reiserfs-utils

  • into the [base] and [updates] section:

    includepkgs=kernel* jfsutils reiserfs-utils

But when trying to execute:

yum install reiserfs-utils

I get:

No package reiserfs-utils available.

How can I install the reiserFS-utils package to create a reiserFS partition?

ewwhite
  • 194,921
  • 91
  • 434
  • 799
Alon Adler
  • 213
  • 2
  • 10
  • Why? Are you trying to use Reiser to solve a particular problem? – ewwhite Oct 28 '12 at 13:57
  • 2
    Why? Do you want to kill your files? – Michael Hampton Oct 28 '12 at 13:57
  • 1
    It's a killer filesystem, but not in a good way. – Lucas Kauffman Oct 28 '12 at 14:03
  • I have a slow database performance, simple INSERT queries takes much more time on my own server than on a simple GoDaddy Centos 5.8 32bit server. I've seen that the database files on the GoDaddy server are on a reiserFS file system. Do you have any idea what can be the problem ? Or how can I tune the ext4 file system to Database performance ? – Alon Adler Oct 28 '12 at 14:10

4 Answers4

11

Don't do it. ReiserFS is not regarded as a good filesystem option these days and may not be under active development.

You have several other solid filesystem options here in 2012. Are you trying to solve a particular problem? If so, XFS, btrfs, maybe even tuning of your ext4, may be better ideas for supportability and compatibility.

Community
  • 1
ewwhite
  • 194,921
  • 91
  • 434
  • 799
  • I have a slow database performance, simple `INSERT` queries takes much more time on my own server than on a simple GoDaddy Centos 5.8 32bit server. I've seen that the database files on the GoDaddy server are on a reiserFS file system. Do you have any idea what can be the problem ? Or how can I tune the ext4 file system to Database performance ? – Alon Adler Oct 28 '12 at 14:08
  • 1
    @Alon_A There are some filesystem tuning steps that could make a difference. I'd like to refer you to [my answer to this question](http://serverfault.com/questions/430955/openfiler-iscsi-performance/431112#431112), or advise you to open a new question on how to tune your database's FS performance. With RHEL 6.x, your biggest gain will come from changing the I/O scheduler to `deadline`. – ewwhite Oct 28 '12 at 14:11
  • 1
    It seems like installing the `tuned-utils` and changing the profile to `virtual-host` solved the performance issue. Event without installing the Murder's file system ;0).... THANKS A LOT for the help !!! We were looking for a solution for almost 2 months ! – Alon Adler Oct 28 '12 at 15:36
  • The answer seemed really weird. The OP is asking for a solution, and the answer was not to use ReiserFS? Having experiencing ext2, ext3, ReiserFS (10+years), and lately ext4 - none has the speed and robustness of Reiserfs. Till today, ext4 still has the problem of not being able to free up space even though I had deleted lots of files. Overall Reiserfs is still among the best. – Peter Teoh Apr 24 '14 at 14:22
  • 6
    @PeterTeoh it would be a bad business and technical decision to deploy a filesystem like Reiser *today*. No mainstream support, shaky mindshare and is a solution to a problem that other filesystems have fixed. Also, the OP [found their solution](http://serverfault.com/questions/443134/centos-6-3-install-reiserfs-support/443137?noredirect=1#comment479456_443137) in this answer. – ewwhite Apr 24 '14 at 14:24
  • 5
    Using ReiserFS sounds good, but the support these days will kill you. – Rob Moir Apr 24 '14 at 14:27
  • @RobM I have no need for ReiserFS support since 10+years of using it, instead, ext4 all the time is giving me problems, (eg, yesterday), and I am hardly can find support, or have to go a long distance to find support. – Peter Teoh Apr 24 '14 at 15:15
6

First of all, let me respond to the ReiserFS naysayers:

a) ReiserFS3 is a stable, fast, space-efficient (specially with lots of small files), reasonably maintained (just check the kernel changelogs) and extremely robust filesystem: I've used ReiserFS in all my servers (a few dozen of them) since 2001 or so and it has never given me any trouble. In fact, in a client of mine with constant electrical power interruptions, they repeatedly had to restore EXT4-based machines from backups because the entire filesystem was frequently hosed beyond fsck repair, but the CentOS servers we configured for them almost 4 years ago (using ReiserFS3 of course) have never ever lost any data (and just keep on going to this day). I've noticed reader-writer-consistency problems with some of the more modern kernels (2.6.37 comes to mind), but with all stable 2.6.x kernels up to and including 2.6.32, ReiserFS3 runs solidly as a rock.

b) Of course what Hans Reiser did is wrong, and I for one am glad he's in prison paying for his crime. But an idea isn't responsible for the acts of its creator... Or would anyone seriously propose that Hans Reiser's murder of his wife is in any way connected with the ReiserFS filesystem?

c) The OP requested a solution to run ReiserFS on his CentOS server, not a lecture on the merits of other filesystems and/or the demerits of Mr. Hans Reiser, so I think we would all do a lot better if we just stick to the matter at hand.

That said, here's the solution the OP asked for:

1) Add the ElRepo repository to your YUM configuration: just follow the directions at the "Get Started" section of the ElRepo site.

2) Run "yum update" to pull in repo metadata about the available packages;

3) Run "yum install kmod-reiserfs reiserfs-utils"; that way you will install both the kernel module and the needed userland utility programs (mount, mkfs, fsck, etc).

Done!

tombull89
  • 2,958
  • 8
  • 39
  • 52
durval
  • 61
  • 2
  • 5
    +1 for the impassioned defense of Reiser. However, the OP's performance problems are a result of the new kernel scheduling algoritms in the 6.x release of Red Hat/CentOS. Filesystem choice was irrelevant at this point. Furthermore, I would not advocate deploying a dying or dead filesystem because of long-term stability and support concerns. There are indeed better options out there. – ewwhite Oct 28 '12 at 16:54
5

ReiserFS does not appear to be supported at all in RHEL 6 / CentOS 6. No such package exists in the CentOS repositories, nor is filesystem support available in the kernel.

Michael Hampton
  • 237,123
  • 42
  • 477
  • 940
-1

Use centos plus repo to obtain kernel-plus RPM, then install reiserfs-util RPM from elrepo which seems latest. Now you can mount/mkfs reiserfs.

user382851
  • 1