USB drive Read/Write - NTFS
 

2.6.9-42.ELsmp, i686, Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS release 4 (Nahant Update 4)

a usb drive with a fat partition works fine, but my filesize is > 4GB
therefore after 4gb the copy terminates

can mount ntfs partitioned drive but only read only mode

searched and read about fuse and ntfs-3g
tried running configure for fuse , since it was giving errors
===
configure: error:
*** Please specify the location of the kernel source with
*** the '--with-kernel=SRCDIR' option
===

installed fuse rpm and did a modprobe fuse, can see it in lsmod

#rpm -qa | grep fuse
kernel-module-fuse-2.6.9-42.ELsmp-2.5.3-1.SL

when i try to run ./configure for ntfs-3g-1.1104
to the PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable
No package 'fuse' found
no
configure: error: FUSE >= 2.6.0 was not found. Either it's not fully installed (e.g. fuse, fuse-utils, libfuse, libfuse2, libfuse-dev, etc packages) or files from an old version are still present. See FUSE at http://fuse.sf.net/

Can anyone guide?

Not sure on that old of kernel as to what is available. Since fuse is installed which is referring to kmod which means kernel module rpm built just for that version of kernel. At that time the fuse is not 2.6 version in 2.6.9 kernel time frame is my guess. The new kernels have fuse as a module option for 2.6 kernels.

This is what i would do and still use the current kernel you have.
You need to install the kernel source which is why fuse build would not work. Since this looks like the default installed kernel from the CD you need to install the kernel-devel-2.6.9-42.ELsmp.rpm which is found on the CD It may differ a bit in name but looking for kernel-devel for the most part. Once you find it run this command as root to install it. ' rpm -ivh kernel-devel*.rpm '
Now once installed you can download the latest fuse source and build it and install. Then you can build the ntfs-3g source and install. Follow the install docs for both.

Now if you upgrade the kernel you will have to go through all this again because the fuse was built just for the old kernel. It will not work on the new kernel even if you copy the module from one to the other. Must be built per kernel basis.

What would be a better option is get to say 2.6.20 to 2.6.22 kernel level and if you find precompiled RPM file for that install that. I believe in most precompiled kernels in this level they have built fuse into them since it is now part of new kernels starting somewhere around 2.6.16 i think.

I would guess you have a service contract with Redhat for RHAS and not sure how they feel about newer kernels as far a service contracts go. To me who cares on that part.

Be warned on NTFS writing. It is not perfect. never mount an uncleanly unmounted ntfs partition. It gives you a choice to force mount it but don't do it. Let windows mount it and fix it before mounting under linux and ntfs-3g.

Now the kernel does have ntfs read as most default configured in the kernel rpm. The kernel does have ntfs write abilty which is completely different than ntfs-3g. Now the one in the kernel is even worst and can hose an ntfs partition in millsecods if something goes wrong. I have used it but never a problem just a warning on ntfs writing.

Brian

First of all thanks a lot for such a detailed answer.I really appreciate it.

As per your instructions i've installed the rpm kernel-devel from the cd
# rpm -qa | grep kernel-devel
kernel-devel-2.6.9-42.EL

./configure still gives me the same error.

=== configuring in kernel (/usr/local/src/fuse-2.7.1/kernel)
configure: running /bin/sh ./configure '--prefix=/usr/local' --cache-file=/dev/null --srcdir=.
checking for a BSD-compatible install... /usr/bin/install -c
checking if FUSE is loaded as a module... no
checking if FUSE module is built into the kernel... no
checking if FUSE module is from official kernel... no
checking kernel source directory... Not found
configure: error:
*** Please specify the location of the kernel source with
*** the '--with-kernel=SRCDIR' option
configure: error: ./configure failed for kernel
===

Does seem odd the kernel is not said to be there. I don't know of a seperate rpm called kernel-headers-*****.rpm for it. I don't think you would need that if it exist. Have to give this some thought.
What is in /usr/src/kernels?

Brian

as you mentioned, i tried ./configure --with-kernel=/usr/src/kernel....
It worked fine.
./configure for ntfs-3g also completed
(any step after this ? )

I plugged in the usb , its still mounting in read write mode.
The errors in /var/log/adm as below.

==
NTFS-fs error (device sda1): ntfs_check_logfile(): The two restart pages in $LogFile do not match.
NTFS-fs error (device sda1): load_system_files(): Failed to load $LogFile. Mounting read-only. Mount in Windows
NTFS volume version 3.1.
NTFS-fs error (device sda1): ntfs_check_logfile(): The two restart pages in $LogFile do not match.
NTFS-fs error (device sda1): load_system_files(): Failed to load $LogFile. Mounting read-only. Mount in Windows
NTFS volume version 3.1.
NTFS-fs error (device sda1): ntfs_check_logfile(): The two restart pages in $LogFile do not match.
NTFS-fs error (device sda1): load_system_files(): Failed to load $LogFile. Mounting read-only. Mount in Windows
NTFS driver 2.1.20 [Flags: R/W MODULE].
NTFS volume version 3.1.
NTFS-fs error (device sda1): ntfs_check_logfile(): The two restart pages in $LogFile do not match.
NTFS-fs error (device sda1): load_system_files(): Failed to load $LogFile. Mounting read-only. Mount in Windows
===

I read ure earlier messages again, ad since the usb drive was empty, decided to go ahead with the "force " option. Although it gave warnings, the drive is not mounted with read/write permission.

Brain, Thankyou.

============
mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sda1 /mnt/usb -o force
$LogFile indicates unclean shutdown (0, 1)
WARNING: Forced mount, reset $LogFile.
WARNING: Deficient Linux kernel detected. Some driver features are
not available (swap file on NTFS, boot from NTFS by LILO), and
unmount is not safe unless it's made sure the ntfs-3g process
naturally terminates after calling 'umount'. If you wish this
message to disappear then you should upgrade to at least kernel
version 2.6.20, or request help from your distribution to fix
the kernel problem. The below web page has more information:
http://ntfs-3g.org/support.html#fuse26
============

Typed "not instead of now"

Conclusion--
Although it gave warnings, the drive is now mounted with read/write permission.

Glad to see you have it installed and working.

Brian