File system compatibility between Apple and CentOS 6.8
 

I'm using a fat32 file system to transfer files to and from my Mac (10.12) and a Linux system running CentOS 6.8. The file system has a maximim file size of 4GB and I need more. exfat appears that it will work but I can't make that file system with mkfs and yum can't find the exfat-utils or fuse-exfat packages. Any suggestions?

HFS+ works much, much better. Just don't count on also being able to read the device from outdated systems like Windows. Just be sure that Journaling is turned off for that removable device once it's formatted for HFS+. There used to be an option with the Disk Utility for that, but I cannot recall what the current status is, you may have to use the shell.

Or, if you are willing to hop through some hoops, you can read EXT4 from OS X and use that.

Just went through this, as Turbo says HFS+ works great. Had a user who needed to transfer 7TB of data to my server. He formatted an 8TB drive HFS+, put in a USB caddy, copied the files to it(took a long time), brought me the disk, I plugged it in and voila the server recognized it and I happily copied the files for him(took a long time).

I am trying to format flash drives. I don't see any way to format as HFS+ on my MAC or
the CentOS 6.8 box.

You probably have to add the tools. Do you have a package called hfsplus-tools available in your repository?

In OS X, you have the Disk Utility which will do it.

I tried formatting on the MAC as exfat and MAC OS extended (journaled). In the first case
the Linux system did not recognise the flash drive when inserted and in the second case a error window popped up saying the file system was not recognised.

As mentioned, you have to turn off journaling. There should be an item in one of the Disk Utility menus about that, before or after the formatting. If not, then you'll have to do it via the shell. Otherwise, the CentOS system won't be able to work with the partition even if you have added the hfs-tools package.

The hfs+ package is in the elrepo repository and the exFAT package is in the nux-dextop repository.

https://wiki.centos.org/AdditionalRe...s/Repositories

No way in the MAC disk utility to turn off journaling that I could see.
I will soldier on. Thanks for your help.

If you mean Mac then there are several good sources of information. Here's one:

https://support.apple.com/en-md/HT204435

I found this link:
http://julio.meroh.net/2007/04/how-t...fs-volume.html
and executed the command and it ran successfully but the volume still would
not mount in CentOS. The error reads: Error mounting: mount: unknown filesystem type 'hfsplus'

Many distros read HFS+ out of the box. Apparently CentOS needs you to add a package. See post #8 in this thread. Add that and you should be good to go.

I tried executing 'yum install elrepo' and 'yum install nux-dextop' and yum did not know about
these packages.

Go to the elrepo website and follow the instructions to enable the repository. Once enabled you can use yum to install hfs+ packages.

http://elrepo.org/tiki/tiki-index.php

OK, problem solved. I installed package kmod-hfsplus and I was able to
mount an unjournaled HFS+ file system. Thanks much.