Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 124587
reiserfs driver missing from standard kernel
Last modified: 2007-11-30 17:07:02 EST
From Bugzilla Helper: User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7b) Gecko/20040514 Description of problem: The reiserfs kernel modules are missing for the kernel. This has caused problems with a machine that was upgraded from RH9 (which supported resierfs) to RHEL3 (which does not), which when rebooted suddenly could not mount any of its filesystems. This machine is in a managed hosting environment, and cannot be reinstalled from scratch. Compiling a custom kernel is a very high maintenance workaround, and is not acceptable as a long term solution. In other words, please put it back :) Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): kernel-2.4.21-15.EL How reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: xxx Additional info:
We do not support reiserfs. The reason for this position is that in order for us to be able to responsibly support reiser, we would need to fully staff up with the requisite expertiese. Then we would have to go through a comprehensive testing regiment, code review and subsequent fixes as necessary to feel that it is confidently enterprise ready. Due to finite amount of time and developer/testing resources we are not intending to deliver reiserfs on RHEL.
...and the cost of that support is therefore passed directlly onto the end user, who is now faced with the following options: - Compile a custom kernel every time RH releases a new kernel release. - Reinstall a machine that is on the exact opposite side of the world from us, remotely. - Choose another distro in future.
The reiserfs module is present in the kernel-unsupported RPM. This means that the module is available for your use and it almost certainly works. However, it just doesn't go through the rigorous QA process ext3 goes through and isn't supported by our support organisation. OTOH, if there is a bug and a readily available fix (and a user bringing both to our attention), said fix will probably be available in a next update. In short, no need to recompile your kernel.