[CentOS] centos 5 with xfs root?

[James Pearson]

Eero Volotinen wrote:
> Hi List,
> 
> Is it possible to install centos 5 with xfs root and how to do it?

Yes it is possible - we've been doing just that for years (and with 
centos 4 before that).

The method we use involves using a modified installer (anaconda)

Anaconda for RHEL/centos 5 already has support for XFS - but the bits 
that allow for XFS plus XFS on root (and /boot) are disabled - so in 
simple terms, it is just a case of patching anaconda to allow XFS to be 
selected and used on the root file systems, adding in the various 
xfs_utils apps to the list of apps added to the install image (plus 
having the xfs_utils RPM available), then rebuilding the anaconda RPM 
and finally rebuilding the installer image

Grub will work with XFS /boot - but I had to add a further hacks to 
anaconda to get this to work reliably - it is much better to use ext2|3 
as /boot and still have XFS as the root file system

Of course, none of the above is straight forward or easy :-)

However, I'm not sure there is much to gain by having XFS root and 
(and/or /boot) file systems

James Pearson