How to check or enable/disable the

journal feature on an ext4 filesystem ?

SOLUTION VERIFIED - Updated April 19 2018 at 12:33 PM -
English

Environment
 Red Hat Enterprise Linux(RHEL) 5
 Red Hat Enterprise Linux(RHEL) 6
 EXT4

Issue
 Is it possible to enable/disable Journaling on an EXT4 File
System?
 How can journaling be enable/disabled on an EXT4 Filesystem?

Resolution
 To test if the journal feature is enabled, run :

Raw

# tune2fs -l /path/to/device-name.

 Under the features section of the above command output,

has_journal indicates that journal is enabled on this
filesystem.

Raw

Filesystem features: has_journal ext_attr resize_inode dir_index

filetype needs_recovery extent flex_bg sparse_super large_file huge_file
uninit_bg dir_nlink extra_isize

 To DISABLE the journal feature on an ext4 filesystem prefixed

with a caret character ('^'), use this command::
RHEL 5:

Raw

# tune4fs -O ^has_journal device-name

NOTE: - In Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.x Package "e4fsprogs-1.41.9-

3.el5" is required for the command.

RHEL 6

Raw

# tune2fs -O ^has_journal device-name

NOTE: - Filesystem needs to unmounted prior removing journal from the

underlying device on which filesystem has been created.

 To ENABLE the journal feature on an ext4 filesystem without a

prefix character or prefixed with a plus character ('+'),, use
this command::

Raw

# tune2fs -O has_journal device-name

or

# tune2fs -O +has_journal device-name

Root Cause
Raw

# man tune2fs

-O [^]feature[,...]
 Set or clear the indicated filesystem features (options) in
the filesystem.

More than one filesystem feature can be cleared or set by

separating features with commas.

Filesystem features prefixed with a caret character ('^')

will be cleared in the filesystem's superblock;

filesystem features without a prefix character or prefixed

with a plus character ('+') will be added to

the filesystem. For a detailed description of the file system

features, please see the man page ext4(5).