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NTFS Support under RedHat Linux

RedHat Linux is the Linux distribution I favour and I've been running since the first time I installed linux on my desktop workstation. The standard kernel that comes with the system (checked on 7.3 and 8.0) doesn't have support for reading data of NTFS-partitions out of the box and since I've had the need to do this I've written this small article about how to make it work - mostly for my own sake so I have a place to look when I've forgotten how to do it. It should be possible to be reading the NTFS-partition within 5 minutes.


The guide is written with RedHat 7.3 and 8.0 in mind, but should work with other distributions - except the package installation part.

Kernel source code

First thing to be done is to check if the source code for the Linux kernel is installed, and if not install it.

# rpm -qa | grep kernel-source

if this command doesn't return something simular to kernel-source-2.x.xx.rpm then the kernel source package isn't installed and you need to run the following command to install the package before continuing.

# rpm -Ivh http://ftp.redhat.com/pub/redhat/linux/8.0/en/os/i386/RedHat/RPMS/kernel-source-2.4.18-14.i386.rpm

Become root and run config

$ su -
# cd /usr/src/linux-2.4
# make xconfig

Filesystems -> Select M (for module) for the NTFS support option

Remember not to activate write support

Save and exit

Compiling the kernel module

# make dep
# make modules
# make modules_install
# /sbin/modprobe ntfs
# cat /proc/filesystems

the /proc/filesystem should now contain ntfs, indicating that the kernel now has support for reading NTFS partitions.