# No ext4 xattr in .config kernel 3.11.*

## siknasa9

I didn't really notice this until recently, but I don't have the option to enable extended attributes in ext4 on all 3.11 kernels (they're all I have left since last cleaning). Am I missing something?

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## Hu

CONFIG_EXT4_FS_XATTR is now always enabled as of 3.7.  See commit 939da1084458246d2e29dd921c2012c177000e96.

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## siknasa9

 *Hu wrote:*   

> CONFIG_EXT4_FS_XATTR is now always enabled as of 3.7.  See commit 939da1084458246d2e29dd921c2012c177000e96.

 

Then why does 

```
xattr_test=$(mktemp); setfattr -n 'user.testAttr' -v 'attribute value' $xattr_test &> /dev/null; getfattr $xattr_test 2>&1 | grep -q user.testAttr && echo 'It works!' || echo 'No workie!'; rm $xattr_test
```

 produce "No Workie!!"?

I do have user_xattr on both ext4 partitions in fstab...

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## Hu

What is the output of stat -f $TMPDIR?

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## siknasa9

 *Hu wrote:*   

> What is the output of stat -f $TMPDIR?

 

stat -f $TMPDIR

```
  File: "/tmp"

    ID: 0        Namelen: 255     Type: tmpfs

Block size: 4096       Fundamental block size: 4096

Blocks: Total: 229033     Free: 228596     Available: 228596

Inodes: Total: 229033     Free: 228997
```

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## Hu

If you want to see whether ext4 xattr support is working, why are you editing the attributes on a file on a tmpfs?

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## siknasa9

 *Hu wrote:*   

> If you want to see whether ext4 xattr support is working, why are you editing the attributes on a file on a tmpfs?

 

Not sure. Got this from https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Netflix‎... Though, I'm pretty sure xattr_test=$(mktemp) just writes output to /tmp/tempfile as opposed to testing /tmp. The directory I'm in when executing the script is $HOME which is ext4.

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## Hu

What output would that be?  You never write any output to the temporary file it creates.  Nothing in the test considers the current working directory at all, so the value of $HOME or the filesystem backing it are irrelevant here.  You are testing for working xattr support in $TMPDIR.  If you want this to work, you must enable TMPFS_XATTR in Kconfig.

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## tnt

does that also mean that xattr are enabled per default on all ext4 mounts using recent kernels?

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