[linux-lvm] Gated and Re: FAQ Question not found

[Nicolas Brouard]

Thanks a lot to people having answer my naive question : experimenting LVM on a laptop with only one physical hard disk.

I haven't had the opportunity to test LVM with my new 6.4Gb (Toshiba) on my Dell Xpi 133MHZ laptop.
The reason is that I got problems with this disk during a fdisk action: I partitionned the disk with one primary partition for Windows98 and an extended partition for the rest of the disk. I used WIndows fdisk for creating windows primary and extended partitions and used Linux fdisk to create linux partitions within the extended partitions. The problem I got is that the controller of the disk tried to read, apparently, wrong sectors, and started to make noise and bangs. I stopped the computer and rebooted with the already defined partitions (Windows and linux) and it worked. But when I tried to use fdisk on windows to create other partitions like D: for windows,  it started again to bang and this time it was fatal. The disk was no more recognized at boot time (it is not a MBR problem but a hardware problem) and I am waiting for a new disk from the constructor even if I don't know  the reason for the break. So, I haven't had time to play with LVM with this disk!

Concurrently I also upgraded my desktop, a Dell XPs 166 MHZ, from 2.6 GB to 8.4 GB. I downloaded the new bios and the sytem was now able to recognize the disk in auto mode. I have been able to setup again Windows and Linux (using xcopy32 for Windows and a simple tar for Linux) by copying the old disk on the new one (on a desktop we have place for two disks, not on a laptop). 

Everything was fine. But looking at the WEB on how to do easier partitionning, I founded "Partition magic" (on WIndows) which is commercial and  "parted" on Linux which is free but still experimental. I installed parted on linux. But unfortunately, parted told me that the real size of my new disk did not correspond to what was written in the master boot record. In fact gated was correct, the Dell Bios (even if updated) did a wrong translation address and  I was losing 500 Mb. 

I lacked of courage to force the Dell bios to work with fixed Cylinder Head (I am under but close to the 8.4 GB limit) and to reformat all the Windows and Linux partitions and to reimplement everything.

So, now  I have a working system but I am not able to play with partitions and to implement LVM. But I discovered the existence of "gated", even if I haven't been able to experiment it. 

And here is my question:
Is "gated" a serious alternative to LVM? I am not trying to add "online" a new disk and, still online, remove the old one, with a nice LVM which tranparently copies the old disk to the new one. That kind of operation was possible on AIX LVM. But I am simply trying to find a tool which increases progressively the size of my different partitions according to my changing needs. "Gated" seemed to do the job.

Any remark on gated?

Nicolas Brouard
brouard at ined.fr

 
----- Message d'origine ----- 
De : Heinz Mauelshagen <mauelsha at ez-darmstadt.telekom.de>
À : <brouard at ined.fr>
Cc : <mge at ts1.ez-darmstadt.telekom.de>; <linux-lvm at msede.com>
Envoyé : lundi 18 octobre 1999 19:54
Objet : Re: [linux-lvm] FAQ Question not found



Hi Nicolaus.

> 
> I have used and appreciated LVM on AIX for years. The main use for me
> consisted in having initially a hard disk too big for my actual but
> increasing needs.
> It was very nice to increase a filesystem like /home /usr/local or /var when
> mail traffic increased.
> Now I have a similar need. I am using a laptop with 2Gb. I bought a 6Gb hard
> disk which should replace the old one. I would like to have at the beginning
> 2Gb for Win98 and some initially small logical volumes for a Linux system.
> With my 2Gb old disk, I used 1Gb for Windows and 1Gb for Linux.
> 
> Is it a good idea to try to implement LVM for the linux partition?

Yes 8*)

> How does it deal with other partitions and the limitation to 4 primary partitions.

Regular and LVM used partitions can coexist on the same disk(s).

> How to begin? Should I first install Linux with arbitrary partitions, and
> then build a LVM kernel and then? I do only have one physical disk and can't
> play so much with other partitions.

Yes, install a basic root only system which doesn't eat to much of your space,
install LVM, setup VG(s) and LVs (for /usr, /opt etc), build filesystems,
mount them and transfer data from your small root fs to the corresponding LVM
based filesystems, change /etc/fstab, put vgscan and "vgchange -ay" into your
system startup script (for eg. /sbin/init.d/boot for SuSE) before ext2 mounts
and reboot.

Install additional packages.

> 
> In fact I do not understand how it works. On AIX, all the disk was managed
> with LVM?

With Linus LVM you are free to manage some disks/partitions or all.

> Here, can I decide that logical volume manager will only deal with
> a big ext2 partition. And within this partition I would be able to have
> variable sized /var /home / ?

No, no ext2 partition. In fact you can use loop devices for evaluation purposes.

But this is _not_ recommended for production systems.
Use disk partitions, mutliple devices or total disks instead.

In pratice only having 1 disk in the first place, use at least 1 partition,
set the partition identifier to 0xfe with fdisk,
do a "pvcreate /dev/YourPartition", "vgcreate YourVG /dev/YourPartition"
and some lvcreate(s). For further command information, please have a look
at the corresponding manuals.

> 
> I would appreciate any help, even if it is: Ok, do fixed partitions and not
> LVM!
> 

Regards,
Heinz

Please look into lvm(8) and LVM-HOWTO for additional information.

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