Moving /home to a LVM

[Sorin Srbu]

Sorin Srbu <> scribbled on Wednesday, December 19, 2007 10:44 PM:

Basic steps (taken from our dept's support-kb). All steps done as root:

1. Inform user of plans to add new harddrive and tell them to backup anything
important off of the particular computer should anything go seriously
pearshaped.

2. Shutdown computer.

3. Install new hd.

4. Boot computer.

5. Set computer to runlevel 1 (single-user login), so that no users may log on
while finishing the move.

6. Check /etc/sysconfig/hwconfig to find out what the hd is actually called.
Should normally be "hdb".

7. Run "fdisk /dev/hdb" to prepare the new disk.

8. Press p to see a partition list.

9. Press n to create a new partition hdb1. Use primary, 1, 1 and the default
settings.

10. Press w to write the partition data and stuff to disk.

11. Run "mkfs.ext3 /dev/hdb1" to format the partition.

12. Move the old /home to eg /home.bak, "mv /home /home.bak".

13. Create new /home, "mkdir /home".

14. Mount the new new hd to /home, "mount /dev/hdb1 /home".

15. Copy the data from /home.bak to /home, "cp -vrf /home.bak /home".

16. Edit /etc/fstab to automount /dev/hdb1 as /home at boot. Copy the deault
settings; compare with other mounts in fstab.

17. Reboot.

18. Ensure the computer is running at runlevel 5 (multiuser with X).

[19. Optional: Leave /home.bak in place until you see all is working as it
should, after this you can delete it as appropriate.]


HTH.



> Joey Prestia <> scribbled on Wednesday, December 19, 2007 9:17 PM:
> 
> I did this just the other day, although not using LVMs, just ragular
> old-school partitioning - I find those confusing and difficult to tweak
> later. 
> 
> I'll mail the steps I did in the morning thursday; am home now and don't
> my notes here. It's not that difficult, unless you start from LVMs on
> your old drive...
> 
> 
>> I am out of room on my /home partition which is just ext3 and I am
>> wanting to move it to a unpartitioned area which i plan on making a LVM
>> and once the data is moved I want to make the old /home partition LVM
>> also and join it to the new LVM that I am creating. What I am unsure of
>> is how to move the data do I just tar it up and move it to the LVM and
>> untar it add the new part to fstab and take the old part out? will I
>> have to reboot? any Help greatly appreciated.
>> 
>> Thanks Joey