[rhn-users] manipulating linux partitions

Paul A. Kennedy pakenned at beckman.uiuc.edu
Wed Aug 25 14:38:42 UTC 2004


On Wed, Aug 25, 2004 at 03:20:34PM +0200, espen.ekeroth at om.com wrote:
> This points back to step one (as Paul says). If RedHat had given more
> choices at installation time, some of these problems would not have been.

I have experience with setting up LVM on RHL 9, and RHEL AS3 (and possibly
RH7.3, but I wouldn't swear to it).  There have been limitation to what the
supplied installation tool has provided, but typically a root prompt on virtual
console two allows one to circumvent those problems.  This does require that
you have planned sufficiently ahead of time to know how you want things
configured.

I think that the root prompt allows you all the choices that you could possibly
want.  The limitation isn't that of Red Hat.

Some of the nuances of LVM on top of RAID weren't handled well in their
installation tool.  But again, root prompt and armed with knowledge, I was able
to set things up by hand as I wanted, and the installer was able to deal with
what it was presented at the partitioning step.

There's also automating the process using kickstart, which allows pretty much
anything you could imagine.  That's my usual route.


> A question here: How to install a ES or similar system with LVM ?
 
I do not know whether there are any peculiarities of ES, but I would figure the
same as any other RHEL install.  Their latest graphical installation tools
allow LVM over RAID.  (If you, or others on the list, really want the steps,
then I can provide that, but I figured that your question was a little more
toward the rhetorical side, and leading to your next question.)


> Do you have to install everything first and then reconfigure the system by
> hand?

Well, let's look at it this way...  If this were possible, then the original
poster wouldn't be in the situation that he is in now.

You need to plan your configuration before you install (i.e., LVM with your
best "partitioning" choice at the time of install, or LVM on top of RAID).  

Quite simply, I don't think there was any plan for high availibility for the
machine in the original post, since there is no RAID or anything.  Given that
the machine wasn't set up with high availability in mind, I don't think that it
reasonable to expect high availibility solutions for migrating away from a
simple setup.

Paul


> "Paul A. Kennedy" <pakenned at beckman.uiuc.edu> 25.08.2004 15:09
> 
>        To:     Red Hat Network Users List <rhn-users at redhat.com>
>        cc:     (bcc: Espen Ekeroth/OMT/OMGROUP)
>        Subject:        Re: [rhn-users] manipulating linux partitions
> 
> 
> On Wed, Aug 25, 2004 at 07:33:24AM +0200, espen.ekeroth at om.com wrote:
> > This thread points at what I would say is one of the problems with linux
> > today - the lack of a standard tool for working with file systems. I
> have
> > been working with HP-UX for some years, and the abillity to enlarge and
> > change file systems while they are in use are very nice to have when the
> > system is in production. The HP-UX tool is not perfect (you may not
> > downsize a filesystem without creating a new one and copy the files
> > [downtime]), but other tasks like moving a filesystem from one disk to
> > another may be done in runtime.
> 
> A lot of the funtionality of which you speak is available as part of
> LVM in Linux.  With enough planning, most of this (perhaps even all)
> could have been painless.
> 
> The problem that I see is that not enough planning is done when people
> set up systems.  The problem presented is absolutely classic 'how do I
> simply fix a bad partitioning choice now?'  The answer is that you
> can't and you don't.
> 
> The question that should have been asked when the machine was set up
> is 'what is my migration path when I find that I need more space on
> one of my partitions'.  If that question had been answered at the time
> the machine was set up, then this person wouldn't have been in such a
> bind now.
> 
> Paul
> 
> 
> > [snip...]
> 
> > > I have redhat enterprise WS installed on my computer partitioned as
> > > shown below.  How do i manipulate partitions and resize them? Example,
> > > how do i reduce /usr and expand /var.  Thanks in advance for any
> inputs.
> > >
> > > Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
> > > /dev/hda7            1012M  275M  686M  29% /
> > > none                     0     0     0   -  /proc
> > > none                     0     0     0   -  /dev/pts
> > > usbdevfs                 0     0     0   -  /proc/bus/usb
> > > /dev/hda1            1012M   38M  923M   4% /boot
> > > /dev/hda2              20G  1.4G   17G   8% /home
> > > none                  503M     0  503M   0% /dev/shm
> > > /dev/hda3             2.0G   61M  1.9G   4% /tmp
> > > /dev/hda8              48G  2.5G   43G   6% /usr
> > > /dev/hda6            1012M  313M  648M  33% /var
> > >
> > > System Info:
> > > redhat-release-3WS-7.2
> > > Linux 2.4.21-15.EL i386 GNU/Linux
> 
> 
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