running out of disk space on root partition? here's how...

[lou1z]

running out of space on your root partition? ruby not starting etc? a quick df -h shows 100% use on /?

simply add a new physical hard drive or extend your virtual drive and:

1. let's call the new drive /dev/sdc or if virtually extending your drive sdc1 (as i did)
2. fdisk /dev/sdc
3. n for new partition and go through all the defaults to use all the new space
4. w for write the partition table and reboot
5. fdisk -l to show your new partition (hopefully it's there!)
6. mkfs.ext3 /dev/sdc1 to make a ext3 file system on the new partition
7. pvcreate /dev/sdc1 to get the partition initialised
8. vgextend vg_hda /dev/sdc1 to add it to vg_hda (amahi's default lvm group)
9. lvextend -L +20G /dev/mapper/vg_hda-lv_root to add a 20gig disk. If you get errors here about not enough extents etc, just reduce the size gradually eg 18G until it fits.
10. resize2fs /dev/mapper/vg_hda-lv_root to resize the file system
11. do a reboot
12. do a df -h to see the new size on /

the above will work on a new disk or if you have any free space on another partition. simples!!

[moredruid]

1. let's call the new drive /dev/sdc or if virtually extending your drive sdc1 (as i did)
2. fdisk /dev/sdc
3. n for new partition and go through all the defaults to use all the new space
4. w for write the partition table and reboot
5. fdisk -l to show your new partition (hopefully it's there!)
6. mkfs.ext3 /dev/sdc1 to make a ext3 file system on the new partition
7. pvcreate /dev/sdc1 to get the partition initialised
8. vgextend vg_hda /dev/sdc1 to add it to vg_hda (amahi's default lvm group)
9. lvextend -L +20G /dev/mapper/vg_hda-lv_root to add a 20gig disk. If you get errors here about not enough extents etc, just reduce the size gradually eg 18G until it fits.
10. resize2fs /dev/mapper/vg_hda-lv_root to resize the file system
11. do a reboot
12. do a df -h to see the new size on /

a bit of critique:
step 4 - you forget to set the partition type in fdisk: t for type, 8e for Linux LVM; then w to write the config
step 4 - reboot is not necessary; just run "partprobe /dev/sdc" (or the name of the drive you added).
step 6 - is unnecessary (pointless even, because you will redo the mkfs.ext3 action with the resize2fs action)
step 8 - you assume that vg_hda exists as a volume group. This may or may not be true depending on setup/installation method.
step 9 - run "vgdisplay vg_hda" (or the name of your own volume group) to see the number of free extents/space (in the line with free PE in the summary it displays) to see the maximum additional space you can assign to a logical volume.
step 11 - not necessary

extending a filesystem shouldn't give you downtime other than adding a physical disk.

I wouldn't be able to help my customers without all the online features, imagine them needing to stop all applications with each filesystem extension

[lou1z]

point taken. it was the first time i'd extended / so i was being a little cautious in making sure everything was in place.
painless and went well so next time i'll try it without the reboots or formats.