Re: CentOS and LVM partitions

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Author: Matt Graham
Date:  
To: plug-discuss
Subject: Re: CentOS and LVM partitions
After a long battle with technology, der.hans wrote:
> CentOS is wanting to install the /boot partition on a primary partition
> and the rest of the partitions on an LVM partition.


Yep. If it were possible to have /boot on LVM, it's probably want to do that
too.

> fdisk -l then only lists two partitions. One needs to know to put
> subsequent boot partitions as primary or extended rather than LVM.


Why would you need more than one /boot ? AFAICT, a 100M /boot can hold every
kernel image, initrd, and grub.conf for 10 different distros. Typically, you
don't have that many on one machine, but EPID.

> It also becomes not so easy to debug partition issues because you can't
> see them through normal mechanisms.


Most RescueCDs now support LVM2.

> Anybody have an opinion on using LVM partitions?


LVM is great if A) you've read the LVM-HOWTO and understand it B) you don't
need to read or write the disks on a non-Linux machine.

A is important because there are a number of gotchas with the
PV/VG/LV/filesystem resizing that are not immediately obvious. And it's
*much* easier to expand PVs, VGs, LVs, and filesystems than it is to shrink
them, so don't make 99% of the disk a PV unless you are sure you won't need
any normal partitions. And make sure you've made your ext3 filesystems with
reserved blocks in the GDT if you ever plan on expanding them! Check it with
mke2fs -n first; older versions of e2fsprogs didn't allocate spare GDT space
unless you told them to.

B is important because right now, nothing but Linux can grok LVM. This is why
my laptop doesn't use LVM; occasionally I have to run 'Doze for work.

--
You don't change the way people think by changing what they
say. You change the way people think with HEADLESS CHARRED BODIES
FLYING THROUGH THE AIR! BLOOD! FLAMES! --Alastair J. R. Young
There is no Darkness in Eternity/But only Light too dim for us to see
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