Alan Dayley wrote:
> I have lost the web page with the steps to do an extension of an LVM
> into unused disk space. Let me explain my situation and ask my
> question.
>
> I have a server with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5. It had two 250GB
> hard drives in a hardware RAID 1 mirror. Working fine. We needed
> more space, so here is what I did:
>
> - Bought two identical model and recommended 1TB drives from Dell.
> (It's a Dell server.)
> - Using the RAID control interface, I took one 250GB drive offline.
> - Shutdown the server and removed the 250GB drive.
> - Installed one of the new 1TB drives in place of the 250GB drive just removed.
> - Powered up the RAID controller BIOS interface and commanded a
> rebuild of the mirror from the remaining 250GB drive to the 1TB drive.
> - Booted the system and everything was working.
> - Shutdown the system and removed the second 250GB drive, replacing it
> with the other 1TB drive.
> - Again used the RAID controller BIOS interface to rebuild the mirror
> from the first 1TB drive to the second one.
> - Booted the system and all is working well!
>
> Except...
>
> Now the partition table of the mirrored 1TB drives still only has
> partitions to use up to the old 250GBs. I need to:
>
> 1 - Update the partition table to expand the last partition into the
> unused 750GB of space. (parted?)
> 2 - Expand the one or more logical volumes into the new space (lvextend)
> 3 - Expand the file system(s) into the new space (resize2fs)
>
> I plan to expand /dev/sda5 into the empty space. It is the last
> partition defined and so the least risky to expand, in my mind. Here
> is the fdisk output:
>
> # fdisk -l
>
> Disk /dev/sda: 248.9 GB, 248999051264 bytes
> 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30272 cylinders
> Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
>
> Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
> /dev/sda1 1 7 56196 de Dell Utility
> /dev/sda2 8 1052 8393962+ 8e Linux LVM
> /dev/sda3 * 1053 1077 200812+ 83 Linux
> /dev/sda4 1078 30272 234508837+ 5 Extended
> /dev/sda5 1078 30272 234508806 8e Linux LVM
> #
>
> Question
>
> I am extending into empty space on currently installed drives. The
> instructions I can find online all seem to assume a new physical drive
> has been added and don't go into the partition issues on step 1 of my
> outline above. All the utilities and commands that produce LVM
> information do not show the vast, unpartitioned space out there. So,
> I assume step 1 is needed to open up the unallocated space into one of
> the partitions.
>
> Am I on the right track, to use "parted" and expand the partition
> definition before expanding a logical volume? Or am I missing
> something or making something more difficult?
>
> Alan
Alan,
I think you're pretty much on track. You can of course expand sda5
partition (I'd use qtparted if possible, probably with a live knoppix
disc). You'd need to then expand the physical volume that's on the
partition (remember, logical volumes belong to a physical volume).
I've never expanded a physical volume, so I don't know if that's even a
possibility or not. I believe you'd either have to expand the physical
volume in the expanded partition, or as an alternative simply create a
new partition in the unused space, then create a new physical volume in
the new partition. Any of your existing logical volumes could then be
expanded by utilizing chunks of the new physical volume.
Make sense? I hope that someone corrects me if I'm wrong here.
--
-Eric 'shubes'
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