Re: [partman] How to keep data in existing partitions

[Anton Zinoviev <anton@lml.bas.bg>]

On Tue, Jan 10, 2006 at 06:34:44PM +0100, Free Ekanayaka wrote:
> 
> Ok, by reading  through the partman manual  I figure out  more or less
> how  the  system work, and   how  could  I  use  the  commands of  the
> parted_server to  write a shell script  to decide whether to format or
> keep the data.

Partman-auto is not designed to reuse existing partitions.  If you
instruct it not to format the partition for /home then it will create
a new partition for /home and it will try to use it without
formatting.  This won't be a partition that already exists.

> But   still  I don't understand exactly   where  should I  install the
> script. I've seen that  partman-auto  installs items in various   menu
> directories. According to the manual the first one to bu run should be
> the one in the choose_partition directory:

I suppose the following will do the job.  First, a script at the end
of init.d:

if there_is_a_partition_for_/home; then
   create a recipy for / and swap only
else
   create a recipy for /, /home and swap
fi

Second partman-auto autopartitions the free space of the disc acording
to the new recipy.

Third, a script at the start of finish.d:

if a_recipy_without_/home_has_been_used; then
   create files use_filesystem, filesystem and mountpoint in the \
      partition directory of the partition for /home
fi

Anton Zinoviev