Re: LVM root?

[Daniel Tryba <daniel@tryba.nl>]

On Wed, Oct 11, 2006 at 09:15:33AM -0400, dtutty@porchlight.ca wrote:
> Right, but I'm trying to decide if I should put / on LVM.  
> 
> To summarize what I've heard so far:
> 
> Advantage:	Able to resize.

Which is a negligible advantage. How often is the need for this? Disk
space for / varies between 100Mb to 500Mb on my machines. Instal
with a generous 2Gb for / only and you "never" need to worry about it
filling up.

> Disadvantages:
> 	-	Grub doesn't support LVM so need /boot on a regular
> 		partition.
> 
> 	-	Difficult or impossible to boot up a rescue CD and
> 		rescue a corrupted root fs.
[snip]
> Would there be any disadvantage to this?

/ is to valuable to lose. IMHO a single disk setup is a no go.

Just to add my 2cents:

new machines get (multiple (identical) disks with) 2 partitions on them:
1 - a small 2Gb (type fd)
2 - the rest (type fd)

The small partitions are combined in a md0 array raid1, the others in
whatever you like (most likely 5, 1 otherwise) md1 array.

/dev/md0 will be used for /.
/dev/md1 will be a pv for lvm.

This adds redundancy, plus any of the partition that make up the raid1
for / can be mounted on its own (but writing to one will break the
array). Adding a disk creates an other copy of /, and with the newer
kernels a raid5 array can be expanded, so it can be used by the LVM.

But this still creates a static sized /, which IMHO is no problem IF the
initial size is big enough.

-- 

 When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.

   Daniel Tryba