Re: Moving to reiserfs with kernel 2.4.3

[Dave Carrigan <dave@rudedog.org>]

Alex Suzuki <asuzuki@bluewin.ch> writes:

> Maybe I will just buy a new harddrive (I wanted to buy one anyway),
> partition it, format it, then copy the stuff, run lilo... bang :)
> I guess that's the safest way to upgrade to reiserfs or xfs.
> What do you think?

I have been slowly migrating some ext2 systems I manage to xfs. Here is
the steps I have been taking. The systems were initially set up with a
single /dev/hda1 ext2 partition for everything (plus a small /dev/hda2
partition for swap).

0. Back up /var, /etc, /usr/local and any other directories that can't
   be recreated with a fresh Debian install.

1. Install your new kernel with xfs or reiserfs support and make sure it
   actually boots correctly.

2. Boot from a rescue cd that includes the GNU parted program. The
   rescue cd's kernel doesn't have to be your kernel, and it doesn't
   need xfs or reiserfs support on it.

3. Run `parted /dev/hda' and do
   a. print
   b. resize 1 xxxx 5000
   c. rm 2
   d. print
   e. mkpart primary linux-swap yyyy 5256
   f. print
   g. mkpart primary yyyy 10000

   This essentially resizes the ext2 filesystem on /dev/hda1 into half,
   moves the swap partition into the middle of the disk, and creates
   another partition at the end. The numbers in the example assume the
   disk is exactly 10GB; YMMV. 

   The value of xxxx is determined from the starting value of the first
   partition. You can't change the starting value of an ext2 filesystem
   when you're resizing it. So, if the starting value from print said
   0.023, then your xxxx would be 0.023.

   The value of yyyy is determined by looking at the ending partition
   numbers from the print and adding 0.1. So, if parted prints that
   partition 1 goes from 0.023 to 4998.234, then yyyy in step d would be
   4998.3.

4. Reboot into single user mode: hit shift at the lilo prompt, and do
   linux -s, or do a full boot, then do `shutdown now'.

5. Create an xfs filesystem on the new partition and mount it:

   mkfs.xfs /dev/hda3
   mount -t xfs /dev/hda3 /mnt

6. Copy / to the new partition:

   cd /
   find . -xdev -print0 | cpio -pvdm0 /mnt

7. Edit /mnt/etc/{fstab,lilo.conf} to represent the fact that the root
   partition has changed.

8. Install new lilo boot block with the new info:

   chroot /mnt lilo -v

9. Unmount /mnt, reboot and your system now booting with xfs /
   filesystem on /dev/hda3. 

If you don't want to keep your disks partitioned, then you could use
parted to resize the partitions again, and use the filesystem resizing
tools for xfs (or reiserfs). I've never done that.

-- 
Dave Carrigan (dave@rudedog.org)            | Yow! I'm CONTROLLED by the CIA!!
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Seattle, WA, USA                            | CIA!!
http://www.rudedog.org/                     |