Re: Post install partitioning
----- Original Message -----
From: "Oliver Elphick" <olly@lfix.co.uk>
To: "alex" <radsky@ncia.net>
Cc: <debian-user@lists.debian.org>
Sent: Friday, July 19, 2002 1:03 AM
Subject: Re: Post install partitioning
> On Thu, 2002-07-18 at 23:52, alex wrote:
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Oliver Elphick" <olly@lfix.co.uk>
> ...
> > > Suppose you want to create a new partition for /var:
> > >
> > > Boot into single-user mode - this is because with /var you
will be
> > > deleting stuff that is currently in use in a multi-user
> > > environment. It isn't necessary if you're moving /home or the
> > like.
> > >
> > > # cfdisk /dev/hdc # partition new hard disk
> >
> > hdc??? I think my hdc is for CDROM but I do have / installed on
hdb.
> > Can't I just make additional partitions for /var and the others on
hdb
> > or hda
> > with appropriate partition numbers?
>
> Of course; /dev/hdc was chosen by way of example only.
>
> /dev/hdc is the master disk on the second IDE channel; /dev/hdb is the
> slave on the first channel. I believe that, if you are adding a
second
> disk, it is more efficient to have the cdrom be a slave and the new
hard
> disk be the master on the second channel. If you do it that way, your
> cdrom will no longer be hdc but hdb or hdd.
>
> > > # mke2fs /dev/hdc1 # Make a file system on new partition
> > > # mount /dev/hdc1 /mnt # mount it on /mnt
> > > # cd /var # don't forget this or the next
commands
> > > # will destroy everything
> > > # cp -a . /mnt # copy the filetree to the new
filesystem
> >
> > Is the period a typo or does it belong here and in the next command?
>
> It belongs. It means the current directory (and .. means the parent
> directory).
>
> Since that question shows that you are not at all experienced with
> Linux, let me stress that you should check the man pages for all
> commands and be sure that you understand what you are doing,
> particularly if you are doing it as superuser.
Yes, I am a beginner who can needs needs help to fill in the gaps for
which I thank you and the others. I do go to man pages when I have a
question but often that leads to more questions so I end up going in a
dozen directions at the same time.
>
> I remember a dreadful example from a client many years back: he wanted
> to delete some files in the root directory (/) whose names began with
&,
> so, as superuser, he entered "rm -rf /&*". He had forgotten, or never
> learnt, that '&' means run the preceding command in the background.
He
That just went into my notebook in large letters. TU
> didn't realise what he had done until his command deleted some files
> that the O/S needed to keep running. When we tried to put his system
> back together, we found that he had never checked that his backups
were
> restorable - they failed at the tape boundaries.
>
> > > # rm -rf . # delete it from the old filesystem
> > > # umount /mnt # remove the new partition from /mnt
> > > # mount /dev/hdc1 /var # and put it in its new position
> > >
> > > Edit /etc/fstab to insert the line for mounting /var
> > automatically.
> >
> > I can edit but this one stops me....It's probably simple but I
> > have no idea of what to type in /etc/fstab.
>
> Read up on it:
> $ man 5 fstab
>
> Mine says:
> /dev/sda1 /var ext2 defaults 0 2
The example helped tremendously. I'll work on adapting it to my needs.
>
> > > Go to multi-user mode again.
> > >
> > > All paths in /var will be unchanged and no action is required.
The
> > > entry in /etc/fstab will ensure that /var is mounted when the
system
> > > comes up and everything will be as it was before, but with more
space.
> >
> > Does making the new partititions and trasferring data to them from /
> > result in
> > unusable large vacancies in /? What can be done about this?
>
> Not the way I have described. The command "rm -rf ." deletes
everything
> in the current directory, which, if you have followed the example, is
> the one from which you are moving data. That space immediately
becomes
> available in the root filesystem.
>
> When you mount another partition on a directory, you hide all the
> existing contents of that directory, so you would lose the space if
you
> did the mount of the new partition without deleting the contents of
the
> mountpoint directory first. In fact, that means that you can check
that
> your new partition is working correctly without destroying the old
> data. When you are happy that you have got it right, unmount the
> partition, delete the contents of the mountpoint (which you have
copied
> to the new partition) and then remount the partition.
>
> If any process has a file open in the old partition, that file's space
> will not be released until that process exits. (That's why, in the
case
> of /var, I suggest doing this in single-user mode -- files in /var/log
> are held open by some processes and other processes, such as exim, may
> add to or create files in /var while you are copying it.)
>
Thank you------something to mull over.
Alex
> --
> Oliver Elphick
Oliver.Elphick@lfix.co.uk
> Isle of Wight, UK
> http://www.lfix.co.uk/oliver
> GPG: 1024D/3E1D0C1C: CA12 09E0 E8D5 8870 5839 932A 614D 4C34 3E1D
0C1C
> ========================================
> "Blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD, and
> whose hope the LORD is." Jeremiah 17:7
>
>
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