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Date:  Thu, 1 Nov 2007 20:30:07 -0000
From:  "Colin Jack" <colin (at mark) mainline.co.uk>
Subject:  [coba-e:11052] Re: Changing partition size
To:  <coba-e (at mark) bluequartz.org>
Message-Id:  <683F5FB5E2C08E4A8FE8D499A890A3EA037378 (at mark) mainserver.mainline.local>
References:  <683F5FB5E2C08E4A8FE8D499A890A3EA03736B (at mark) mainserver.mainline.local> <200711011921.10943.bq (at mark) solarspeed.net>
X-Mail-Count: 11052



-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Stauber [mailto:bq (at mark) solarspeed.net] 
Sent: 01 November 2007 18:21
To: coba-e (at mark) bluequartz.org
Subject: [coba-e:11050] Re: Changing partition size

Hi Colin,

> Sorry if this is a bit of a noob question ... but I need to reduce the
> size of my /var and add it to the /home.
>
> This is just a temp solution whilst we organise some bigger drives, but
> it will solve the immediate problem.
>
> I have seen a friend do this by typing furiously at the CLI but haven't
> done it myself, particularly on an active server!

Uuuuh. You don't want to do that. Trust me. :o)

There are filesystems like XFS which can be resized with great ease during 
runtime - if you take a few precautions.

BlueQuartz uses EXT3 instead, which makes that task a lot more tricky. If you 
really want to do it, here is a good how to:

http://www.hermann-uwe.de/blog/resizing-ext3-partitions-with-parted
http://www.howtoforge.com/linux_resizing_ext3_partitions

But it's really NOT trivial - especially not if you are using software RAID.

So for especially for a temporary solution I wouldn't touch this, as it's a 
lot more work than to run to the store, grab a SATA disk and an USB enclosure 
for it and to connect that to the server via USB. 500 Gig drive (~65 EUR), 
SATA enclosure (~25-40 EUR) and it's something portable that you can re-use 
for a lot of other things as well once its served its task.

Another temporary (!!!) fix could be this: If you have another server in the 
same physical location with some disk space left, then you could either 
re-locate some unused data over the network and stored it on the 2nd box. Or 
you could use a network share (NFS or Samba) to create additional storage 
space on the 2nd box and make that available for the server that runs out of 
space.

BUT: NFS shouldn't be used unless it happens behind a firewall (don't discard 
this advice lightly!) and Samba also has a couple of pitfalls for stuff like 
this, which are - to a minor degree - related to security. The primary issue 
is performance and UID/atime/permissions, which could lead to quite a few 
show stopping problems. Depends on what you want to write onto the mounted 
Samba share.

Of course the best long term solution (requires a reinstall) is to rebuild the 
box with bigger HDs.

-- 
With best regards,

Michael Stauber
http://www.solarspeed.net

Hi Michael,

I think I get the message :-9 ... a new server is on the cards but I was looking for a quick temp fix. The USB idea is pretty cool.

Thanks,

Colin



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