topic Re: Extending Linux Partition using HP ACU in Operating System - Linux

Extending Linux Partition using HP ACU

Smucker — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 03:30:25 GMT

I have a HP DL380 G5 that I have replaced the 3-73gb (raid1+0) array with 146gb disks. I then used ACU to extend the partition.

After the reboot fdisk see the increased disk but will not allow me to create a new partition to use the added disk.

Disk /dev/cciss/c0d0: 146.7 GB, 146778685440 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 17844 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/cciss/c0d0p1 * 1 13 104391 83 Linux
/dev/cciss/c0d0p2 14 535 4192965 83 Linux
/dev/cciss/c0d0p3 536 1057 4192965 83 Linux
/dev/cciss/c0d0p4 1058 8920 63159547+ 5 Extended
/dev/cciss/c0d0p5 1058 1579 4192933+ 82 Linux swap
/dev/cciss/c0d0p6 1580 1840 2096451 83 Linux
/dev/cciss/c0d0p7 1841 2101 2096451 83 Linux
/dev/cciss/c0d0p8 2102 2362 2096451 83 Linux
/dev/cciss/c0d0p9 2363 2493 1052226 83 Linux
/dev/cciss/c0d0p10 2494 8920 51624846 8e Linux LVM

Re: Extending Linux Partition using HP ACU

Smucker — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 03:34:39 GMT

Sorry Should have told you the OS is RedHat Linux 4.0as

Re: Extending Linux Partition using HP ACU

Steven E. Protter — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 11:53:29 GMT

Shalom,

So you used hardware raid to replicate the data that was on 73 GB disks to 146 GB disks.

fdisk -l would normally show another extended partion /dev/cciss/c0d0p11

It does not.

The LVM partition on the end of that disk probably has not magically increased in size either.

I would suggest carefully using utilities to identify the disk device. Then perhaps do the following:
pvcreate the new disk
vgextend your LVM group to include the new disk.
lvtextend the logical volumes you wish larger
ext2online to increase filesystem size without a reboot.

IF you wish to extend one of your 83 Linux partitions, you will have to first create partition space, use dd to replicate the data from the smaller partition to the larger partition and then umount mount the new filesystem.

There is a fun/experimentation factor here so make sure you have a good backup.

SEP

Re: Extending Linux Partition using HP ACU

Smucker — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 14:05:17 GMT

The issue is this. I slowly replaced the 73gb disk in the raid0+1 array allowing the disk to replicate each time.

As you can see fdisk sees the new size but will not allow me to create a new partition c0d0p11

see below

fdisk /dev/cciss/c0d0

The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 17844.
There is nothing wrong with that, but this is larger than 1024,
and could in certain setups cause problems with:
1) software that runs at boot time (e.g., old versions of LILO)
2) booting and partitioning software from other OSs
(e.g., DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK)

Command (m for help): n
No free sectors available

Re: Extending Linux Partition using HP ACU

Heironimus — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 14:41:16 GMT

You're hitting a limitation of the DOS-style MBR partition table that Linux uses. You can only have 4 primary partitions, exactly one of which can be an "extended" partition that contains other partitions. You already have that so you can't add another primary partition.

You need to make your extended partition bigger if you want to use the space, but since it's a container for those other 6 partitions that's a little bit risky. You wouldn't want to do it with fdisk because you'd have to delete and recreate the extended partition, but some other tool (parted, maybe?) might let you just resize it out to the new disk size.

Re: Extending Linux Partition using HP ACU

Smucker — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 15:32:06 GMT

Does anyone have the commands that would be needed to manipulate the extended partition and make it larger?