re: resizing / partion in RH Linux 9

[Peter Santos]

Hi
I'm kind of new to Linux system administration and so I was wondering if I could get some help from some of the experts on this forum.

I have a ext3 primary partition that came with a RH9 machine I bought. This partition is 48GB, and I would like to resize it because I would like the following partitions.
/ 6GB [currently 48GB want to resize 6GB]
/tmp 2GB
/home 4GB
/var 2GB
/apps [whatever else is left over]

I think I have to use the "parted" utility, but I think there are some limitations to the number of primary partitions that I can have, so I may have to create extended/logical partitions...I'm not sure.

Can anyone help me out? The last thing I want to do is resize something and not be able to boot into linux.. This machine only has linux and no other OS.

Thanks in advance.
Peter

[Michael Steele_2]

boot into rescue mode
Use parted, i.e., 'parted /dev/tmp'
View partition, 'print', find the minor number of /dev/tmp

resize 3 1024 2048

Can't find a man page but try this link:

http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/linux/RHL-9-Manual/custom-guide/s1-parted-resize-part.html

[Zeev Schultz]

Don't think parted would do in your case -
it can't create partitions with ext3.
http://www.gnu.org/software/parted/parted.html
So you have 2 choices -
created (with parted) ext2 partitions or
probably reinstall linux (if you can afford)
creating partitions as you like.I'd think about
using LVM as this gives you more options on dynamic management of your disks.
http://www.linuxdocs.org/HOWTOs/LVM-HOWTO.html

Zeev

[benoit Bruckert]

Hi,
Based on PC architecture, a disk can manage just 4 primary partitions, if you want more, you can use extended.
If your system is completly new, I would recommend to reinstall your linux in order to create partitions as you want.
like above, I would recommend LVM (i'm using it and works like a charm) + journalised file system. by this way, it's easier for you to resize all as you want, and with some options, you can even resize a filesystem online.
But if you want to keep your install, fdisk/parted can be used, but it's dangerous to reduce filesystems with datas !

hth
benoit

[Balaji N]

hi,
am not sure with parted, but did this recently on a dual boot box with Partition magic.

i had a big partition(NTFS) and wanted to shrink it. i was able to do it without any loss.

now, u need to check out if Partition magic is there for linux and buy it. it is not a free(beer) software.
-balaji

[Caesar_3]

Hello!

Because it's partition you can't resize it,
if it was LV then you could do so.
So you need to rebuild the partitions
by make the install from the begin.

If you will try to made some resizes
you may lost information on the disk.

Caesar

[Stuart Browne]

From what I've seen ehre, you should be able to do most of what you want to do with 'parted'.

Whilst Zeev is right that it doesn't do 'ext3', ext3 is nothing but an extension of ext2 (go type 83 partition types!), so it won't have an issue creating the appropriate partition types. You'll just have to mke2fs later with the appropraite flags to convert to ext3.

Most Intel based systems are limited to 4 primary partitions, so yes, you'd have to make an extended, then create logicals within the extended.

All of this is very easy to do. Just follow parted's instructions.

Something to note however. Do you have more than 6Gb on your / partition currently? It's not very wise to try resize a partition with more data on it than you are allocating. Older versions of parted used to allow this. That is why it has all those warnings.

One last thing. Regardless of what tool you use to resize or recreate your partitions, make sure you have a Backup. At least then you can 'play' a bit and not be as worried.

[Bauder, Alexander]

Hello,

I also tried some methods, the best one I know is:

1. by partition magic. You??re able to take this tool on 2 Floppy-Disks. You can boot from these floppys an move any partitions in the size you want.

or

2. by/use Symantec Ghost, a great tool to save your Disk! - You can make a Image from the current installation ( over network or burn it directly on CD ( next time check, if you can boot these CDs!)). Then you have to repartitionize your disk. I recommend "xfdisk", a little, powerfull DOS - partitioning and bootmanager-tool available for free download.

Nice day,

Alex

[Huc_1]

Hello

I do not know if this may be of use to you but !

RedHat cd use to come with figs.exe this is a dos utility that requires boot from dos and partition resize from there on .

I did you this a long while ago to reduce some patition on a dual os boot system and it worked like a charm for me, having say'ed that I had a simple setup, I dont have a RedHat cd distribution right here but I thing there is also a doc for fig on the 1 cd "if I remember well under /dosutils"

I dared use this because I knew I had good backups.

If you have the time and are going to reinstall from scratch, as others have suggested why not give it a try, as its free and can be fetch from the web if you do not have the RedHat CD.

Whatever enjoy, life J-P