How to extend Logical Volume in RHEL AS 3

[Danesh Qureshi]

I have a server running RHEL AS 3 update 4.

What is the procedure for extending a logical volume in RHEL AS 3?

I know how to extend a logical volume in RHEL AS4 using lvm commands lvextend and ext2online but there is no ext2online command in RHEL AS 3.

Can anyone advise me how to this?

[Steven McCoy]

Hello Danesh,

I typically use resize2fs:

lvextend -L +1G /dev/vg00/lvol8
resize2fs /dev/vg00/lvol8

You never have to even unmount the filesystem, it does it all live.

Hope this helps :)

[Kranti Mahmud]

Hi Danesh,

Check the following link which may help you:

http://www.softpanorama.org/Commercial_linuxes/logical_volume_manager.shtml

http://magazine.redhat.com/2008/07/16/tips-and-tricks-what-is-the-procedure-to-resize-an-lvm2-logical-volume-and-the-ext2-or-ext3-filesystem/

Rgds-Kranti

[Matti_Kurkela · Accepted solution]

We're talking about RHEL 3 AS, which uses 2.4.21 kernel and is rather old.

I don't think the 2.4.21 kernel originally supported on-line filesystem resizing. Maybe it has been added as a back-ported kernel patch in later errata kernels, but I would not assume that.

As Danesh already mentioned, the command-line tools for on-line extension are not available, which would seem to indicate that RedHat won't support on-line extension in RHEL 3 version.

If the kernel support for on-line filesystem extension is missing, even compiling the ext2online/resize2fs command-line tools yourself won't help. (I think I tried this once: if the kernel is too old, the tools will just report "kernel does not support on-line resizing" and exit.)

RedHat System Administration Guide for RHEL 3 refers to LVM-HOWTO, which offers this procedure:

http://tldp.org/HOWTO/LVM-HOWTO/extendlv.html

After extending the LV using the lvextend command:

# umount /dev/myvg/somevol
# resize2fs /dev/myvg/somevol
# mount /dev/myvg/somevol

MK

[skt_skt]

version 3 (lvm-1) does not support online extend . Just want to second

[Danesh Qureshi]

Just to let you know you this is how I did it:-

I found a very useful Red Hat article id:5502 which explained how to use e2fsadm to grow or extend a partition on an existing logical volume on RHEL AS 3.

This is how I extended /data1 partition by 6400 physical extents on RHEL AS 3 from root:-

# vgdisplay (check you have enough free physical extents)
# umount /data1 (unmount the filesystem in my /data1)
# e2fsadm -l +6400 /dev/volgroup/data1
The above command took quite a long time to complete so be patient
# vgdisplay (check again for physical and allocated extents)
# mount /data1 (remount the file system)

All done.

Thank you all for your help.

[Danesh Qureshi]

I found a very useful Red Hat article id:5502 which explained how to use e2fsadm to grow or extend a partition on an existing logical volume on RHEL AS 3.