Linux Free Space

Hi,

Follow link for LVM :

http://www.linuxhomenetworking.com/wiki/index.php/Quick_HOWTO_:_Ch27_:_Expanding_Disk_Capacity

And for filesystem backup use some professional backup service or tool in your case.

Note : Data is huge

For using space from two different disks to one partition you have to use LVM for the same.

# fdisk /dev/cciss/c0d0

At the Linux fdisk command prompt,

1. press n to create a new disk partition,
2. press e to create an extended disk partition,
3. press ENTER twice to accept the default of 1st and last cylinder – to convert the rest disk space to a single disk partition,
4. press t  to change the default Linux partition type (0×83) to LVM partition type (0x8e),
5. press L to list all the currently supported partition type,
6. press 8e (as per the L listing) to change partition to 8e, i.e. Linux LVM partition type,
7. press p to display the hard disk partition setup. Please take note that the new partition is denoted as /dev/cciss/c0d0p9 in Linux,
8. press w to write the partition table and exit fdisk upon completion.


Then repeat the same task for another disk.

# fdisk /dev/cciss/c0d1

At the Linux fdisk command prompt,

1. press n to create a new disk partition,
2. press e to create an extended disk partition,
3. press ENTER twice to accept the default of 1st and last cylinder – to convert the rest disk space to a single disk partition,
4. press t  to change the default Linux partition type (0×83) to LVM partition type (0x8e),
5. press L to list all the currently supported partition type,
6. press 8e (as per the L listing) to change partition to 8e, i.e. Linux LVM partition type,
7. press p to display the hard disk partition setup. Please take note that the new partition is denoted as /dev/cciss/c0d1p4 in Linux,
8. press w to write the partition table and exit fdisk upon completion.


Then create a LVM physical volume (PV).

# pvcreate /dev/cciss/c0d0p9 /dev/cciss/c0d1p4

Now create a LVM volume group (VG) called vg01 with a physical extent size (PE size) of 16MB (Default PE size is 4 MB)

# vgcreate -s 16M vg01 /dev/cciss/c0d0p9 /dev/cciss/c0d1p4

Now execute the below given command to check size of vg01

# vgdisplay vg01

Here note down the value of Free  PE / Size and the Create a logical volume (LV) called lvol01 on volume group vg01:

# lvcreate -L <the free size which you have noted in GB>G -n lvol01 vg01

The Linux LVM setup is almost done. Now is the time to format logical volume lvol01 to create a Red Hat Linux supported file system. I am using example for ext3. You can format with the filesystem which you want to use.

mkfs -t ext3 /dev/vg01/lvol01

Create a mount point where you want to mount your newly created Filesystem:

mkdir /Path/to/mount

mount the new EXT3 file system created on logical volume lvol01 of LVM to mount point:

mount -t ext3 /dev/vg01/lvol01 /Path/to/mount


To confirm the LVM setup has been completed successfully, the df -h command should display the below given filesystem with size and mount point:

/dev/mapper/vg01-lvol01


I think its enough to configure your LVM.