Increasing a Linux partition once VM size increased in vSphere

capacityubuntu-12.04virtual-machinesvmware-vcenter

I have a Ubuntu 12.04 VM running on VMWares ESXi 5.1.

The server (VM) itself has run out of space, the results of df -h are as follows:

Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1        19G   17G  1.2G  94% /
udev            490M  4.0K  490M   1% /dev
tmpfs           200M  232K  199M   1% /run
none            5.0M     0  5.0M   0% /run/lock
none            498M     0  498M   0% /run/shm

The original VM HDD size was just under 19GB which is I have now increased to 100GB within the vCenter GUI:

vCenter GIU

Is there a simple way of doing this? The VM doesn't seem to acknowledge the increase at all.

Best Answer

I guess you have one big partition and all your data are on this partition this is sda1.

If this assumption is false do not proceed! (Tell me your setup: fdisk -l and I will update this answer accordingly.)

So you boot some live CD. Ubuntu LiveCD would be fine.

It is always a safe bet to make backups just in case. (You can make a snapshot with vmware which you later delete if everything is fine.)
So you boot some live CD. Ubuntu LiveCD would be fine.
Open a terminal/shell or switch to console. If you are not root sudo bash will get you a root shell.
fdisk /dev/sda
1. Type d then 1 this will delete you partition from the partition table, but it won't touch your data.
2. Type n then choosing the defaults is fine.
3. Type p to see how it looks. We recreated your partition with a bigger size.
4. Type w to write changes to disk. q exits you back to shell.
resize2fs /dev/sda1 will increase the size of the filesystem.
You can reboot.

Related Solutions

Linux – Increasing disk size of Linux guest in VMware

The expanded disk size is unallocated and unpartitioned. You'll need to partition the new disk space first using fdisk or diskpart. After that, you may need to format the new partition. Depending on what kind of filesystem you're using, the commands will differ, but as an example, for ext3 you would call mkfs.ext3 Then depending on the OS, you'll be able to grow the logical volume. If you're using LVM, you can simply expand the original volume after you've partitioned/initialized the new space.

Linux – Shrinking Linux Partition and VM’s

You don't need vgreduce. You only have one VG. Looks like you are mostly concerned about /u02 since that is the largest partition and is using less than 1G

For reducing LV, usually will need to unmount it first. That means if you ever want to reduce the / filesystem you will need to do it in rescue mode or single user mode. Process is otherwise the same

Anyway, this is what you do

First word of caution, you need to reduce the FS more than you reduce the LV. So if you want to free up 10G of LV space, reduce your FS by 11G. Make sense? Let's use that as an example

Second word of caution, when reducing a filesystem, it's always good to have a backup. Not as crucial (but still important) when extending a fs. But reducing FS, always good.

umount the filesystem  
use command: e2fsck -f /dev/[path to LV]  
use command: resize2pfs -p /dev/[path to LV] 175G  (11G smaller) 
use command: lvreduce -L -10G /dev/[path to LV]  (10G smaller) 
mount filesystem.

When you run vgdisplay you should see you have 10G freed up now

(TOTALLY FRESH IN MY MIND because I just blogged about it like one or two days ago right here: http://geekswing.com/geek/reducing-filesystem-fs-size-and-lvm-size-in-linux/ )

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Linux – Increasing disk size of Linux guest in VMware

Linux – Shrinking Linux Partition and VM’s

Related Topic