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On Tuesday 04 September 2007, Remy Blank wrote: |
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> Neil Bothwick wrote: |
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> > Why do you make such a big deal of not using LVM? It achieves |
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> > everything you want to, and more, without the compromises. |
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> |
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> There's one thing that has prevented me from ever using LVM: the need |
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> to have an initrd (or initramfs). From what I remember, this has |
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> always required manually copying some utilities like the LVM tools to |
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> the initrd (or writing a script that does it), and remembering to do |
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> it every time I update one of the tools, and not to forget copying |
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> all required libraries as well, and so on. |
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> |
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> OTOH, I have stopped looking at solutions that need an initrd quite |
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> some time ago, so things might be easier nowadays. How do you manage |
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> your initrd? Do you even need one? |
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|
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On Gentoo it's easy to get away with not using an initramfs. Everything |
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is built from source and you roll your own kernel so we don't need to |
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jump through the boot time hoops that a binary distro must to be able |
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to support everything and boot. |
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|
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You will always have a pretty good idea how much space / needs, it |
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contains /bin, /sbin, /etc, /root and /lib. Unless oyu are in the habit |
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of storing stuff in /root, 500M is plenty. So put / on a regular |
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partition, everything else in LVM and your initramfs worries go away. |
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The only case I can think of that *requires* initramfs right now is |
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booting off a raid device |
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|
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> > And what happens with 500GB is no longer enough and you want to add |
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> > more space. How do you resize your "partitions" to use space on the |
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> > second disk? |
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> |
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> Even though I have used resize2fs in the past, I have always thought |
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> that this tool was kind of a hack. Doesn't the resizing operation |
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> carry some risk? And if it goes wrong (e.g. a power outage), do you |
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> loose the complete content of the partition? |
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> |
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> And from what I remember, you can't resize a mounted ext3 partition, |
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|
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balls. ext2online and resize2fs have been resizing ext3 partitions for |
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ages. You can extend a mounted partition with ease and in safety. |
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|
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What you can't do, and to my knowledge no regular fs can do, is to |
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*reduce* a mounted partition |
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|
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> so you have to boot to a rescue CD, hope that all your LVM tools are |
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> there (they normally are, but what version?) and perform the resize |
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> operation there. |
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|
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Why would lvm not be on your rescue disk? That's just a silly excuse. |
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What would you do with a reswcue disk that doesn't have fdisk on it? |
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You'd throw it away and get a different one. |
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|
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Versions don't have much impact on lvm. True, you can't use V1 tools on |
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V2 volumes, but V1 hasn't seen much use since the days on kernel 2.4 |
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|
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> But I'd love to be proven wrong on all the points above! This would |
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> certainly motivate me to look into LVM seriously this time. It really |
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> seems to be the right solution to the various problems I have seen |
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> with static partitions. |
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|
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You are imagining problems where none exist :-) |
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|
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The only thing you need worry about is where are you going to get a |
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decent howto that explains the concepts. You are dealing with three |
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layers of stuff on top of physical partitions and some docs out there |
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are ... confusing. Once you get the picture fully, it's as easy pie and |
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makes perfect sense. |
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|
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Really, LVM is the answer to all those prayers you have been sending up |
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to $DEITY for years :-) |
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|
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alan |
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|
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|
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|
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-- |
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Optimists say the glass is half full, |
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Pessimists say the glass is half empty, |
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Developers say wtf is the glass twice as big as it needs to be? |
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|
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Alan McKinnon |
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alan at linuxholdings dot co dot za |
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+27 82, double three seven, one nine three five |
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-- |
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