On 1/22/24 11:21 PM, Greg Wooledge wrote:
On Mon, Jan 22, 2024 at 10:41:57PM +0100, Miroslav Skoric wrote:
As I need to extend & resize more than one LV in the file system (/, /usr,
and /var), should they all need to be unmounted before the operation? As I
remember, it is ext3 system on that comp.
Whaaaaat?? I don't think these words mean what you think they mean.
An LV is a logical volume, which is like a virtual partition. It's a
block device, like /dev/sda2. You can use an LV the same way you would
use a partition -- you can use it for swap space, or a file system, or
other purposes.
A file system is a mountable directory structure that you can put inside
a partition, or an LV. File system types include ext4, ext3, xfs, vfat,
and so on.
Sorry for my ignorance regarding terminology, I mix terms sometimes :-)
If your system has separately mounted file systems for /, /usr and
/var and you want to shrink ALL of them, then yes, you would need to
unmount all three of them, shrink them, then (re)boot. You can't
unmount / during normal operations, so the only ways to shrink / would
involved booting in a special way, either with some external medium,
or with specific kernel parameters. Thus, you'd typically reboot to
get back to normal operations afterward.
Let me clarify: I did not plan to shrink all of those, but rather just
one (/home). The other three (/, /usr, and /var) shall be extended from
the released space.
I managed to locate the first CD of my very old initial installation set
(squeeze). However, booting from that one did not help me to get /home
available for shrinking. See later what I did instead.
However, if you're in a position where you think you need to make
dramatic changes to FOUR of your mounted file systems, perhaps you
might want to consider restarting from scratch. Ponder why you have
separate file systems at all. Are they really giving you a benefit?
Have you ever filled up one of them and thought "Oh wow, I am *so*
glad I separated these file systems so I didn't fill up ___ as well!"
Or are they just giving you grief with no benefits?
Well I belong to those who are going to exercise any possible way to
prolong the life of an existing installation, no matter how old it is.
In my case it started from squeeze a decade or more ago and gradually
upgraded during the years. And I knew that some years ago I resized the
file system because of similar reasons, and that worked at the time. But
the procedure disappeared from memory :-)
Reinstalling from scratch is always possible, of course.
