Hi, I’m searching for a step by step guide to safely increase the root partition without turning off the computer or logging out.
At the moment I’ve got 20Gb for the root and 440 for the home. I would like to increase of other 20Gb the root partition.
I’m using only OpenSuse 12.3 (so no windows or other os partitions) and don’t want to backup and reinstall everything for doing this, so I’m asking if there is a safe way to do that.
I’ve got 400Gb free in the home partition, so reducing the home space for increasing the root one should not be a problem.
Thanks for your advices!
On 2013-07-29 11:46, sim0ne wrote:
>
> Hi, I’m searching for a step by step guide to safely increase the root
> partition without turning off the computer or logging out.
Impossible.
You need (duplicated) hardware and operating system designed for 24*365
ops for that request.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 12.3 x86_64 “Dartmouth” at Telcontar)
No problem,
- Stop searching for the impossible, and use the time to research Partitioning on hard drives, as needed.
- Install a decent partitioner such as “gparted”.
- Wait for either the power to fail or the 12.3 system to crash.
- Seize the opportunity to resize partions and restart. The only safe way is to have previously (i.e. before step 3) backed up all important data onto external media. You can also clone the system partition to avoid re-installing if necessary.
No guarantees intended. 
Do you have free space between root and home partitions?
On Mon, 29 Jul 2013 09:46:01 +0000, sim0ne wrote:
> I’m using only OpenSuse 12.3 (so no windows or other os partitions) and
> don’t want to backup and reinstall everything for doing this, so I’m
> asking if there is a safe way to do that.
As others said, you’re going to have to take the system down to do this,
and further to that advice, DO NOT mess with partitions without a current
backup.
You can completely hose your system when changing partition information.
There is NO way around having a backup (and most people would say that
it’s pretty crazy to assume that you can get away with it).
Trust someone who has personal experience with lost data.
Jim
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Forum Use Terms & Conditions at http://tinyurl.com/openSUSE-T-C
If you have free space create a partition then use it for the additional space you need.
20 gig is plenty for most installed software needs but if you have large databases then I’d map the data base area to the new partition. That kills two birds with one stone. First it makes backup of data easier. Second it allows os changes/upgrades easier. Also can be done without shutting down completely but may require a short break while moving the databases.
On 2013-07-29 18:49, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Mon, 29 Jul 2013 09:46:01 +0000, sim0ne wrote:
>
>> I’m using only OpenSuse 12.3 (so no windows or other os partitions) and
>> don’t want to backup and reinstall everything for doing this, so I’m
>> asking if there is a safe way to do that.
>
> As others said, you’re going to have to take the system down to do this,
> and further to that advice, DO NOT mess with partitions without a current
> backup.
I can think of methods to minimize downtime, but not nullify it completely.
For example, if the system is on RAID 1, it might be possible to
disconnect one side, grow that side, then switch over - but that switch
over needs a reboot if it is system, or umount if it is data, stopping
all the affected services.
And this is a risky procedure, so a backup is absolutely necessary. If
disaster happens… the time needed to recover may be way more that what
was needed to do it /properly/.
Yes, I have worked with machines capable of doing almost all kind of
maintenance operations (even a motherboard replacement) while
maintaining full service. But they were designed for this, and their
price was in the million dollar range.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 12.3 x86_64 “Dartmouth” at Telcontar)
On Mon, 29 Jul 2013 19:38:07 +0000, Carlos E. R. wrote:
>> As others said, you’re going to have to take the system down to do
>> this,
>> and further to that advice, DO NOT mess with partitions without a
>> current backup.
>
> I can think of methods to minimize downtime, but not nullify it
> completely.
>
> For example, if the system is on RAID 1, it might be possible to
> disconnect one side, grow that side, then switch over - but that switch
> over needs a reboot if it is system, or umount if it is data, stopping
> all the affected services.
>
> And this is a risky procedure, so a backup is absolutely necessary. If
> disaster happens… the time needed to recover may be way more that what
> was needed to do it /properly/.
Yeah, the risk with splitting a RAID1 array (assuming it was set up that
way to start with) is that when you break the mirror and repartition, you
need to be /absolutely sure/ you mirror the proper way, or you’ll end up
losing your data.
A better approach is a HA solution with failover redundancy in the
storage subsystem. But again, that’s going to be at least thousands of
dollars to do properly, and probably more.
> Yes, I have worked with machines capable of doing almost all kind of
> maintenance operations (even a motherboard replacement) while
> maintaining full service. But they were designed for this, and their
> price was in the million dollar range.
Sure, I have worked with systems like that myself -but I think the safe
assumption here is that we’re not dealing with a situation like that.
Jim
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Forum Use Terms & Conditions at http://tinyurl.com/openSUSE-T-C
Unfortunately not, when I talk about free space, I mean free space in the home directory…
Thanks a lot for your replies, it seems a really difficult situation. I’ll try to hold over uninstalling the software that is not used often, and If I cannot avoid the situation, I should reconcile, backup everything shutdown and reinstall increasing the root space. It’ll stop the work for some time, but It seems to be the safer solution. I thought that with yast partitioner everything increasing the root partition was easier, clearly I was wrong and I has been a good idea asking here before doing something very very wrong.
I really want to thank you for your replies and advices!!
On 2013-07-29 21:43, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Mon, 29 Jul 2013 19:38:07 +0000, Carlos E. R. wrote:
> Sure, I have worked with systems like that myself -but I think the safe
> assumption here is that we’re not dealing with a situation like that.
Oh, absolutely.
They come with books and expert maintenance, with a hefty fee 
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 12.3 x86_64 “Dartmouth” at Telcontar)
You never said why you need the extra space. If it is a database space problem moving the data to a directory on home should be simple but you might need a very short restart of the server. If it is program space then that could be a problem but 20 gig should be ok unless you try to install everything in the repos. Also if you had started using LVM containers then adding more space is pretty simple. But that is something you must plan for.
On 07/29/2013 10:46 PM, sim0ne wrote:
> I should reconcile, backup
> everything shutdown and reinstall increasing the root space.
so far i see no reason to reinstall…
just (after backup is made):
-boot from a live medium with gparted or similar
-shrink /home by 20 GB
-expand /root by 20 GB
-shutdown and boot to the hard drive
of course, that might be impossible depending on the file system(s)
in use and the disk layout…why not show the output from
df -hlT
cat /proc/partitions
cat /etc/fstab
sudo /sbin/fdisk -l
copy/paste the in/output back to this thread using the instructions
here: http://goo.gl/i3wnr
–
dd
http://tinyurl.com/DD-Caveat
http://tinyurl.com/DD-Complaints