Linux partition resize without LVM

This example involves resizing a linux partition sitting on an HP smartarray volume. I have a 4x36G RAID0+1 volume, which I tend to double its size. On the volume, I have a root partition, followed by a swap partition:

One should also do the following and save the output

Step 1: swapping in bigger drives

Because the volume contains redundant drives, I can swap in 4 74G drives one at a time. Just wait till the rebuild completes before moving on to the next drive. On my test server with only the OS, each round of rebuild takes only 15min.

Step 2: Extending the volume

Check that all 4 drives are in, you should see 4 74G drives

Check the logical drive is ready

Then resize the logical drive. This an be done while your system is online

Step 3: Reboot system into rescue mode

Using a Linux installation CD, reboot your server into rescue mode. There is no need to start networking or mount the existing OS partitions.

Step 4: fsck

Before doing anything, it is important to run fsck to make sure the filesystem is clean

Step 5: Remove journal on ext3 filesystem

Effectively making it a ext2 filesystem

Step 6: Reset partition boundary

This is the scary part, but don't worry, you won't loose any data unless you set up a new partition that is smaller than the original one.

The last command should reboot your system, which is required for the new partitions to take effect

Step 7: Resize ext2 filesystem

Run fs check and then resize2fs.

Using resize2fs without any argument will grow the filesystem to the maximum allowable size.

Step 8: Final steps

Do a fs check and add recreate the journal entries, effectively converting the ext2 fs back to ext3

The last command should reboot your system. When the system comes back up, you have a bigger root partition! Pay attention to the swap partition. As Redhat uses label to mount partitions, you will loose the swap partition. Edit /etc/fstab accordingly, do a mkswap followed by swapon /dev/sda2. You should be set!

Linux partition resize with LVM

I'm logging what I've done today for future reference. Originally, I have this partition table:
||hda1||hda2||hda3||hda4||
|| NTFS || /boot || swap || vg0(lv_root,lv_opt) ||
All four being primary partitions.

My goal is to extend /opt. But this is harder than I thought since gparted does not support resizing partitions inside LVM, and one can have a maximum of 4 primary partitions. So instead, I had to

1. Shrink the NTFS partition using gparted
2. Move /boot forward
3. Drop the swap partition
4. Create a physical volume in /dev/hda3, such that the new PV is the size of my swap partition + the free space from the NTFS partition
5. Run vgextend vg0 /dev/hda3 to add /dev/hda3 to vg0
6. Reboot
7. Run lvcreate -L 1G -n lv_swap /dev/vg0 to re-create a swap partition in vg0
8. Make necessary adjustments to /etc/fstab to enable the new swap
9. Unmount /opt
10. Run lvextend -L +6G /dev/vg0/lv_opt to extend my lv_opt partition

The following never got tested because I mounted /opt in ext4dev with the extents option. It seems afterwards, all tools built for ext2/3 cease to work. I ended up re-formatting lv_opt. IF the filesystem had been ext2/3, the followings should work. Apparently tools for ext4dev are not available at the time this is documented, not even fsck....

1. Run tune2fs -O^has_journal /dev/vg0/lv_opt to convert the partition from ext3 to ext2, which is required for resize2fs
2. Resize lv_opt using resize2fs/gparted/qtparted
3. Run tune2fs -j /dev/vg0/lv_opt to convert it back to ext3