Bill,
This is getting a bit confused. You say you have just installed a new disk, yet you also say you want to reduce a 60Gb /var partition. If you are installing a new disk, you can decide at the outset how big a /var partition you want. I would go back to the beginning, decide how big I wanted my var to be, and partition the new disk accordingly. Decide what you want ot do with the rest of the disk, e.g., /opt, /usr2 or whatever. Partition accordingly. Whatever tool you use will tell you the /dev/hd? name of your new partitions. Build your filesystem(s) on the new disk. Then follow the instructions abotu temporary mounts.
I would enter the values for the temporary mount in /etc/fstab, making sure to create the mount point for your temporary var - say /mnt/var. If these things match you will be able to issue
# mount /mnt/var
Do the copy using cpio or cp. If using cp I would try -ax (i.e. -dpRx). If using cpio, I would probably add --sparse to the args, just in case it saves some space.
Now modify the /etc/fstab. Where is your current /usr? Is it a directory on the / partition? /usr is a critical partition istself. As you have a new disk, I would *first* bring the /var partition up in its new home, then sort /usr out. In either case, don't touch /usr to start with. It sounds as though /var is currently a partition. Change the /var mount point to the newly created partition, and change the current /var partition to mount on /mnt/var. Reboot. If all goes well, this process will be transparent.
Then do something similar for your current /usr. Delete the contents of /mnt/var. (Be careful where you are. You might be better to create a /mnt/newusr directory, and in the previous step, change the old /var partition mount point to /mnt/newusr, just so that the names don't get confused.) Do the copy of the current contents of /usr to the old var partition as you have mounted it. Change /etc/fstab to mount the old var partition as /usr. Reboot.
As suggested, I would use the device names for all of this, (/dev/hdb1, etc), and sort out the labels later.
Incidentally, f wither /var or /usr is currently a directory in the / file system, rather than a mounted partition, you will have to arrange to delete the old contents of the directory when everything is working. The best way to do that would be to boot in rescue mode, and delete the directory contents from /mnt/sysimage, after making sure you didn't have the new partitions mounted there. I don't know how rescue treats mounted partitons, but I assume they are mounted at the approproate points under /mnt/sysimage.
Peter
Sorry about the confusion. I was trying to solve several problems at once, and should not have mentioned them all in one email.
This is what I did to solve my problem:
On a test machine, I installed the new hd, then used fdisk to partition it. I ran into problems, I think because I said one partition was extended, and not primary. Anyhow, I put two primary partitions on the disk, then used
# mke2fs -jc /dev/hdb1 # mke2fs -jc /dev/hdb2
to put an ext3 file system on the partitions. Having forgot to label them, I used
# tune2fs -L /var /dev/hdb1 # tune2fs -L /usr /dev/hdb2
I then mounted them and used
# rsync -e ssh -avz doggett:/var/ /mnt/var # rsync -e ssh -avz doggett:/usr/ /mnt/usr
to get the data off the old partitions. I then altered the /etc/fstab on the production machine. Next, I shut down both machines, swaped disks, and restarted them.
Worked like a charm.
THANKS to everyone for their help. One of the key piece of information I didn't have was that tune2fs can be used on ext3 file systems. The man pages didn't state that.
Thanks again,
Bill
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