Re: [gentoo-user] Re: 500 meg / partition (including /boot) *WITHOUT USING LVM*
On Wed, Sep 05, 2007 at 08:56:09AM +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote How is this better than a 500G filesystem mounted at /? Try wiping the OS and re-installing (or installing a different distro for that matter) with a 500G filesystem mounted at /... without backing up your data and restoring afterwards. With my setup, wipe all files in the /partition and in the bindmounted directories, leaving the empty directories, and do the install. 2. Please explain in detail how you will create a 4TB file system without LVM. This is NOT an edge case, this is a very real situation that occurs in data centres daily. I repeat again, I was talking about a 500 gig system on a home machine. I acknowledge that one size does not fit all, and an average home machine solution does not necessarily work in a data centre. 3. Take your proposal and explain to me in detail how you will prevent a backdoor or trojan from installing and executing scripts in /tmp and /var. Considering the massive problem that Windows has caused the world through an inability to do this, I would say this is a very important thing to be able to. If a trojan can install stuff in a directory owned by root, it's already too late. And remember that a regular user account can run mail to send spam, or ping or DNS lookups to take part in DDOS attacks. -- Walter Dnes [EMAIL PROTECTED] In linux /sbin/init is Job #1 Q. Mr. Ghandi, what do you think of Microsoft security? A. I think it would be a good idea. -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: 500 meg / partition (including /boot) *WITHOUT USING LVM*
On Wednesday 05 September 2007, Walter Dnes wrote: On Tue, Sep 04, 2007 at 10:45:15AM +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote You will always have a pretty good idea how much space / needs, it contains /bin, /sbin, /etc, /root and /lib. Unless oyu are in the habit of storing stuff in /root, 500M is plenty. So put / on a regular partition, everything else in LVM and your initramfs worries go away. s/LVM/a partition using the rest of the hard drive/ I disagree with your entire approach. You are saying that you do not want to have to deal with LVM so your solution is to create one ginormous partition, stick everything on it and --bind mount directories from there to /usr, /var, etc. Sonow you have pieces of one big file system scattered all over your directory tree. What have you gained? Nothing that I can see, so you are going to have to explain this in detail so we can all understand why you are even starting this at all. From where I sit, you have gained nothing at all over one big filesystem mounted at /. You do not have the benfits of separate filesystems, you do not have the flexibility of LVM, you do not have the safety of separate mount points, you do not have the ability to mount various parts of the file system with different options. In fact, you have gone through several layers of symlinks to come back to the same place. How is this better than a 500G filesystem mounted at /? This is how I started the whole thread. The only thing you need worry about is where are you going to get a decent howto that explains the concepts. You are dealing with three layers of stuff on top of physical partitions and some docs out there are ... confusing. Once you get the picture fully, it's as easy pie and makes perfect sense. Remove the LVM layer and things become even easier. Now I absolutely insist that you explain your reasoning and stop making assertions without backing them up. Give reasons, examples and numbers please. Really, LVM is the answer to all those prayers you have been sending up to $DEITY for years :-) With few exceptions, it's an answer looking for a problem. Again, back this up please. If you assert that LVM is complex, then I will agree with you. Because guess what? kernels are complex, software is the most complex machine we humans have ever designed and admining a box IS rocket science. But if you say that LVM is useless without giving actual examples, then I'm afraid I'm going to have to call BS on that one. Tell you what, I'll go first: 1. What exactly are the few exceptions where LVM is not an answer looking for a problem, and actually is valid? Seeing as there are so few of them according to you, you should be able to rattle them off in a quick reply while asleep. 2. Please explain in detail how you will create a 4TB file system without LVM. This is NOT an edge case, this is a very real situation that occurs in data centres daily. 3. Take your proposal and explain to me in detail how you will prevent a backdoor or trojan from installing and executing scripts in /tmp and /var. Considering the massive problem that Windows has caused the world through an inability to do this, I would say this is a very important thing to be able to. alan -- Optimists say the glass is half full, Pessimists say the glass is half empty, Developers say wtf is the glass twice as big as it needs to be? Alan McKinnon alan at linuxholdings dot co dot za +27 82, double three seven, one nine three five -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list
[gentoo-user] Re: 500 meg / partition (including /boot) *WITHOUT USING LVM*
Neil Bothwick wrote: Why do you make such a big deal of not using LVM? It achieves everything you want to, and more, without the compromises. There's one thing that has prevented me from ever using LVM: the need to have an initrd (or initramfs). From what I remember, this has always required manually copying some utilities like the LVM tools to the initrd (or writing a script that does it), and remembering to do it every time I update one of the tools, and not to forget copying all required libraries as well, and so on. OTOH, I have stopped looking at solutions that need an initrd quite some time ago, so things might be easier nowadays. How do you manage your initrd? Do you even need one? And what happens with 500GB is no longer enough and you want to add more space. How do you resize your partitions to use space on the second disk? Even though I have used resize2fs in the past, I have always thought that this tool was kind of a hack. Doesn't the resizing operation carry some risk? And if it goes wrong (e.g. a power outage), do you loose the complete content of the partition? And from what I remember, you can't resize a mounted ext3 partition, so you have to boot to a rescue CD, hope that all your LVM tools are there (they normally are, but what version?) and perform the resize operation there. But I'd love to be proven wrong on all the points above! This would certainly motivate me to look into LVM seriously this time. It really seems to be the right solution to the various problems I have seen with static partitions. -- Remy signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: 500 meg / partition (including /boot) *WITHOUT USING LVM*
On Tuesday 04 September 2007, Remy Blank wrote: Neil Bothwick wrote: Why do you make such a big deal of not using LVM? It achieves everything you want to, and more, without the compromises. There's one thing that has prevented me from ever using LVM: the need to have an initrd (or initramfs). From what I remember, this has always required manually copying some utilities like the LVM tools to the initrd (or writing a script that does it), and remembering to do it every time I update one of the tools, and not to forget copying all required libraries as well, and so on. OTOH, I have stopped looking at solutions that need an initrd quite some time ago, so things might be easier nowadays. How do you manage your initrd? Do you even need one? On Gentoo it's easy to get away with not using an initramfs. Everything is built from source and you roll your own kernel so we don't need to jump through the boot time hoops that a binary distro must to be able to support everything and boot. You will always have a pretty good idea how much space / needs, it contains /bin, /sbin, /etc, /root and /lib. Unless oyu are in the habit of storing stuff in /root, 500M is plenty. So put / on a regular partition, everything else in LVM and your initramfs worries go away. The only case I can think of that *requires* initramfs right now is booting off a raid device And what happens with 500GB is no longer enough and you want to add more space. How do you resize your partitions to use space on the second disk? Even though I have used resize2fs in the past, I have always thought that this tool was kind of a hack. Doesn't the resizing operation carry some risk? And if it goes wrong (e.g. a power outage), do you loose the complete content of the partition? And from what I remember, you can't resize a mounted ext3 partition, balls. ext2online and resize2fs have been resizing ext3 partitions for ages. You can extend a mounted partition with ease and in safety. What you can't do, and to my knowledge no regular fs can do, is to *reduce* a mounted partition so you have to boot to a rescue CD, hope that all your LVM tools are there (they normally are, but what version?) and perform the resize operation there. Why would lvm not be on your rescue disk? That's just a silly excuse. What would you do with a reswcue disk that doesn't have fdisk on it? You'd throw it away and get a different one. Versions don't have much impact on lvm. True, you can't use V1 tools on V2 volumes, but V1 hasn't seen much use since the days on kernel 2.4 But I'd love to be proven wrong on all the points above! This would certainly motivate me to look into LVM seriously this time. It really seems to be the right solution to the various problems I have seen with static partitions. You are imagining problems where none exist :-) The only thing you need worry about is where are you going to get a decent howto that explains the concepts. You are dealing with three layers of stuff on top of physical partitions and some docs out there are ... confusing. Once you get the picture fully, it's as easy pie and makes perfect sense. Really, LVM is the answer to all those prayers you have been sending up to $DEITY for years :-) alan -- Optimists say the glass is half full, Pessimists say the glass is half empty, Developers say wtf is the glass twice as big as it needs to be? Alan McKinnon alan at linuxholdings dot co dot za +27 82, double three seven, one nine three five -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: 500 meg / partition (including /boot) *WITHOUT USING LVM*
On Tue, 04 Sep 2007 10:30:55 +0200, Remy Blank wrote: Why do you make such a big deal of not using LVM? It achieves everything you want to, and more, without the compromises. There's one thing that has prevented me from ever using LVM: the need to have an initrd (or initramfs). Sshh! Don't tell the systems I've been running on LVM for years that they need an initrd or they'll all want one! Just use a 300MB root partition, no separate /boot and put everything else on LVM. Then all the tools you need are in /, so no initrd needed. See Alan's reply regarding FS resizing tools. -- Neil Bothwick Top Oxymorons Number 3: Working vacation signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: 500 meg / partition (including /boot) *WITHOUT USING LVM*
Am Dienstag, 4. September 2007 schrieb ext Remy Blank: Neil Bothwick wrote: Why do you make such a big deal of not using LVM? It achieves everything you want to, and more, without the compromises. There's one thing that has prevented me from ever using LVM: the need to have an initrd (or initramfs). There is no need to have an initramfs unless you put / on an LV. From what I remember, this has always required manually copying some utilities like the LVM tools to the initrd (or writing a script that does it), and remembering to do it every time I update one of the tools, and not to forget copying all required libraries as well, and so on. I could send you a script. And no, it doesn't harm if you forget to update the stuff in the initramfs. OTOH, I have stopped looking at solutions that need an initrd quite some time ago, so things might be easier nowadays. How do you manage your initrd? With a simple self written script that copies the needed tools to a directory used by the kernel build. Do you even need one? Yes, I do. Because I have / on a logical volume which may (in case of a laptop) also be encrypted. And from what I remember, you can't resize a mounted ext3 partition You should refresh your memory, then :-) Those times are long over. But I'd love to be proven wrong on all the points above! Done (partly) :-) This would certainly motivate me to look into LVM seriously this time. Do it right, then - use EVMS *SCNR* It really seems to be the right solution to the various problems I have seen with static partitions. It doesn't just seem so. It is. Bye... Dirk -- Dirk Heinrichs | Tel: +49 (0)162 234 3408 Configuration Manager | Fax: +49 (0)211 47068 111 Capgemini Deutschland | Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wanheimerstraße 68 | Web: http://www.capgemini.com D-40468 Düsseldorf | ICQ#: 110037733 GPG Public Key C2E467BB | Keyserver: www.keyserver.net signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
[gentoo-user] Re: 500 meg / partition (including /boot) *WITHOUT USING LVM*
Alan McKinnon wrote: On Gentoo it's easy to get away with not using an initramfs. Everything is built from source and you roll your own kernel so we don't need to jump through the boot time hoops that a binary distro must to be able to support everything and boot. You will always have a pretty good idea how much space / needs, it contains /bin, /sbin, /etc, /root and /lib. Unless oyu are in the habit of storing stuff in /root, 500M is plenty. So put / on a regular partition, everything else in LVM and your initramfs worries go away. Ok, I was suspecting that putting / outside of LVM might be the solution. Thanks for confirming. The only case I can think of that *requires* initramfs right now is booting off a raid device Strangely enough, I am currently booting from a software raid device, so you don't need an initramfs for that either. And from what I remember, you can't resize a mounted ext3 partition, balls. ext2online and resize2fs have been resizing ext3 partitions for ages. You can extend a mounted partition with ease and in safety. Have you ever tried pulling the plug while a resize operation was in progress? I guess I'll have to test this myself, as my data is valuable enough to me that I won't just believe what I read. I wasn't aware of ext2online. Doesn't it require a kernel patch? Is it integrated in gentoo-sources? The homepage seems to indicate that it hasn't been updated since 2000. What you can't do, and to my knowledge no regular fs can do, is to *reduce* a mounted partition But who would want to do that? I always need *more* space, not less ;-) Why would lvm not be on your rescue disk? That's just a silly excuse. What would you do with a reswcue disk that doesn't have fdisk on it? You'd throw it away and get a different one. Well, I haven't spent much time looking at rescue CDs, I have always used Knoppix up to now and it has been good enough. I'll just check that recent LVM tools are on it. But I'd love to be proven wrong on all the points above! This would certainly motivate me to look into LVM seriously this time. It really seems to be the right solution to the various problems I have seen with static partitions. You are imagining problems where none exist :-) Not quite. I have a memory of problems that have existed but thankfully have been fixed since. Anything special if I put the LVM over a software raid? -- Remy signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: 500 meg / partition (including /boot) *WITHOUT USING LVM*
Am Dienstag, 4. September 2007 schrieb ext Remy Blank: I wasn't aware of ext2online. Then forget it again. Resizing ext2/3 is done with resize2fs nowadays. Bye... Dirk -- Dirk Heinrichs | Tel: +49 (0)162 234 3408 Configuration Manager | Fax: +49 (0)211 47068 111 Capgemini Deutschland | Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wanheimerstraße 68 | Web: http://www.capgemini.com D-40468 Düsseldorf | ICQ#: 110037733 GPG Public Key C2E467BB | Keyserver: www.keyserver.net signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
[gentoo-user] Re: 500 meg / partition (including /boot) *WITHOUT USING LVM*
Neil Bothwick wrote: On Tue, 04 Sep 2007 10:30:55 +0200, Remy Blank wrote: There's one thing that has prevented me from ever using LVM: the need to have an initrd (or initramfs). Sshh! Don't tell the systems I've been running on LVM for years that they need an initrd or they'll all want one! Ha ha. I shouldn't have told mine, then they wouldn't have asked for one ;-) Just use a 300MB root partition, no separate /boot and put everything else on LVM. Then all the tools you need are in /, so no initrd needed. Understood. Thanks for the reply. -- Remy signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
[gentoo-user] Re: 500 meg / partition (including /boot) *WITHOUT USING LVM*
Dirk Heinrichs wrote: Do you even need one? Yes, I do. Because I have / on a logical volume which may (in case of a laptop) also be encrypted. Right. I think I might have confused the necessity to have an initramfs for LVM and the need to have it for an encrypted root. OTOH, if you put /usr, /home, /var, /tmp and all the others on LVM, you could just leave the root partition unencrypted, as it wouldn't contain anything sensitive. And from what I remember, you can't resize a mounted ext3 partition You should refresh your memory, then :-) Those times are long over. I have googled a bit but I couldn't find any recent references for that except for a RedHat patch to 2.6.7. Specifically, e2fstools doesn't seem to mention online resizing at all. Could you give me a pointer? But I'd love to be proven wrong on all the points above! Done (partly) :-) Thanks! Do it right, then - use EVMS *SCNR* Any specific pros/contras? From the homepage it looks rather complicated (although I haven't spent much time on it yet). I'll look into it more in-depth. Thanks for the reply. -- Remy signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: 500 meg / partition (including /boot) *WITHOUT USING LVM*
On Tuesday 04 September 2007, Remy Blank wrote: Alan McKinnon wrote: [snip] The only case I can think of that *requires* initramfs right now is booting off a raid device Strangely enough, I am currently booting from a software raid device, so you don't need an initramfs for that either. You have software compiled in the kernel, not as a module the, right? I would imagine you wouldn't need an initrd for that And from what I remember, you can't resize a mounted ext3 partition, balls. ext2online and resize2fs have been resizing ext3 partitions for ages. You can extend a mounted partition with ease and in safety. Have you ever tried pulling the plug while a resize operation was in progress? I guess I'll have to test this myself, as my data is valuable enough to me that I won't just believe what I read. An enlarge operation tends to be quite safe in my experience. At worst you get some new inodes that might not be accounted for, something that fsck will handle easily. A reduce might be a different case altogether. BUT, it's not an especially different operation to a defrag on Windows, and I have yet to see a Windows admin debate whether he should defrag or not based on the possibility of losing power halfway through... I can't comment too much on problems with reducing ext2/3, but I do reduce reiser3.6 filesystems often, once when the battery died, and it wasn't a problem when powered up. There was no feedback in the logs to speak of, so I assumed that the journal did what it was designed to do. This was in the first stages of the operation - moving blocks to the start of the volume, and I honestly have never done this test in the later stages - when inodes are removed from the superblock [snip] What you can't do, and to my knowledge no regular fs can do, is to *reduce* a mounted partition But who would want to do that? I always need *more* space, not less ;-) emerged openoffice lately? :-) It pretty much always fails if you have 5G in /var/tmp/portage. On a laptop, that's 8% of my total disk space just sitting there free waiting for the day I emerge openoffice again. Umounting /var to reduce it is such a huge pita that I made /var/tmp/portage a separate volume and now reduce it at will. But true enough, especially on server, you will enlarge volumes much more often the reduce them [snip] Anything special if I put the LVM over a software raid? Not in my experience. The only difficulty I ever had was persuading RHEL4 to install / like that - anaconda either doesn't support it or the button to click to do it is hidden in one of the magic cupboards at Hogwarts. But that's not a problem because: 1. this is gentoo 2. anaconda is these days less brain dead than it used to be Performance wise, it does well. The LVM and mdamd layers do their work in a fraction of the time it takes to get the data on/off the disk platters. In fact, Linux software usually outperforms most of those stupid el-cheapo we-say-it's-hardware-raid-but-actually-isn't raid controllers in low end hardware alan -- Optimists say the glass is half full, Pessimists say the glass is half empty, Developers say wtf is the glass twice as big as it needs to be? Alan McKinnon alan at linuxholdings dot co dot za +27 82, double three seven, one nine three five -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: 500 meg / partition (including /boot) *WITHOUT USING LVM*
On Tuesday 04 September 2007, Dirk Heinrichs wrote: Am Dienstag, 4. September 2007 schrieb ext Remy Blank: I wasn't aware of ext2online. Then forget it again. Resizing ext2/3 is done with resize2fs nowadays. Oops, my bad. It comes from not using ext2/3 on my own personal machines, and many months of working with RHEL4 in my day job which shipped with ext2online alan -- Optimists say the glass is half full, Pessimists say the glass is half empty, Developers say wtf is the glass twice as big as it needs to be? Alan McKinnon alan at linuxholdings dot co dot za +27 82, double three seven, one nine three five -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list
[gentoo-user] Re: 500 meg / partition (including /boot) *WITHOUT USING LVM*
Alan McKinnon wrote: You have software compiled in the kernel, not as a module the, right? Correct. A reduce might be a different case altogether. BUT, it's not an especially different operation to a defrag on Windows, and I have yet to see a Windows admin debate whether he should defrag or not based on the possibility of losing power halfway through... I only ever defrag drives that are either on a laptop, or a server with a UPS. You can't be too careful on Windows... emerged openoffice lately? :-) Nope, only openoffice-bin. Can't see a reason to have the fan of my laptop blow like hell for 12 hours in a row, when I can have it in a few seconds :-) The /var/tmp/portage argument is still a valid one, though. Performance wise, it does well. The LVM and mdamd layers do their work in a fraction of the time it takes to get the data on/off the disk platters. In fact, Linux software usually outperforms most of those stupid el-cheapo we-say-it's-hardware-raid-but-actually-isn't raid controllers in low end hardware Thanks a lot for your feedback. I think you and Neil triggered yet another server reorganization (but it seems like this will be the last one). -- Remy signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: 500 meg / partition (including /boot) *WITHOUT USING LVM*
Am Dienstag, 4. September 2007 schrieb ext Remy Blank: Dirk Heinrichs wrote: Do you even need one? Yes, I do. Because I have / on a logical volume which may (in case of a laptop) also be encrypted. Right. I think I might have confused the necessity to have an initramfs for LVM and the need to have it for an encrypted root. OTOH, if you put /usr, /home, /var, /tmp and all the others on LVM, you could just leave the root partition unencrypted, as it wouldn't contain anything sensitive. I know it's not the safest thing to do, but I have the key for the other volumes on the root volume, so that this is the only one for which I need a passphrase. And no I can't put them on a USB stick, because USB is (physically) defective on this Laptop :-( And from what I remember, you can't resize a mounted ext3 partition You should refresh your memory, then :-) Those times are long over. I have googled a bit but I couldn't find any recent references for that except for a RedHat patch to 2.6.7. Specifically, e2fstools doesn't seem to mention online resizing at all. Could you give me a pointer? Can't remember when e2fstools were dropped from Gentoo, but resize2fs is part of e2fsprogs. Do it right, then - use EVMS *SCNR* Any specific pros/contras? The only contra I know is that EVMS currently (still) can't handle online ext2/3 resize, but you can still do it manually as you would with pure LVM anyway. (Or use a different fs). Other than that it IMHO has only pros. Be it partitioning, sw raid, logical volumes, fs creation, resizing, even mounting :-) - everything is done in one single tool. From the homepage it looks rather complicated Not more than LVM. The terminology is a bit different though, but once you're used to it it is much simpler. I switched from LVM (1) to EVMS its early stages (kernel 2.4) and never looked back. Bye... Dirk -- Dirk Heinrichs | Tel: +49 (0)162 234 3408 Configuration Manager | Fax: +49 (0)211 47068 111 Capgemini Deutschland | Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wanheimerstraße 68 | Web: http://www.capgemini.com D-40468 Düsseldorf | ICQ#: 110037733 GPG Public Key C2E467BB | Keyserver: www.keyserver.net signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: 500 meg / partition (including /boot) *WITHOUT USING LVM*
On Tue, 4 Sep 2007 12:19:29 +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote: emerged openoffice lately? :-) It pretty much always fails if you have 5G in /var/tmp/portage. On a laptop, that's 8% of my total disk space just sitting there free waiting for the day I emerge openoffice again. Umounting /var to reduce it is such a huge pita that I made /var/tmp/portage a separate volume and now reduce it at will. Or point PORTAGE_TMPDIR to another partition. I have a partition that I use for large temporary files, be they ISO images, video files or portage build directories. That leaves /var free for important stuff. -- Neil Bothwick Never knock on Death's door. Ring the doorbell and run. He hates that. signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: 500 meg / partition (including /boot) *WITHOUT USING LVM*
On Tue, 04 Sep 2007 12:14:12 +0200, Remy Blank wrote: OTOH, if you put /usr, /home, /var, /tmp and all the others on LVM, you could just leave the root partition unencrypted, as it wouldn't contain anything sensitive. Apart from some contents of /etc. -- Neil Bothwick DANGER! DANGER! Computer store ahead...hide wallet. signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: 500 meg / partition (including /boot) *WITHOUT USING LVM*
On Tue, 04 Sep 2007 11:54:44 +0200, Remy Blank wrote: Anything special if I put the LVM over a software raid? No, that's what I do. / is on a RAID-1 partition, then I have an LVM physical volume on a RAID-5 partition for /usr, /home et al. -- Neil Bothwick I wonder how much deeper would the ocean be without sponges. signature.asc Description: PGP signature
[gentoo-user] Re: 500 meg / partition (including /boot) *WITHOUT USING LVM*
Dirk Heinrichs wrote: Am Dienstag, 4. September 2007 schrieb ext Remy Blank: Could you give me a pointer? Can't remember when e2fstools were dropped from Gentoo, but resize2fs is part of e2fsprogs. I actually meant e2fsprogs. Bad manual copy/paste operation. But I was just looking for the wrong word (online). Looking for mounted gives the following (yeah, I know, it's the top of the description, I should just have read on): The resize2fs program will resize ext2 or ext3 file systems. It can be used to enlarge or shrink an unmounted file system located on device. If the filesystem is mounted, it can be used to expand the size of the mounted filesystem, assuming the kernel supports on-line resizing. (As of this writing, the Linux 2.6 kernel supports on-line resize for filesystems mounted using ext3 only.). So you're totally right. -- Remy signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: 500 meg / partition (including /boot) *WITHOUT USING LVM*
On Tue, Sep 04, 2007 at 10:45:15AM +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote You will always have a pretty good idea how much space / needs, it contains /bin, /sbin, /etc, /root and /lib. Unless oyu are in the habit of storing stuff in /root, 500M is plenty. So put / on a regular partition, everything else in LVM and your initramfs worries go away. s/LVM/a partition using the rest of the hard drive/ This is how I started the whole thread. The only thing you need worry about is where are you going to get a decent howto that explains the concepts. You are dealing with three layers of stuff on top of physical partitions and some docs out there are ... confusing. Once you get the picture fully, it's as easy pie and makes perfect sense. Remove the LVM layer and things become even easier. Really, LVM is the answer to all those prayers you have been sending up to $DEITY for years :-) With few exceptions, it's an answer looking for a problem. -- Walter Dnes [EMAIL PROTECTED] In linux /sbin/init is Job #1 Q. Mr. Ghandi, what do you think of Microsoft security? A. I think it would be a good idea. -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: 500 meg / partition (including /boot) *WITHOUT USING LVM*
On Tue, Sep 04, 2007 at 12:19:29PM +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote On Tuesday 04 September 2007, Remy Blank wrote: Alan McKinnon wrote: What you can't do, and to my knowledge no regular fs can do, is to *reduce* a mounted partition But who would want to do that? I always need *more* space, not less ;-) emerged openoffice lately? :-) It pretty much always fails if you have 5G in /var/tmp/portage. On a laptop, that's 8% of my total disk space just sitting there free waiting for the day I emerge openoffice again. Umounting /var to reduce it is such a huge pita that I made /var/tmp/portage a separate volume and now reduce it at will. Drifting back onto the thread topic (is that allowed hereg?) having /var use part of a common pool (what's left over after swap and a 500 meg / partition) avoids that problem altogether, rather than band-aiding it. -- Walter Dnes [EMAIL PROTECTED] In linux /sbin/init is Job #1 Q. Mr. Ghandi, what do you think of Microsoft security? A. I think it would be a good idea. -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list
[gentoo-user] Re: 500 meg / partition (including /boot) *WITHOUT USING LVM*
· Remy Blank [EMAIL PROTECTED]: There's one thing that has prevented me from ever using LVM: the need to have an initrd (or initramfs). You only need an initrd, if you wish to have / on LVM. But if you put / (incl. /boot) on a normal partition, there's no need at all for an initrd. Alexander Skwar -- Chuck Norris is not Politically Correct. He is just Correct. Always. -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list
[gentoo-user] Re: 500 meg / partition (including /boot) *WITHOUT USING LVM*
· Remy Blank [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Well, I haven't spent much time looking at rescue CDs, I have always used Knoppix up to now and it has been good enough. I'll just check that recent LVM tools are on it. Knoppix is *NOT* a rescue disc! It lacks some essential tools, eg. LVM stuff. I recommend GRML as a rescue disc. Alexander Skwar -- Promising costs nothing, it's the delivering that kills you. -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: 500 meg / partition (including /boot) *WITHOUT USING LVM*
On Tue, 4 Sep 2007 18:08:04 -0400, Walter Dnes wrote: You will always have a pretty good idea how much space / needs, it contains /bin, /sbin, /etc, /root and /lib. Unless oyu are in the habit of storing stuff in /root, 500M is plenty. So put / on a regular partition, everything else in LVM and your initramfs worries go away. s/LVM/a partition using the rest of the hard drive/ As I asked before, what happens when you need more space and want to add another drive? With LVM, adding the space to your existing pool of space, for use by any filesystem, is trivial. -- Neil Bothwick Those are my principles. If you don't like them I have others. signature.asc Description: PGP signature
