Preserving LVM across builds
Hey, Have a question that I thought I would post here because I have never done it before. I have a buddy that has a system that is in desperate need of a rebuild. It is truly a Franken-box, with 4 hard drives (2*80GB, 1*160GB, and 1*250GB), and has an Ubuntu build on it and a Mint build. He wants to consolidate it into a single Debian build. The 250GB drive is an LVM PV with a single VG and two LVs. Unfortunately, he doesn't have sufficient drive space to move the data from the drive. My question is what needs to be done (or if it is possible) for him to unplug that drive with the LVM, install Debian on one or more of the remaining drives, then re-incorporate the drive into the new Debian install? Is it possible? And what is the best approach to doing so? Thanks, --b
Re: Preserving LVM across builds
Nobody of your friends has got an external drive for such situations? I would backup all data temporarily to an external drive. Some time ago I didn't own such a drive, but after some phone calls one of my friend lend me a drive he owns just for such situations. the best approach is to think how much the electricity bill is and how much it does cause pollution to use 4 old, instead of 2 new drives and how much 2 new drives cost. Depending to the usage one drive often isn't good for performance. I wouldn't through away those old drives , but still use them e.g. to have drives for temporarily backups in the future. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/1389984189.5878.10.camel@archlinux
Re: Preserving LVM across builds
Le 17/01/2014 19:26, Brad Alexander a écrit : Hey, Have a question that I thought I would post here because I have never done it before. I have a buddy that has a system that is in desperate need of a rebuild. It is truly a Franken-box, with 4 hard drives (2*80GB, 1*160GB, and 1*250GB), and has an Ubuntu build on it and a Mint build. He wants to consolidate it into a single Debian build. The 250GB drive is an LVM PV with a single VG and two LVs. Unfortunately, he doesn't have sufficient drive space to move the data from the drive. My question is what needs to be done (or if it is possible) for him to unplug that drive with the LVM, install Debian on one or more of the remaining drives, then re-incorporate the drive into the new Debian install? Is it possible? And what is the best approach to doing so? I suppose that on the 250Gb drive there are only data (/home or something else). You do not need to unplug anything. Just make an expert mode install of the OS on one other disk and when asked for partition by the installer, it will recognize the lvm. Just tell the installer to not reformat the 250Gb drive... (but give a mount point!) -- François Patte UFR de mathématiques et informatique Laboratoire CNRS MAP5, UMR 8145 Université Paris Descartes 45, rue des Saints Pères F-75270 Paris Cedex 06 Tél. +33 (0)1 8394 5849 http://www.math-info.univ-paris5.fr/~patte signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: Preserving LVM across builds
On Fri, 2014-01-17 at 19:43 +0100, François Patte wrote: I suppose that on the 250Gb drive there are only data I assume that it's a wild mix, regarding to the Franken-box and 80GB drives. Try to buy a new 80 GB drive ;). I would backup _everything_ to a new drive and than ... depending to the financial situation ... buy 2 new drives or use the old drives, but by a new sorting, when restoring from the temporary backup. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/1389984794.5878.17.camel@archlinux
Re: Preserving LVM across builds
On Sat, Jan 18, 2014 at 3:26 AM, Brad Alexander stor...@gmail.com wrote: Hey, Have a question that I thought I would post here because I have never done it before. I have a buddy that has a system that is in desperate need of a rebuild. It is truly a Franken-box, with 4 hard drives (2*80GB, 1*160GB, and 1*250GB), Sounds like the box I'm working on, except I only have one 80G drive, and I have a 350G drive instead of a 250G drive. and has an Ubuntu build on it and a Mint build. He wants to consolidate it into a single Debian build. Yeah, various versions of various systems, here, too. I have migrated my data between the drives over some 12-odd years in a haphazard pattern, losing the lvm partitions and finding them a couple of times in the process. The 250GB drive is an LVM PV with a single VG and two LVs. Unfortunately, he doesn't have sufficient drive space to move the data from the drive. LVM is pretty good about being able to re-construct botched volumes and volume groups in many cases, but studying the commands to do so with your conscience telling you that you should have made a backup is no fun. I speak from experience. (And, yes, I need to fix my backup policy again. The big drive was intended as a backup, but it is now a bit more than that, which puts some of my data at risk.) My question is what needs to be done (or if it is possible) for him to unplug that drive with the LVM, install Debian on one or more of the remaining drives, then re-incorporate the drive into the new Debian install? Is it possible? And what is the best approach to doing so? As everyone says, he'll have more freedom to move if he spends the money for a half-T or bigger, and backs his data up. Thanks, --b One physical volume and one volume group with two logical volumes should be straightforward for the LVM. If all of his data is on that LVM, what he wants to do is pretty straightforward, other than needing to keep track of which packages he wants to keep in the new OS. If not, he needs to plan the move a bit more carefully. Figuring out what needs to be backed up from where is probably the first thing he needs to do. If he still has the /usr, /bin, /var, etc. from the Ubuntu and Mint installs, those can be reclaimed and used for intermediate storage. It's tempting to talk about the possible problems now, but I think I want to ask what he's worried about. Is the problem a lack of experience with moving data, or are there specific issues with joined partitions, database storage spanning various branches of the file system tree, encrypted parts of the tree, etc.? It doesn't sound like he's using RAID ... Does he know what is on all those drives? Does he know where all his data is? How is the data spread across those drives? Is he able to get a list of all the application packages he wants to be able to use? Does he know which applications he just can't live without, so he can check that they are available and work on Debian? Questions like that should help him plan his strategy. -- Joel Rees Be careful where you see conspiracy. Look first in your own heart. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/CAAr43iPX1HKS_Gq7SVSB0EkWRLGnXYGTecO2=sjk0tpypnp...@mail.gmail.com
