Partitioning

Partitioning

[smertz]

I noticed after installing Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES release 4 
(Nahant) last week when I do a fdisk -l that the automatic partitioning 
might not have done such a good job of partitioning out my 200 GIG HD.

[root@localhost ~]# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 200.0 GB, 200049647616 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 24321 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

    Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1          13      104391   83  Linux
/dev/sda2              14       24321   195254010   8e  Linux LVM
[root@localhost ~]#


Shouldn't there normally be a few more partitions like /swap /usr etc? 
If so is it possible to manipulate these post install?  Or better to go 
back and re-install and manually do the partitions? Either way I would 
appreciate any advice on allocating the HD out.  There will be no other 
OS on this drive/machine, just RH.

Also I'm curious why my Hard drives are listed as sda1.  These are ATA 
drives.  Just looked at the drive they are the new SATA drives and may 
be recognized incorrectly.

Thanks

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RE: Partitioning

[Mike Turcotte]

Many new Serial ATA controllers have their modules listed as SCSI
devices, I am not sure why, I think it has to do with their standards or
something. This is normal. Also, what the auto partitioning did was
create a 100 Mbyte partition for use as /boot, and the rest of the drive
allocated as LVM (Logical Volume Manager). What you do is create virtual
file systems inside the LVM (such as /, /usr, /var, /home, whatever).
This quickly becoming the norm in the Linux community.

Michael Turcotte
Information Systems
City of North Bay
200 McIntyre St. E
PO Box 360
North Bay, Ontario
P1B 8H8
 
Mike.Turcotte@cityofnorthbay.ca
http://www.cityofnorthbay.ca 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: linux-newbie-owner@vger.kernel.org [mailto:linux-newbie-
> owner@vger.kernel.org] On Behalf Of smertz
> Sent: Thursday, April 07, 2005 10:18 AM
> To: linux-newbie@vger.kernel.org
> Subject: Partitioning
> 
> I noticed after installing Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES release 4
> (Nahant) last week when I do a fdisk -l that the automatic
partitioning
> might not have done such a good job of partitioning out my 200 GIG HD.
> 
> [root@localhost ~]# fdisk -l
> 
> Disk /dev/sda: 200.0 GB, 200049647616 bytes
> 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 24321 cylinders
> Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
> 
>     Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
> /dev/sda1   *           1          13      104391   83  Linux
> /dev/sda2              14       24321   195254010   8e  Linux LVM
> [root@localhost ~]#
> 
> 
> Shouldn't there normally be a few more partitions like /swap /usr etc?
> If so is it possible to manipulate these post install?  Or better to
go
> back and re-install and manually do the partitions? Either way I would
> appreciate any advice on allocating the HD out.  There will be no
other
> OS on this drive/machine, just RH.
> 
> Also I'm curious why my Hard drives are listed as sda1.  These are ATA
> drives.  Just looked at the drive they are the new SATA drives and may
> be recognized incorrectly.
> 
> Thanks
> 
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe
linux-newbie" in
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Re: Partitioning

[smertz]

Mike Turcotte wrote:
> Many new Serial ATA controllers have their modules listed as SCSI
> devices, I am not sure why, I think it has to do with their standards or
> something. This is normal. Also, what the auto partitioning did was
> create a 100 Mbyte partition for use as /boot, and the rest of the drive
> allocated as LVM (Logical Volume Manager). What you do is create virtual
> file systems inside the LVM (such as /, /usr, /var, /home, whatever).
> This quickly becoming the norm in the Linux community.


Is there a command to see how the LV partitioning was done by the 
installer?  If so what is it?  I would think the installer did put a 
/var/home/etc there.

THX


>  
> Mike.Turcotte@cityofnorthbay.ca
> http://www.cityofnorthbay.ca 
> 
> 
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: linux-newbie-owner@vger.kernel.org [mailto:linux-newbie-
>>owner@vger.kernel.org] On Behalf Of smertz
>>Sent: Thursday, April 07, 2005 10:18 AM
>>To: linux-newbie@vger.kernel.org
>>Subject: Partitioning
>>
>>I noticed after installing Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES release 4
>>(Nahant) last week when I do a fdisk -l that the automatic
> 
> partitioning
> 
>>might not have done such a good job of partitioning out my 200 GIG HD.
>>
>>[root@localhost ~]# fdisk -l
>>
>>Disk /dev/sda: 200.0 GB, 200049647616 bytes
>>255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 24321 cylinders
>>Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
>>
>>    Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
>>/dev/sda1   *           1          13      104391   83  Linux
>>/dev/sda2              14       24321   195254010   8e  Linux LVM
>>[root@localhost ~]#
>>
>>
>>Shouldn't there normally be a few more partitions like /swap /usr etc?
>>If so is it possible to manipulate these post install?  Or better to
> 
> go
> 
>>back and re-install and manually do the partitions? Either way I would
>>appreciate any advice on allocating the HD out.  There will be no
> 
> other
> 
>>OS on this drive/machine, just RH.
>>
>>Also I'm curious why my Hard drives are listed as sda1.  These are ATA
>>drives.  Just looked at the drive they are the new SATA drives and may
>>be recognized incorrectly.
>>
>>Thanks
>>
>>-
>>To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe
> 
> linux-newbie" in
> 
>>the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
>>More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
>>Please read the FAQ at http://www.linux-learn.org/faqs
> 
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> 

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Re: Partitioning

[James Miller]

On Thu, 7 Apr 2005, smertz wrote:

> Is there a command to see how the LV partitioning was done by the installer? 
> If so what is it?

I think the mount command might get what you want. If not, maybe dh. I've 
used a system set up with LVM a little, but not enough to remember 
precisely.

James
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partitioning

[S. Barret Dolph]

I am probably getting too picky about repartitioning my drive but I want it to 
be set up for a long time. I never use all the space in my harddrive even 
though it is relatively small. (I only use it for work and don't play any 
games.)

Questions......

My old setup

sda1 	/ 		1g
sda5		/swap	1024k  (512ram)
sda6		/usr		6g
sda7		/home	10g

I will be using Sourcemage which puts sources in /var so I have been thinking 
about taking 3g out of home and making a /var of 3g.

 I will probably take another 3 out of home and add it to usr/ but that is 
probably overkill. Neither use too much.

I am confused about where /swap should go. I have a SCSI drive and from what I 
read that should be on the outside. So should I put /swap at sda8? (Given 
that I have added /var.)

I had a /home because it was convenient to upgrade with CD's when I only had a 
56 modem. Now that I am using a source based installation is the /home 
unnecessary as I am the only user.

Is having a /tmp partition necessary?
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Re: partitioning

[chuck]

Hi, S.:

 The output of 'df' might be more meaningful.

If you mounted sda7 as /
 and mounted sda1 as /boot
 Would it satisfy all your free space concerns?
:-|
HTH, Chuck

"S. Barret Dolph" wrote:
> 
> I am probably getting too picky about repartitioning my drive but I want it to
> be set up for a long time. I never use all the space in my harddrive even
> though it is relatively small. (I only use it for work and don't play any
> games.)
> 
> Questions......
> 
> My old setup
> 
> sda1    /               1g
> sda5            /swap   1024k  (512ram)
> sda6            /usr            6g
> sda7            /home   10g
> 
> I will be using Sourcemage which puts sources in /var so I have been thinking
> about taking 3g out of home and making a /var of 3g.
> 
>  I will probably take another 3 out of home and add it to usr/ but that is
> probably overkill. Neither use too much.
> 
> I am confused about where /swap should go. I have a SCSI drive and from what I
> read that should be on the outside. So should I put /swap at sda8? (Given
> that I have added /var.)
> 
> I had a /home because it was convenient to upgrade with CD's when I only had a
> 56 modem. Now that I am using a source based installation is the /home
> unnecessary as I am the only user.
> 
> Is having a /tmp partition necessary?

probably

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Re: partitioning

[Ray Olszewski]

At 09:37 PM 1/25/2004 +0800, S. Barret Dolph wrote:
>I am probably getting too picky about repartitioning my drive but I want 
>it to
>be set up for a long time. I never use all the space in my harddrive even
>though it is relatively small. (I only use it for work and don't play any
>games.)
>
>Questions......
>
>My old setup
>
>sda1    /               1g
>sda5            /swap   1024k  (512ram)
>sda6            /usr            6g
>sda7            /home   10g
>
>I will be using Sourcemage which puts sources in /var so I have been thinking
>about taking 3g out of home and making a /var of 3g.
>
>  I will probably take another 3 out of home and add it to usr/ but that is
>probably overkill. Neither use too much.
>
>I am confused about where /swap should go. I have a SCSI drive and from 
>what I
>read that should be on the outside. So should I put /swap at sda8? (Given
>that I have added /var.)
>
>I had a /home because it was convenient to upgrade with CD's when I only 
>had a
>56 modem. Now that I am using a source based installation is the /home
>unnecessary as I am the only user.
>
>Is having a /tmp partition necessary?

Questions of the sort you pose here are hard to answer because they do not 
really have "right" answers. The best partitioning strategy for a specific 
system depends on the anticipated uses for that system, the distro 
involved, specifics of its hardware, and probably yhe personal style of the 
person who will admin it.

My own preference, just as an example, is to minimize partitioning, to 
avoid later needs to repartition when my needs change. So for a 1-drive 
system, I typically do something like this --

         hda1 = small (50 MB or so) partition, mounted at /boot
         hda2 = midsize (256-1024 MB) partition, used as swap
         hda3 = rest of disk, mounted as / (root partitionj)

Sometimes I use a 4-partition setup, varying the above as

         hda3 = between 10 GB and 20 GB, mounted as /
                 (depends a lot on the size of the drive, of course)
         hda4 = rest of disk, mounted as /home

But even there I have systems that depart from those rules ... and, of 
course, multi-drive systems get more complex. But I never find it desirable 
to set up separate partitions for /usr, /var, and /tmp ... I've found that 
making them separate just introduces more opportunities for things to go wrong.

That's just me, though ... this is an area where reasonable people come to 
different comculsions about the best approach.



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Re: partitioning

[S. Barret Dolph]

As always it is good to read your advice. I have learned much from this list 
and much from you.

Cordially,
S. Barret Dolph


On Monday 26 January 2004 00:42, Ray Olszewski wrote:
> At 09:37 PM 1/25/2004 +0800, S. Barret Dolph wrote:
> >I am probably getting too picky about repartitioning my drive but I want
> >it to
> >be set up for a long time. I never use all the space in my harddrive even
> >though it is relatively small. (I only use it for work and don't play any
> >games.)
> >
> >Questions......
> >
> >My old setup
> >
> >sda1    /               1g
> >sda5            /swap   1024k  (512ram)
> >sda6            /usr            6g
> >sda7            /home   10g
> >
> >I will be using Sourcemage which puts sources in /var so I have been
> > thinking about taking 3g out of home and making a /var of 3g.
> >
> >  I will probably take another 3 out of home and add it to usr/ but that
> > is probably overkill. Neither use too much.
> >
> >I am confused about where /swap should go. I have a SCSI drive and from
> >what I
> >read that should be on the outside. So should I put /swap at sda8? (Given
> >that I have added /var.)
> >
> >I had a /home because it was convenient to upgrade with CD's when I only
> >had a
> >56 modem. Now that I am using a source based installation is the /home
> >unnecessary as I am the only user.
> >
> >Is having a /tmp partition necessary?
>
> Questions of the sort you pose here are hard to answer because they do not
> really have "right" answers. The best partitioning strategy for a specific
> system depends on the anticipated uses for that system, the distro
> involved, specifics of its hardware, and probably yhe personal style of the
> person who will admin it.
>
> My own preference, just as an example, is to minimize partitioning, to
> avoid later needs to repartition when my needs change. So for a 1-drive
> system, I typically do something like this --
>
>          hda1 = small (50 MB or so) partition, mounted at /boot
>          hda2 = midsize (256-1024 MB) partition, used as swap
>          hda3 = rest of disk, mounted as / (root partitionj)
>
> Sometimes I use a 4-partition setup, varying the above as
>
>          hda3 = between 10 GB and 20 GB, mounted as /
>                  (depends a lot on the size of the drive, of course)
>          hda4 = rest of disk, mounted as /home
>
> But even there I have systems that depart from those rules ... and, of
> course, multi-drive systems get more complex. But I never find it desirable
> to set up separate partitions for /usr, /var, and /tmp ... I've found that
> making them separate just introduces more opportunities for things to go
> wrong.
>
> That's just me, though ... this is an area where reasonable people come to
> different comculsions about the best approach.
>
>
>
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-newbie" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
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Re: partitioning

[Ken Moffat]

On Sun, 25 Jan 2004, S. Barret Dolph wrote:

> I am probably getting too picky about repartitioning my drive but I want it to
> be set up for a long time. I never use all the space in my harddrive even
> though it is relatively small. (I only use it for work and don't play any
> games.)
>
> sda6		/usr		6g

>
>  I will probably take another 3 out of home and add it to usr/ but that is
> probably overkill. Neither use too much.
>

 If you're going to separate /usr, and the reasons for doing so probably
don't apply to many people here, even 3GB should be too much.  Depends,
of course, on exactly what you put there, but assuming you don't install
a _lot_ of things you aren't going to use then 3GB is more than enough
for a _full_ system (except /home).

 You might also want to consider how you will upgrade in the future.  If
your existing distro will provide updates for future releases, fine.  If
not, you might want to keep some space free for a replacement, so that
you can still run, or at least mount, the old one to check some of the
details.

> I am confused about where /swap should go. I have a SCSI drive and from what I
> read that should be on the outside. So should I put /swap at sda8? (Given
> that I have added /var.)
>

 Outside is supposed to be faster, but I don't believe there is much in
it.  I believe that the _first_ cylinder is the outside.  The real
killer is probably head movement.  Unless you have a repeatable workload
that goes fairly heavily into swap, plus time to kill benchmarking
different partition layouts, it isn't worth worrying about.

Ken
-- 
This is a job for Riviera Kid!
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Re: partitioning

[Hal MacArgle]

On 01-26, Ken Moffat wrote:
> 
>  If you're going to separate /usr, and the reasons for doing so probably
> don't apply to many people here, even 3GB should be too much.  Depends,
> of course, on exactly what you put there, but assuming you don't install
> a _lot_ of things you aren't going to use then 3GB is more than enough
> for a _full_ system (except /home).
> 

	Care to comment on the reasons for putting /usr in it's
separate partition??

	For the many personal and home office work stations wouldn't
that be overkill and not within the KISS philosophy??

	Just curious. Cheers. <grin>

    Hal - in Terra Alta, WV - Slackware GNU/Linux 9.0   (2.4.20)
		Utrum Per Hebdomadem Perveniam
.
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Re: partitioning

[Ken Moffat]

On Mon, 26 Jan 2004, Hal MacArgle wrote:

> On 01-26, Ken Moffat wrote:
> >
> >  If you're going to separate /usr, and the reasons for doing so probably
> > don't apply to many people here, even 3GB should be too much.  Depends,
> > of course, on exactly what you put there, but assuming you don't install
> > a _lot_ of things you aren't going to use then 3GB is more than enough
> > for a _full_ system (except /home).
> >
>
> 	Care to comment on the reasons for putting /usr in it's
> separate partition??
>

Not particularly, but I'll do my best ;)

> 	For the many personal and home office work stations wouldn't
> that be overkill and not within the KISS philosophy??
>

Yes to overkill.  If it's a simple way of making it harder to damage
things then perhaps it's not outwith the spirit of KISS.

> 	Just curious. Cheers. <grin>
>
>     Hal - in Terra Alta, WV - Slackware GNU/Linux 9.0   (2.4.20)
> 		Utrum Per Hebdomadem Perveniam
> .

As far as I understand, the main reason to separate /usr is to do with
permissions - if it's separate, you can mount it r/o.  However, you can
also mount '/' r/o with (quite a lot of planning and) messing about.
I'm sure I've read about people mounting an nfs export at /usr, but that
does assume that all clients are on a similar architecture.  My security
knowledge isn't great. I'm sure I've missed out other advantages.

Ken
-- 
This is a job for Riviera Kid!
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Re: partitioning

[Hal MacArgle]

OK on the comments received by all.. I'll have to give this more
thought as to whether or not it's for me... Appreciate!!

    Hal - in Terra Alta, WV - Slackware GNU/Linux 9.0   (2.4.20)
		Utrum Per Hebdomadem Perveniam

On 01-26, Ken Moffat wrote:
> > >
> >
> > 	Care to comment on the reasons for putting /usr in it's
> > separate partition??
> >
> 
> Not particularly, but I'll do my best ;)
> 
> > 	For the many personal and home office work stations wouldn't
> > that be overkill and not within the KISS philosophy??
> >
> 
> Yes to overkill.  If it's a simple way of making it harder to damage
> things then perhaps it's not outwith the spirit of KISS.
> 
> > 	Just curious. Cheers. <grin>

> 
> As far as I understand, the main reason to separate /usr is to do with
> permissions - if it's separate, you can mount it r/o.  However, you can
> also mount '/' r/o with (quite a lot of planning and) messing about.
> I'm sure I've read about people mounting an nfs export at /usr, but that
> does assume that all clients are on a similar architecture.  My security
> knowledge isn't great. I'm sure I've missed out other advantages.
> 
> Ken
> -- 
> This is a job for Riviera Kid!
> -
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Re: partitioning

[pa3gcu]

On Tuesday 27 January 2004 20:16, Hal MacArgle wrote:
> OK on the comments received by all.. I'll have to give this more
> thought as to whether or not it's for me... Appreciate!!
>

To be honest i have not seen any replys to your mail, however in the days we 
now live in which are;
BIOS's which dont have limitations like the old < 1024 cyl's limit,
Big H/D's 120GB is standard now, (plenty or room)
Multi boot systems via BIOS (choose which drive one wants to boot from,

one must ask one's self, "Is is reallt nessacary to have a /boot prtition now 
that bootloaders dont need it beneath the 1023 cylinder.?

I throw everything into one partition thesedays, 20 Gig on a 120Gig disk is 
nothing.
Just my thoughts.

-- 
If the Linux community is a bunch of theives because they
try to imitate windows programs, then the Windows community
is built on organized crime.

Regards Richard
pa3gcu@zeelandnet.nl
http://people.zeelandnet.nl/pa3gcu/



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Partitioning

[Natarajan K]

HI,
	I tried changing an existing dos partition into a ext2 one using mkfs.ext2 
and mk2efs. 
 # mkfs.ext2 /dev/hda7
But the partition type is still FAT 32 when I use fdisk(in Linux). I am not 
able to mount it as a FAT partition though. If I delete the partition then my 
partition numbers get changed i.e. 
If I am delete /dev/hda7 -- FAT 32 (mentioned above)
then the following happens
/dev/hda8 -----> /dev/hda9 (Linux swap)
/dev/hda9 -----> /dev/hda8 (ext2)

The /dev/hda9 partition houses LInux. If the partition number changes then I 
may need to run LILO again. But is there no other way out to convert the 
existing FAT partition to an ext2 partition.
-- 
Natarajan
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Re: Partitioning

[Ray Olszewski]

At 08:58 PM 8/9/02 -0400, Natarajan K wrote:
>HI,
>         I tried changing an existing dos partition into a ext2 one using 
> mkfs.ext2
>and mk2efs.
>  # mkfs.ext2 /dev/hda7

You do this and it does not return an error?

>But the partition type is still FAT 32 when I use fdisk(in Linux). I am not
>able to mount it as a FAT partition though.

Right. That's because you have a mess, not a working partition/filesystem 
combination. You need to change the partition type in fdisk, using the "t" 
command.

Only after you have changed the partition type to "Linux" (0x83) should you 
try to create a filesystem using mke2fs or mkfs.ext2 .

>If I delete the partition then my
>partition numbers get changed i.e.
>If I am delete /dev/hda7 -- FAT 32 (mentioned above)
>then the following happens
>/dev/hda8 -----> /dev/hda9 (Linux swap)
>/dev/hda9 -----> /dev/hda8 (ext2)
>
>The /dev/hda9 partition houses LInux.

I don't understand this part. If the swap partition became hda7, I would 
have a *guess* about what is going on (basically, that logical partitions 
need to be numbered in order, so deleting one causes the others to move up 
... I haven't actually seen this behavior, but I doubt I've ever actually 
tried anything that would cause it). But I can't think of a reason why the 
deletion would cause two other partitions to *exchange* their listings in 
the partition table.

>If the partition number changes then I
>may need to run LILO again. But is there no other way out to convert the
>existing FAT partition to an ext2 partition.

There is, and I described it above. Recaping, you need to do it in two steps:

         1. Use fdisk to change the partition type to Linux (0x83).
         2. Use mke2fs to create an ext2 filesystem in the partition.




--
-------------------------------------------"Never tell me the odds!"--------
Ray Olszewski					-- Han Solo
Palo Alto, California, USA			  ray@comarre.com
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Re: Partitioning

[Riley Williams]

Hi.

> I tried changing an existing dos partition into a ext2 one using
> mkfs.ext2 and mk2efs.

>> # mkfs.ext2 /dev/hda7

> But the partition type is still FAT32 when I use fdisk (in Linux).
> I am not able to mount it as a FAT partition though.

Actually, the "Windows partition type" is still FAT32 as that's what is
stored in the partition table. You correct this by using the 't' command
within Linux fdisk and setting the relevant partition's value to 83.

> If I delete the partition then my partition numbers get changed i.e.
> If I am delete /dev/hda7 -- FAT 32 (mentioned above) then the
> following happens

> /dev/hda8 -----> /dev/hda9 (Linux swap)
> /dev/hda9 -----> /dev/hda8 (ext2)

> The /dev/hda9 partition houses LInux.

This happens because you are dealing with what Windows calls "Logical
partitions", and those can only be safely deleted from the end.

> If the partition number changes then I may need to run LILO again.

As it happens, you won't need to rerun lilo but you WILL need to tweak
various Linux configuration files to adjust which partitions are mounted
or exported where, so I would suggest you don't do this.

> But is there no other way out to convert the existing FAT partition
> to an ext2 partition.

See above.

Best wishes from Riley.

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