How to resize the disk of a Fedora guest VM in VMWare ESXi
How do I resize (specifically increase) the disk size of a Fedora guest VM running under VMWare ESXi 4.1?
I have a Fedora 16 VM with an lvm2 formatted disk, and I've increased its disk size using the vSphere client from 50GB to about 250GB. I rebooted the guest, and it correctly shows this size using fdisk -l /dev/sda. However, df -H still shows the old size.
I've found a few KB articles explaining how to resize partitions for some flavors of Linux, but nothing for Fedora with ext4. That article seems to imply I have to create a completely new partition, and that I can't simply expand the existing partition. Using Gparted, it also prevents me from simply resizing the existing partition. Is this impossible to do under Linux?
Edit: It turns out the drive is formatted as LVM2, which apparently most Linux tools, such as GParted, don't support.
Edit: The partition in logical volume I need to resize is the root partition. Is there any way to do this without a LiveCD?
This is a bit of a cut'n'paste of a document I wrote for internal use and although it probably over-answers your question I thought I'd put it on here in case it's of use to you or others OK.
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Login to the machine as root or
sudoeach of the following commands, enterfdisk –l, you should see something like this;Disk /dev/sda: 21.1 GB, 21xxxxxxxxx bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 5221 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 2610 20860402+ 8e Linux LVMIn this case I've altered the values but as you can see this machine has a single ~20GB root virtual disk with two partitions, sda1 and sda2, sda2 is our first LVM 'physical volume', see how LVM uses a partition type of '8e'.
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Now type
pvdisplay, you'll see a section for this first PV (sda2) like this;--- Physical volume --- PV Name /dev/sda2 VG Name rootvg PV Size 19.89 GB / not usable 19.30 MB Allocatable yes (but full) PE Size (KByte) 32768 Total PE 636 Free PE 0 Allocated PE 636 PV UUID PgwRdY-EvCC-b5lO-Qrnx-tkrd-m16k-eQ9beCThis shows that this second partition (sda2) is mapped to a 'volume group' called 'rootvg'.
Now we can increase the size of the virtual disk using the usual vSphere VSClient by selecting the VM, choosing to 'edit settings', then selecting 'Hard Disk 1'. You can then increase the 'Provisioned Size' number – so long as there are no snapshots in place anyway – and select OK. This will take a few seconds to complete.
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If you then switch back to the Linux VM and enter
echo "- - -" > /sys/class/scsi_host/hostX/scanwhere the X character is likely to be zero, it will perform a SCSI bus rescan, then run
fdisk –l, you should see something like;Disk /dev/sda: 42.2 GB, 42xxxxxxxxx bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 5221 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 2610 20860402+ 8e Linux LVMYou'll see that the disk size has increased, in this case to ~40GB from ~20GB but that the partition table remains the same.
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We now need to create a new LVM partition, type
parted, you should see something like this;GNU Parted 1.8.1 Using /dev/sda Welcome to GNU Parted! Type 'help' to view a list of commands. (parted)You'll now need to create a new partition for the extra new space, type 'p' to see the current partition table such as this;
Model: VMware Virtual disk (scsi) Disk /dev/sda: 42.9GB Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B Partition Table: msdos Number Start End Size Type File system Flags 1 32.3kB 107MB 107MB primary ext3 boot 2 107MB 21.5GB 21.4GB primary lvmThen type
mkpart, then select 'p' for 'Primary', for file system type enter 'ext3', for start enter a number a little higher than the combination of both 'sizes' listed above (i.e. 107MB + 21.4GB, so say 21.6GB), for end type the size of the disk (i.e. in this case 42.9GB). Once you press enter it will create this new primary partition, type 'p' to show the new partition table, you should see something like;Model: VMware Virtual disk (scsi) Disk /dev/sda: 42.9GB Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B Partition Table: msdos Number Start End Size Type File system Flags 1 32.3kB 107MB 107MB primary ext3 boot 2 107MB 21.5GB 21.4GB primary lvm 3 21.5GB 42.9GB 21.5GB primary ext3You'll see that the new partition started after the first two and fills the available space, unfortunately we had to set it to a type of 'ext3', so let's change that.
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Type 't', then the partition number (in our case 3 as it's the third partition), then for the 'hex code' enter '8e' – once you'd done this type 'p' again and you should see it change to 'Linux LVM';
Disk /dev/sda: 42.9 GB, 42949672960 bytes ads, 63 sectors/track, 5221 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 2610 20860402+ 8e Linux LVM /dev/sda3 2611 5221 20972857+ 8e Linux LVM -
Now we need to create a new LVM 'physical volume' in this new partition, type
pvcreate /dev/sda3, this should then create a new LVM PV called /dev/sda3, typepvdisplayto check;--- Physical volume --- PV Name /dev/sda3 VG Name PV Size 20.00 GB / not usable 1.31 MB Allocatable no PE Size (KByte) 0 Total PE 0 Free PE 0 Allocated PE 0 PV UUID gpYPUv-XdeL-TxKJ-GYCa-iWcy-9bG6-tfZtShYou should see something similar to above.
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Now we need to extend the 'rootvg Volume Group', or create a new one for non-root 'volume group', type
vgdisplayto list all 'volume groups', here's an example;--- Volume group --- VG Name rootvg System ID Format lvm2 Metadata Areas 2 Metadata Sequence No 19 VG Access read/write VG Status resizable MAX LV 0 Cur LV 8 Open LV 8 Max PV 0 Cur PV 2 Act PV 2 VG Size 21.3 GB PE Size 32.00 MB Total PE 1276 Alloc PE / Size 846 / 26.44 GB Free PE / Size 430 / 13.44 GB VG UUID tGM4ja-k6es-la0H-LcX6-1FMY-6p2g-SRYtfYIf you want to extend the 'rootvg Volume Group' type
vgextend rootvg /dev/sda3, once you press enter you should see a message saying the 'volume group' has been extended.If you wanted to create a new 'volume group' you'll need to use the
vgcreatecommand – probably best call me for help with that.
Once extended enter
vgdisplayagain to see that the 'rootvg' 'volume group' has indeed been extended such as here;--- Volume group --- VG Name rootvg System ID Format lvm2 Metadata Areas 2 Metadata Sequence No 19 VG Access read/write VG Status resizable MAX LV 0 Cur LV 8 Open LV 8 Max PV 0 Cur PV 2 Act PV 2 VG Size 39.88 GB PE Size 32.00 MB Total PE 1276 Alloc PE / Size 846 / 26.44 GB Free PE / Size 430 / 13.44 GB VG UUID tGM4ja-k6es-la0H-LcX6-1FMY-6p2g-SRYtfYYou can see the 'VG Size' is as expected.
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Now we need to extend the 'logical volume', type
lvdisplayto show our 'logical volumes', you'll see something like;--- Logical volume --- LV Name /dev/rootvg/var VG Name rootvg LV UUID NOP1jF-09Xt-LkX5-ai4w-Srqb-xGka-nYbI2J LV Write Access read/write LV Status available # open 1 LV Size 3.00 GB Current LE 320 Segments 3 Allocation inherit Read ahead sectors auto currently set to 256 Block device 253:2If we want to expand the /var file system from 3GB to 10GB then type
lvextend –L 10G /dev/rootvg/var, now typelvdisplayagain, you'll see the 'logical volume' has grown to 10GB;--- Logical volume --- LV Name /dev/rootvg/var VG Name rootvg LV UUID NOP1jF-09Xt-LkX5-ai4w-Srqb-xGka-nYbI2J LV Write Access read/write LV Status available # open 1 LV Size 10.00 GB Current LE 320 Segments 3 Allocation inherit Read ahead sectors auto currently set to 256 Block device 253:2 -
Now the last thing we need to do is to grow the actual file system, this doesn't have to use all of the newly added space by the way. Enter
df –hto show the current filesystems, here's an example;Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/mapper/rootvg-root 2.0G 1.4G 495M 74% / /dev/mapper/rootvg-home 248M 124M 113M 53% /home /dev/mapper/rootvg-var 3.0G 1.1G 1.8G 30% /var /dev/mapper/rootvg-usr 3.0G 936M 1.9G 34% /usr /dev/mapper/rootvg-opt 3.0G 811M 2.0G 29% /optIf we want to expand the /var file system from 3GB to 10GB then type
resize2fs /dev/mapper/rootvg-var(or on CentOS maybexfs_growfs /dev/mapper/rootvg-var, or similar commands depending on the type of file system). When you press enter the actual filesystem will grow, this may take time, enterdf –honce completed to check.Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/mapper/rootvg-root 2.0G 1.4G 495M 74% / /dev/mapper/rootvg-home 248M 124M 113M 53% /home /dev/mapper/rootvg-var 9.88G 1.1G 8.2G 12% /var /dev/mapper/rootvg-usr 3.0G 936M 1.9G 34% /usr /dev/mapper/rootvg-opt 3.0G 811M 2.0G 29% /opt
You're now finished!
Perform the following steps before lvextend
#pvcreate /dev/sda3 (to create a new physical volume, if you can't create then probably you didn't reboot after creating the partition)
#pvdisplay (to check that you have created a new physical volume)
#vgcreate VolGroup /dev/sda3 (to assign the VolGroup to the new physical volume)
#lvdisplay (to get the logical path name of the partition you want to extend)
#lvcreate -LxxGB -n root_new VolGroup (to assign logical size and create a new logical volume)
#lvextend /dev/mapper/VolGroup-lv_root /dev/sda3 (extend the root(if) partition finally)
#lvdisplay (check the LV size if it has increazed or not)
#resize2fs /dev/mapper/VolGroup-lv_root (to resize the actual file-system)
#df -h (then check whether the actual file-system value has increazed or not)