<div dir="ltr">On Mon, Oct 14, 2013 at 10:59 AM, Michael B. Trausch <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:mbt@naunetcorp.com" target="_blank">mbt@naunetcorp.com</a>></span> wrote:<div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote">
<div>... </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><div bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
I don't use thin provisioning on the disk... personally, I think
it's asking for trouble.</div></blockquote></div><br clear="all"><div>When you're creating disposable, seldom-used VMs for development, thin provisioning can be nice, and you can often get by with something more lightweight than LVM---sparse files.</div>
<div><br></div><div>The dd command allows you to write way past the end of a file to create a sparse file, and tools like GNU cp and rsync have options that allow sparse files to be treated as such.</div><div><br></div><div>
I made a script that helps me conveniently use dd to create image files for VM disks (and loop device disks, or whatever).</div><div><br></div><div> <a href="http://noserose.net/e/code/sparsefile">http://noserose.net/e/code/sparsefile</a><br>
</div><div><br></div><div>I think you can use dd again to write past the end again, and then you can boot the VM from a CD image and resize the filesystem, if the fs supports that (many do).</div><div><br></div>-- <br> Ed Cashin <<a href="mailto:ecashin@noserose.net">ecashin@noserose.net</a>><br>
<a href="http://noserose.net/e/">http://noserose.net/e/</a><br> <a href="http://www.coraid.com/">http://www.coraid.com/</a>
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