[ale] mint 13 vm running out of storage space

[Michael B. Trausch]

On 10/13/2013 05:10 PM, Jim Kinney wrote:
>
> I would try run the android emulator native on the hardware. Emulator
> in a VM sounds painfully slow unless hardware is pretty beefy.
> That said, I would create a new VM and start over with better size
> disks and do manual partitioning. It would be faster that resizing a
> drive and file system.
>

Indeed---also, I wouldn't use VirtualBox unless you're doing relatively
quick or minor things.  I have (both on my main desktop as well as a
dedicated VMH on my LAN) a server that can be controlled using virt-manager.

Here, however, is one way to increase storage when you plan ahead,
*regardless of the virtual machine technology*:

  * First, at initial installation, you *must* use ext4 on top of LVM or
    btrfs, otherwise you're going to be backed into a corner.  I'd
    recommend LVM as it is simpler.
  * When you need more storage, add a new hard disk to the VM.  If
    you're using VirtualBox, you'll probably need to shut down the VM to
    add the disk; if you're using virt-manager and KVM or Xen, you can
    probably add the disk with the system online.  I will assume here
    that sdb is the new virtual HDD, and that sda is the one that you
    had to start with, in the command examples below.
  * Create a new physical volume on the new disk. (*pvcreate
    /dev/sdb*).  You may optionally create a single partition on the
    disk and create the PV inside that; but I often do not bother.  No
    need for a partition table at all on LVM-managed storage if it isn't
    the boot device.
  * Extend your current volume group onto the new physical volume.
    (*vgextend **/dev/vgname /dev/sdb*)
  * Extend your currently full filesystem logical volume (*NOT* the
    filesystem). (*lvextend -L +999G /dev/vgname/lvname*)
  * *Now* grow the filesystem, using resize2fs.  This will happen
    online, while the system is running, and the operation is typically
    very quick. (*resize2fs /dev/vgname/lvname*)

I've used this procedure to grow filesystems up to 5 TB with ext4 and it
works pretty fine. Note that ext4 filesystems can only grow one order of
magnitude after formatting by default; after that, you have to backup
and reinitialize the filesystem.  You'll also want to read through the
man pages to get a good idea of what is possible with LVM in general.

    --- Mike

-- 
Naunet Corporation Logo 	Michael B. Trausch

President, *Naunet Corporation*
? (678) 287-0693 x130 or (855) NAUNET-1 x130
FAX: (678) 783-7843

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