My problem was:
how to expand the root partition, the easiest way.
Many thanks to everyone that replied with warnings and oppinions:
Tim Hespe <t.hespe_at_unsw.edu.au>
Dr. Tom Blinn, 603-884-0646" <tpb_at_zk3.dec.com>
alan_at_nabeth.cxo.dec.com
Steve VanDevender <stevev_at_hexadecimal.uoregon.edu>
Dejan Muhamedagic <dejan_at_yunix.com>
I have accepted the best solution, a bigger disc is bought.
______________________
The original question:
I have to install few patches on an Alpha machine with Digital Unix 4.0b,
but the root partition is too small.
Is it necessary to reconstruct the system disc or I can just move files from
root partition, such as genvmunix or vmunix, to an other partition of the same
disc and then link it to the root partition.
( for ex.:
1. mv genvmunix to /tmp1
2. ln -s /tmp1/genvmunix /genvmunix
3. reboot)
Any advice in "increasing the root partition" the easiest way.
______________________
Answers are:
!! I believe the System Administrators manual has
a section on moving the root partition, using vdump
and vrestore as I recall. Try looking there. It will
require you to boot off a different partition. I don't
think links would work because at the time the kernel
is being loaded no file systems have been mounted.
Tim Hespe
System Admin.
University of New South Wales Library
t.hespe_at_unsw.edu.au
!! You can do what you propose, but then your system will not boot. There is
very little in the root file system that doesn't HAVE TO BE THERE for the
system to run.
If you move critical files out of the root partition and replace them with
symbolic links, your system will not boot, so don't try it unless you are
certain you know exactly what you are doing.
If you are running a V4.0B system with less than a 96MB root partition, you
may as well do the work to make the root partition larger; you will need to do
this sooner or later anyway, you might as well do it sooner. (If you can get
a new disk of at least 1GB size, that will make things easier.) If you've got
a 96MB or larger root partition already (128MB is even better), and you are
out of space, you need to find out what's using up your root partition. One
possible culprit is /tmp use -- if you can make /tmp be a separate partition
that is mounted on top of the existing directory, then you can free up some
space that way on a typical running system.
Tom
Dr. Thomas P. Blinn, UNIX Software Group, Digital Equipment Corporation
110 Spit Brook Road, MS ZKO3-2/U20 Nashua, New Hampshire 03062-2698
Technology Partnership Engineering Phone: (603) 884-0646
Internet: tpb_at_zk3.dec.com Digital's Easynet: alpha::tpb
ACM Member: tpblinn_at_acm.org PC_at_Home: tom_at_felines.mv.net
after my additional explanation he added
If you can afford a new disk and have a place to install it (a good 1GB SCSI
disk is pretty inexpensive compared to the cost of people time),
!! You expand the root file system by either:
a. Back it up, resize the underlying partition, recreate the
file system, restore.
b. Migrate to a larger partition, since is simply the previous
steps in a different order; size a partition, create a file
system on it, backup and restore. The last two steps can
often be done directly cross a pipe.
Even when using AdvFS, the root file system domain has a flag
set that prevents it from accepting multiple devices in the
domain. I think this is done to keep the root from being
spread out among multiple devices.
As for moving files, /vmunix is the on-disk copy of the kernel
and can't be moved. /genvmunix can be moved for the purpose
of getting more space, but becomes unbootable when you do.
For other files you have to look and see if it is used before
any other file systems are mounted. If a program, moving would
prevent the system from booting or making the transition from
single to multi-user.
alan_at_nabeth.cxo.dec.com
!! I've never tried it, but I seriously doubt that the boot loader
understands symbolic links. Painful as it may be, I recommend
changing the root partition size the traditional way by simply
backing up all partitions on the root disk, repartitioning, and
restoring from backup.
Steve VanDevender <stevev_at_hexadecimal.uoregon.edu>
!! As far as I know there is no "fast" way to do this, i.e. you have to
backup, repartition and restore. However, if you do know what is in
patches you may try moving files like genvmunix to other place in case
those are not being updated. If the patches are in setld format you can
use setld to check this out.
Dejan Muhamedagic dejan_at_yunix.com
Received on Tue Jan 13 1998 - 23:35:03 NZDT