[mythtv-users] OT: new to logical volumes and LVM

Rod Smith mythtv at rodsbooks.com
Wed Dec 5 16:18:29 UTC 2007


On Wednesday 05 December 2007 03:48:32 Marc Barrett wrote:
> I have two partitions which I would like to logically join so I can
> use them as a single directory, mounted as /myth.  I have a lot
> of experience with partitioning hard drives and such under Linux,
> but I am fairly new to logical drives and LVM, especially under
> Linux.
...
> I would appreciate it if someone could give
> me some tips on how to do this.

In brief, what you'll need to do is to:

1) Either copy all the data from both existing partitions onto one of those
   partitions or back up the data to some other medium or computer.

2) Create an LVM configuration that initially includes whichever of the
   partitions you've backed up/emptied.

3) Copy all your data from the remaining partition to the new LVM volume.
   If this volume isn't big enough to hold everything, you'll need to back
   up at least some of the data or use partition resizing tricks to do the
   rest in stages.

4) Add any partitions you didn't include in the initial LVM configuration
   but that you want to include in the final configuration to the LVM
   configuration.

5) Make final changes to /etc/fstab and the directory structure in the LVM
   to reflect your desired final state.

The details are far too involved for a post to a mailing list, and some will 
depend on the details of your current configuration (partition sizes, used 
disk space on each partition, etc.). I recommend you start by reading a basic 
LVM tutorial. There's the LVM HOWTO (http://tldp.org/HOWTO/LVM-HOWTO/), for 
instance; or I wrote a three-piece column for Linux Magazine that's now 
available online (http://www.linuxmagazine.com/search.php?q=lvm; it's 
the "RAID and LVM: Part n" links, but Part 2 is RAID-specific, so you can 
skip it).

-- 
Rod Smith
http://www.rodsbooks.com


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