Re: /var Increase

From: Michael Vilain (vilain_at_spamcop.net)
Date: 11/10/05 

Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2005 00:03:31 -0800

In article <aRwcf.14967$q%.4527@newssvr12.news.prodigy.com>,
 Darren Dunham <ddunham@redwood.taos.com> wrote:

> Michael Vilain <vilain@spamcop.net> wrote:
>
> > To expand on this, expanding a partition that's not under a volume
> > manager's control can be a problem. If /var has an adjacent slice that
> > can be made smaller, you can take space from the adjacent slice and give
> > it to the /var slice. Note this won't grow the filesystem. I don't
> > recall if growfs is present on systems without Disksuite or SVM.
>
> It's not, but you can run 'mkfs' with flags that do the same thing. The
> exact syntax is in the Solaris 2 FAQ.
>
> > The "old school" approach is to backup the entire system disk, boot from
> > the CD, re-partition the disk to your liking, restore from backups, and
> > write a boot block. Has this changed with the advent of SVM becoming
> > part of the Solaris?
>
> Not really. SDS/SVM doesn't really make it any easier to move slices
> around, and it's still impossible to shrink UFS filesystems.
>
> So unless you setup the system with free space for things to grow into,
> and the things you want to grow aren't boot critical, then it doesn't
> help much.
>
> I think "newer school" is to put all OS filesystems into one filesystem so
> you never have to repartition....

Yeah. I consulted at a site the did all the desktop developer boxes
this way. We had to partition specially for VxVM on the database
servers (special slice for the private region). This was over 10 years
ago, but I guess things haven't changed that much.

mk_sysb on AIX and Ignite on HP/UX do make this sort of recovery easier,
but I hated SMIT with a passion. HP/UX 10 and 11 were just as useable.
Is IBM doing any weird stuff with their version of Linux that runs on
their large servers? 

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