Increasing the size of a partition using Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.3

This follows on from an earlier post ( written in 2010 about RHEL 5.5 )

I'd originally created a 30 GB VM using the 64-bit version of RHEL 6.3, and was using it to install IBM Connections 3.0.1.1 CR2.

Sadly I ran out of disk space during the final hurdle.

Thankfully, VMware Fusion 4.1.3 ( on Mac OS X) allows me to grow the virtual disk on the fly ( from 30 GB to 50 GB ).

However, I had to remind myself how to tell Linux that the disk had grown.

This is what I had to start with: -

$ df -kmh

Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/vg_rhel6-lv_root
                       26G  8.8G   16G  37% /
tmpfs                 937M     0  937M   0% /dev/shm
/dev/sda1             485M   76M  384M  17% /boot

$ pvdisplay 

  --- Physical volume ---
  PV Name               /dev/sda2
  VG Name               vg_rhel6
  PV Size               29.51 GiB / not usable 3.00 MiB
  Allocatable           yes (but full)
  PE Size               4.00 MiB
  Total PE              7554
  Free PE               0
  Allocated PE          7554
  PV UUID               ErZzgp-aefq-eHjk-njzR-Aoq1-mUGV-olNd76

$ vgdisplay 

  --- Volume group ---
  VG Name               vg_rhel6
  System ID             
  Format                lvm2
  Metadata Areas        1
  Metadata Sequence No  3
  VG Access             read/write
  VG Status             resizable
  MAX LV                0
  Cur LV                2
  Open LV               2
  Max PV                0
  Cur PV                1
  Act PV                1
  VG Size               29.51 GiB
  PE Size               4.00 MiB
  Total PE              7554
  Alloc PE / Size       7554 / 29.51 GiB
  Free  PE / Size       0 / 0   
  VG UUID               lqlIZU-UDiA-gz5A-Xqxn-TFL7-REo3-s0lDzm

$ lvdisplay 

  --- Logical volume ---
  LV Path                /dev/vg_rhel6/lv_root
  LV Name                lv_root
  VG Name                vg_rhel6
  LV UUID                23aVS2-OAA6-B9yL-UjFf-0fhz-ycJm-vrK3r2
  LV Write Access        read/write
  LV Creation host, time , 
  LV Status              available
  # open                 1
  LV Size                25.57 GiB
  Current LE             6546
  Segments               1
  Allocation             inherit
  Read ahead sectors     auto
  - currently set to     256
  Block device           253:0
   
  --- Logical volume ---
  LV Path                /dev/vg_rhel6/lv_swap
  LV Name                lv_swap
  VG Name                vg_rhel6
  LV UUID                eX02pG-wj73-Ydjx-0vmn-Q8b3-7m9f-kZZmWi
  LV Write Access        read/write
  LV Creation host, time , 
  LV Status              available
  # open                 1
  LV Size                3.94 GiB
  Current LE             1008
  Segments               1
  Allocation             inherit
  Read ahead sectors     auto
  - currently set to     256
  Block device           253:1

This was easier than I'd expected - although my earlier blog post definitely helped: -

Create a new disk partition ( /dev/sda3 )

$ fdisk /dev/sda

Reboot to take effect

$ reboot 

Create a new physical volume on the newly created partition

$ pvcreate /dev/sda3

Extend the volume group

$ vgextend vg_rhel6 /dev/sda3

Extend the logical volume

$ lvextend /dev/mapper/vg_rhel6-lv_root /dev/sda3 

Resize the file system

$ resize2fs -p /dev/mapper/vg_rhel6-lv_root 

Check the space

$ df -kmh

Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/vg_rhel6-lv_root
                       45G   21G   22G  49% /
tmpfs                 3.9G     0  3.9G   0% /dev/shm
/dev/sda1             485M   76M  384M  17% /boot

To close the loop, here are the physical volume, volume group and logical volume statistics post the change: -

$ pvdisplay

  --- Physical volume ---
  PV Name               /dev/sda2
  VG Name               vg_rhel6
  PV Size               29.51 GiB / not usable 3.00 MiB
  Allocatable           yes (but full)
  PE Size               4.00 MiB
  Total PE              7554
  Free PE               0
  Allocated PE          7554
  PV UUID               ErZzgp-aefq-eHjk-njzR-Aoq1-mUGV-olNd76
   
  --- Physical volume ---
  PV Name               /dev/sda3
  VG Name               vg_rhel6
  PV Size               20.00 GiB / not usable 3.34 MiB
  Allocatable           yes (but full)
  PE Size               4.00 MiB
  Total PE              5119
  Free PE               0
  Allocated PE          5119
  PV UUID               ZhJrDi-tIPA-bzUe-vLJv-ifhf-UDWb-KT46Jo

$ vgdisplay 

  --- Volume group ---
  VG Name               vg_rhel6
  System ID             
  Format                lvm2
  Metadata Areas        2
  Metadata Sequence No  5
  VG Access             read/write
  VG Status             resizable
  MAX LV                0
  Cur LV                2
  Open LV               2
  Max PV                0
  Cur PV                2
  Act PV                2
  VG Size               49.50 GiB
  PE Size               4.00 MiB
  Total PE              12673
  Alloc PE / Size       12673 / 49.50 GiB
  Free  PE / Size       0 / 0   
  VG UUID               lqlIZU-UDiA-gz5A-Xqxn-TFL7-REo3-s0lDzm

$ lvdisplay

  --- Logical volume ---
  LV Path                /dev/vg_rhel6/lv_root
  LV Name                lv_root
  VG Name                vg_rhel6
  LV UUID                23aVS2-OAA6-B9yL-UjFf-0fhz-ycJm-vrK3r2
  LV Write Access        read/write
  LV Creation host, time , 
  LV Status              available
  # open                 1
  LV Size                45.57 GiB
  Current LE             11665
  Segments               2
  Allocation             inherit
  Read ahead sectors     auto
  - currently set to     256
  Block device           253:0
   
  --- Logical volume ---
  LV Path                /dev/vg_rhel6/lv_swap
  LV Name                lv_swap
  VG Name                vg_rhel6
  LV UUID                eX02pG-wj73-Ydjx-0vmn-Q8b3-7m9f-kZZmWi
  LV Write Access        read/write
  LV Creation host, time , 
  LV Status              available
  # open                 1
  LV Size                3.94 GiB
  Current LE             1008
  Segments               1
  Allocation             inherit
  Read ahead sectors     auto
  - currently set to     256
  Block device           253:1