How to extend a Linux PV partition online after virtual disk growth
- by Yves Martin
VMware allows to extend the size of a virtual disk online - when the VM is running.
The next expected steps for Linux system are:
extend the partition: delete and create a larger one with fdisk
extend the PV size with pvresize
use free extents for lvresize operations
and then resize2fs for file system
But I am stuck on the first step: fdisk and sfdisk still display the old size for the disk.
My disk is a SCSI virtual disk connected thanks to the virtual LSI Logic controller.
How to refresh the virtual disk size and partition table information available in Linux kernel without reboot ?
As far as I know all that steps are possible for a running Windows, without reboot and even without any user actions thanks to VMWare tools. On Linux, I expects to do all steps online too and I already know steps 2, 3 and 4 work online. But the first one - change partition size declared in the partition table (still) seems to require a reboot.
Update: My system is a Debian Lenny with kernel 2.6.26 and the disk I have extended is the main disk with a large PV containing the "root" LV for "/".
