I'm bit ashamed to make this post, even though I have quite a bit of experience with maintaining linux based servers, I have never added storage to a running server before! Well I did once very early in my career, but my hands were being held the entire time by a senior engineer. I never had to make crucial decisions and research the process on my own. Ever since I moved into the cloud space; adding more storage is not a typical task due to the ephemeral nature of cloud based resources.
Well today that changes! I will add a 1 TB disk for my virtualization server. This will function as the home for my VMs, separate from the disk hosting the OS.
Prerequisites
- Linux Host (I will be using Fedora Server 30)
- Disk storage separate from the OS disk
Let's Begin!
To get started shutdown your host server and physically install the additional disk storage. If you are on a proper server, it might support hot swappable drives so you may not need to shutdown your server. For me, I'm installing a 1TB SSD in my gen 8 NUC and I don't have that luxury! Once it's installed boot up your host and connect (ssh) into it.
- Check the current disk space usage. To do this execute the
df -hcommand. The-hoption outputs the values in "human readable" format. You should get an output like below.
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
devtmpfs 16G 0 16G 0% /dev
tmpfs 16G 0 16G 0% /dev/shm
tmpfs 16G 1.3M 16G 1% /run
tmpfs 16G 0 16G 0% /sys/fs/cgroup
/dev/mapper/fedora-root 15G 2.2G 13G 15% /
tmpfs 16G 4.0K 16G 1% /tmp
/dev/sdb3 976M 169M 740M 19% /boot
tmpfs 3.2G 0 3.2G 0% /run/user/1000Notice my 1 TB drive is not showing up.
2. Check the block devices to see what the current block devices are. Execute the lsblk -p command.
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
/dev/sdb 8:16 1 57.9G 0 disk
├─/dev/sdb1 8:17 1 4M 0 part
├─/dev/sdb2 8:18 1 1M 0 part
├─/dev/sdb3 8:19 1 1G 0 part /boot
├─/dev/sdb4 8:20 1 53.5G 0 part
│ ├─/dev/mapper/fedora-root 253:0 0 15G 0 lvm /
│ └─/dev/mapper/fedora-swap 253:1 0 5.5G 0 lvm [SWAP]
├─/dev/sdb5 8:21 1 250M 0 part
├─/dev/sdb6 8:22 1 250M 0 part
├─/dev/sdb7 8:23 1 110M 0 part
├─/dev/sdb8 8:24 1 286M 0 part
└─/dev/sdb9 8:25 1 2.5G 0 partHere it shows /dev/sdb as having the size of 57.9 GB. That is my 64 GB OS drive! The host doesn't recognize the new disk that I installed!
3. Now let's take a look at the partition table with the fdisk -l command. You should get a similar output.
Disk /dev/sda: 953.9 GiB, 1024209543168 bytes, 2000409264 sectors
Disk model: SATA SSD
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk /dev/sdb: 57.9 GiB, 62109253632 bytes, 121307136 sectors
Disk model: Thumb Drive 1
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 88BE9F4C-38E2-47D0-9974-A4F5D0781A7B
** ADDITIONAL LINES CUT FOR BREVITY **Notice the /dev/sda that is the additional 1 TB storage I added. Cool so Fedora does recognize the disk, however it's currently in an unusable state.
4. Use the fdisk /dev/sda command to start the partitioning process. It will change the prompt to something like below.
Command (m for help):5. Enter p to check the partition table. From the output below, /dev/sda has no partitions.
Command (m for help): p
Disk /dev/sda: 953.9 GiB, 1024209543168 bytes, 2000409264 sectors
Disk model: SATA SSD
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes6. Create a new GPT table by pressing g.
Command (m for help): g7. Press and enter n to create a new partition. You can go ahead and accept the defaults like I did.
Command (m for help): n
Partition number (1-128, default 1):
First sector (2048-2000409230, default 2048):
Last sector, +/-sectors or +/-size{K,M,G,T,P} (2048-2000409230, default 2000409230):
Created a new partition 1 of type 'Linux filesystem' and of size 953.9 GiB.
Partition #1 contains a VMFS_volume_member signature.
Do you want to remove the signature? [Y]es/[N]o: n8. Now if we list the partitions again p and you should see the new partition. Take a note that it is /dev/sda1. We will need that later when we create a filesystem.
Command (m for help): p
Disk /dev/sda: 953.9 GiB, 1024209543168 bytes, 2000409264 sectors
Disk model: SATA SSD
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 53817ED4-974F-5E47-B4E2-6FCFF28EE3AB
Device Start End Sectors Size Type
/dev/sda1 2048 2000409230 2000407183 953.9G Linux filesystem9. Alright so the new partition is in place, time to save the changes by pressing w. This will kick you out of the fdisk prompt.
Command (m for help): w
The partition table has been altered.
Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table.
Syncing disks.10. Create a new filesystem by supplying the partition filesystem. Issue the following command mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda1 to create a new filesystem. When you enter that command you will see something like below.
mke2fs 1.44.6 (5-Mar-2019)
/dev/sda1 contains a VMFS_volume_member file system
Proceed anyway? (y,N) y
Discarding device blocks: done
Creating filesystem with 250050897 4k blocks and 62513152 inodes
Filesystem UUID: f5a5557a-dcb8-43b1-ae98-d5c1eff2f170
Superblock backups stored on blocks:
32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912, 819200, 884736, 1605632, 2654208,
4096000, 7962624, 11239424, 20480000, 23887872, 71663616, 78675968,
102400000, 214990848
Allocating group tables: done
Writing inode tables: done
Creating journal (262144 blocks): done
Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done11. I will create a new directory onto which I will mount the /dev/sda1 filesystem. To do this use the mkdir /appl command. Appl is short for applications, it will hold all of my new applications and VMs.
12. Mount /dev/sda1 onto /appl. mount /dev/sda1 /appl
13. Check to see the disk usage now with the df -h command. You should see the following.
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
devtmpfs 16G 0 16G 0% /dev
tmpfs 16G 0 16G 0% /dev/shm
tmpfs 16G 1.4M 16G 1% /run
tmpfs 16G 0 16G 0% /sys/fs/cgroup
/dev/mapper/fedora-root 15G 2.2G 13G 15% /
tmpfs 16G 12K 16G 1% /tmp
/dev/sda1 938G 77M 891G 1% /applNice! /dev/sda1 is now showing up on the bottom.
14. If you've gotten this far you're 99% complete. All that is left is to ensure the mount persists after a reboot of the host. First we will need to grab the UUID of the filesystem with the blkid command.
/dev/sda1: UUID="f5a5557a-dcb8-43b1-ae98-d5c1eff2f170" TYPE="ext4" PARTUUID="212dc680-c149-0e48-9788-dd104e51d3cd"
/dev/sdb1: SEC_TYPE="msdos" LABEL_FATBOOT="ESXi" LABEL="ESXi" UUID="5BDF-84AB" TYPE="vfat" PARTUUID="a8fa26fb-96c0-4128-b9dc-43cf1d1403c9"
/dev/sdb2: PARTUUID="1b7d3424-0118-49d9-8b46-e582071efc51"
/dev/mapper/fedora-root: UUID="9baa5936-1f34-4372-8816-856ceb3ac183" TYPE="xfs"As you can see at the first line. The UUID for /dev/sda1 is f5a5557a-dcb8-43b1-ae98-d5c1eff2f170.
15. Open up the fstab file vim /etc/fstab. Now add line on the bottom to the file.
UUID=f5a5557a-dcb8-43b1-ae98-d5c1eff2f170 /appl ext4 defaults 0 016. Reboot the host and verify the mount stays in place after the reboot by using df -h command.