I recently rebuilt a VMWare Ubuntu instance and thought I would stick with a smaller virtual footprint of just 10GB. This proved to be too small (my bad). In VMWare I increased the allocation to 20GB, but of course, the Linux OS Logical Volume Manager needs to be given specific instructions on how to merge this new space into the existing, available drive space.
I understand that using the Logical Volume Manager (LVM), it is possible to add a new drive (in this case, a virtual drive) and then merge the logical space of that drive with a partition of an existing drive, under a shared volume group.
I found these instructions "Extending a logical volume in a virtual machine running Red Hat"
... but none for Ubuntu. The primary issue is that this HOWTO assumes "VolGroup00" and "LogVol00" already exist. Therefore, these commands do not function and the process cannot be completed:
# vgextend VolGroup00 /dev/sda3
# lvextend -L+#G /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00
I reviewed a number of 3rd party instructions on using LVM (both the GUI and via fdisk) to create the necessary groups, but was unsuccessful. I am likely missing something simple. Does any one suggest a solid, tried and tested HOWTO for:
a) formatting a new drive (even if virtual, in the case of VMWare)
b) creating a logical group that includes an existing drive partition (/dev/sda1)
c) merging the new partition (/dev/sda3) and the original into one logical volume
In the end, I could not make it work. Instead, I archived my home directory, reinstalled Ubuntu with a larger drive allocation, and then unzipped my home directory again. I was back up and running in roughly one hour. However, this is not ideal, for only the home directory can be preserved. All software installs and updates are lost, which is quite time consuming.
When I am met with this challenge again, I would like to be able to accomplish the original goal of modifying the virtual allocation of drive space through LVM.
Any suggestions will be well received.
Sincerely,
kai