We just purchased a new dedicated server outside of the country. I just logged into it (Centos 4.2) and it appears the datacenter formatted it with one big partition. We require a /home partition for our software to function. Typically I install the OS myself on our local machines and manually create the /, /home, /var, partitions on setup.
What do I need to do to get a /home partition on this machine remotely? Can it be done?
Thanks for your advise
Dan Bulmer
CRUSE Hosting Services
www.crusehosting.com http://www.crusehosting.com/
On 08/02/2006 7.16, Dan Bulmer wrote:
What do I need to do to get a /home partition on this machine remotely? Can it be done?
Thanks for your advise
Format oneother partition and mount it; with rsync you can copy all file present in /home to the new partition (check with "who" if there are some users log on). After copy, you can change (adding) mount istruction for new partition in your /etc/fstab file, move /home directory in /home-old and create new directory /home for the mount-pointer ad mount new partition, by mount -a (or mount /dev/hdxx /home).
Francesco
On Tue, 7 Feb 2006, Dan Bulmer wrote:
We just purchased a new dedicated server outside of the country. I just logged into it (Centos 4.2) and it appears the datacenter formatted it with one big partition. We require a /home partition for our software to function. Typically I install the OS myself on our local machines and manually create the /, /home, /var, partitions on setup.
What do I need to do to get a /home partition on this machine remotely? Can it be done?
I assume that the hosting center will assist you by placing a CD in the drive. I am also assuming that the machine is not running a production environment yet, or if it is, that it can be taken offline for scheduled maintenance.
1. Have the hosting center boot your system off a bootable Linux CD that has support for your hardware. I usually use Knoppix.
2. Have the hosting center configure an IP address on the machine. Have them change the password for the "knoppix" user. Have them start the SSH server with the command "/etc/init.d/ssh start".
3. Open an ssh connection to the machine and log in as the "knoppix" user. Type "sudo su -" to become root.
4. Verify a connection to some sort of storage that is available to store the contents of your drive.
5. Mount your hard drive with your single large filesystem.
6. Change directory to the base of the large filesystem and make a tar archive of the whole file system and store it on the storage mentioned in step 4.
7. Unmount the original drive
8. Repartiton and reformat the drive, including swap. Don't forget to create filesystem labels. You will use them in your new /etc/fstab. If the system indicates that the kernel is using the old partition table, run "partprobe"
9. Create a directory for and mount the new root file system. Create directories under the root filesystem for each new partition.
10. Mount all of the other newly created partitions in the appropriate locations under the new root file system.
11. Change directory to the root of your new filesystem and extract the archive.
12. Chroot the root directory where you mounted the root file system, and then modify the /etc/fstab file to reflect your new partitions.
13. Verify/update the /etc/grub.conf file and reinstall grub.
14. Exit the chroot, call the hosting company and reboot the system. Have the hosting company remove the CD.
If all goes well(tm), you should have your system in place and should boot without a problem.
Hope this helps.
Barry
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Barry Brimer -
Dan Bulmer -
Francesco F