Reduce LVM Partition size in 5 steps after OS Provisioning
4 min readSep 18, 2020
Sometimes while provisioning a new Linux server here for example CentOS7 , the drive get partioned with the root, boot and swap, and then all the rest of the space is given to the home directory. But lets say we don’t want that much space allocated for home instead root should be given more.
Here, we will learn about after OS provisioning how we can reduce the size of the /home partition and allocate the remaining space back to the root partition.
Step 1: List current Block Devices
List the current block devices present on the system
root@centos7-kernel-test ~]# lsblk
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda 8:0 0 64G 0 disk
├─sda1 8:1 0 1G 0 part /boot
└─sda2 8:2 0 63G 0 part
├─centos-root 253:0 0 41G 0 lvm /
├─centos-swap 253:1 0 2G 0 lvm [SWAP]
└─centos-home 253:2 0 20G 0 lvm /home
sdb 8:16 0 20G 0 diskStep 2: Backup /home partition content
Backup all the contents of the /home directory -
[root@centos7-kernel-test ~]# tar -czvf /root/home.tgz -C /home .
./
./vagrant/
./vagrant/.bash_logout
./vagrant/.bash_profile
./vagrant/.bashrc
./vagrant/.vbox_version
./vagrant/.ssh/
./vagrant/.ssh/authorized_keys
./rakesh/
./rakesh/.bash_logout
./rakesh/.bash_profile
./rakesh/.bashrc
./data_backup/
./data_backup/test1
./data_backup/test2
./data_backup/test3
[root@centos7-kernel-test ~]#Test the backup taken -
[root@centos7-kernel-test ~]# tar -tvf /root/home.tgzdrwxr-xr-x root/root 0 2020-09-18 04:44 ./
drwx------ vagrant/vagrant 0 2020-07-17 06:22 ./vagrant/
-rw-r--r-- vagrant/vagrant 18 2020-04-01 02:17 ./vagrant/.bash_logout
-rw-r--r-- vagrant/vagrant 193 2020-04-01 02:17 ./vagrant/.bash_profile
-rw-r--r-- vagrant/vagrant 231 2020-04-01 02:17 ./vagrant/.bashrc
-rw-r--r-- vagrant/vagrant 6 2020-07-17 06:16 ./vagrant/.vbox_version
drwx------ vagrant/root 0 2020-09-18 04:06 ./vagrant/.ssh/
-rw------- vagrant/vagrant 389 2020-09-18 04:06 ./vagrant/.ssh/authorized_keys
drwx------ rakesh/rakesh 0 2020-09-18 04:43 ./rakesh/
-rw-r--r-- rakesh/rakesh 18 2020-04-01 02:17 ./rakesh/.bash_logout
-rw-r--r-- rakesh/rakesh 193 2020-04-01 02:17 ./rakesh/.bash_profile
-rw-r--r-- rakesh/rakesh 231 2020-04-01 02:17 ./rakesh/.bashrc
drwxr-xr-x root/root 0 2020-09-18 04:44 ./data_backup/
-rw-r--r-- root/root 0 2020-09-18 04:44 ./data_backup/test1
-rw-r--r-- root/root 0 2020-09-18 04:44 ./data_backup/test2
-rw-r--r-- root/root 0 2020-09-18 04:44 ./data_backup/test3
Step 3: Reduce the Size of the /home Partition
Unmount the home volume
[root@centos7-kernel-test ~]# umount /dev/mapper/centos-home[root@centos7-kernel-test ~]# df -hT
Filesystem Type Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
devtmpfs devtmpfs 908M 0 908M 0% /dev
tmpfs tmpfs 919M 0 919M 0% /dev/shm
tmpfs tmpfs 919M 17M 903M 2% /run
tmpfs tmpfs 919M 0 919M 0% /sys/fs/cgroup
/dev/mapper/centos-root xfs 41G 1.3G 40G 3% /
/dev/sda1 xfs 1014M 240M 775M 24% /boot
vagrant vboxsf 2.0T 457G 1.6T 23% /vagrant
tmpfs tmpfs 184M 0 184M 0% /run/user/0
Now remove the home logical volume
[root@centos7-kernel-test ~]# lvremove /dev/mapper/centos-home
Do you really want to remove active logical volume centos/home? [y/n]: y
Logical volume "home" successfully removedRecreate a new 10GB logical volume for /home
[root@centos7-kernel-test ~]# lvcreate -L 10GB -n home centos
WARNING: xfs signature detected on /dev/centos/home at offset 0. Wipe it? [y/n]: y
Wiping xfs signature on /dev/centos/home.
Logical volume "home" created.Format it with xfs filesystem type
[root@centos7-kernel-test ~]# mkfs.xfs /dev/centos/home
meta-data=/dev/centos/home isize=512 agcount=4, agsize=655360 blks
= sectsz=512 attr=2, projid32bit=1
= crc=1 finobt=0, sparse=0
data = bsize=4096 blocks=2621440, imaxpct=25
= sunit=0 swidth=0 blks
naming =version 2 bsize=4096 ascii-ci=0 ftype=1
log =internal log bsize=4096 blocks=2560, version=2
= sectsz=512 sunit=0 blks, lazy-count=1
realtime =none extsz=4096 blocks=0, rtextents=0Mount it
[root@centos7-kernel-test ~]# mount /dev/mapper/centos-home[root@centos7-kernel-test ~]# df -hT
Filesystem Type Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
devtmpfs devtmpfs 908M 0 908M 0% /dev
tmpfs tmpfs 919M 0 919M 0% /dev/shm
tmpfs tmpfs 919M 17M 903M 2% /run
tmpfs tmpfs 919M 0 919M 0% /sys/fs/cgroup
/dev/mapper/centos-root xfs 41G 1.3G 40G 3% /
/dev/sda1 xfs 1014M 240M 775M 24% /boot
vagrant vboxsf 2.0T 457G 1.6T 23% /vagrant
tmpfs tmpfs 184M 0 184M 0% /run/user/0
/dev/mapper/centos-home xfs 10G 33M 10G 1% /home
Step 4: Extend the /root volume
Now lets extend the /root volume with all of the remaining space and resize the filesystem
[root@centos7-kernel-test ~]# lvextend -r -l +100%FREE /dev/mapper/centos-root
Size of logical volume centos/root changed from 40.98 GiB (10492 extents) to <51.00 GiB (13055 extents).
Logical volume centos/root successfully resized.
meta-data=/dev/mapper/centos-root isize=512 agcount=4, agsize=2685952 blks
= sectsz=512 attr=2, projid32bit=1
= crc=1 finobt=0 spinodes=0
data = bsize=4096 blocks=10743808, imaxpct=25
= sunit=0 swidth=0 blks
naming =version 2 bsize=4096 ascii-ci=0 ftype=1
log =internal bsize=4096 blocks=5246, version=2
= sectsz=512 sunit=0 blks, lazy-count=1
realtime =none extsz=4096 blocks=0, rtextents=0
data blocks changed from 10743808 to 13368320Step 5: Restore /home partition content
Restore the contents of the /home directory
[root@centos7-kernel-test ~]# tar -xzvf /root/home.tgz -C /home
./
./vagrant/
./vagrant/.bash_logout
./vagrant/.bash_profile
./vagrant/.bashrc
./vagrant/.vbox_version
./vagrant/.ssh/
./vagrant/.ssh/authorized_keys
./rakesh/
./rakesh/.bash_logout
./rakesh/.bash_profile
./rakesh/.bashrc
./data_backup/
./data_backup/test1
./data_backup/test2
./data_backup/test3Step 6: List all Block Devices
List the block devices again to make sure it was updated
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda 8:0 0 64G 0 disk
├─sda1 8:1 0 1G 0 part /boot
└─sda2 8:2 0 63G 0 part
├─centos-root 253:0 0 51G 0 lvm /
├─centos-swap 253:1 0 2G 0 lvm [SWAP]
└─centos-home 253:2 0 10G 0 lvm /home
sdb 8:16 0 20G 0 disk 11:0 1 1024M 0 romverify the filesystem type
[root@centos7-kernel-test ~]# lsblk -f
NAME FSTYPE LABEL UUID MOUNTPOINT
sda
├─sda1 xfs c8d9181d-7720-4abf-a277-e1d2bc3e9452 /boot
└─sda2 LVM2_member 3k3TuQ-E1Bm-tMcl-d1ck-x6Pp-uooR-6TNa2r
├─centos-root xfs 1396c2eb-dacf-472d-a1c3-c6ae52ed28dc /
├─centos-swap swap 1866250b-23ba-48d2-bf7b-d4df22217b48 [SWAP]
└─centos-home xfs 70728904-0ed5-4604-8597-a1b7f426530d /home
sdbHope you like the tutorial. Please let me know your feedback in the response section.
