Partitioning of the Harddrives during installation

Notes: 

1. We assume that the system has at least four 73G or larger drives, which are configured into two logical drives using mirroring. Currently few servers come with less disk space. 
2. Use Ext 4 filesystem, if it is the default option, Ext 3 otherwise. 
3. Mark all partitions except swap with format option (unless this is a re-install, in this case preserving /home partition is important)
4. Unless you know LVM really well never put your root partition on LVM. That complicates recovery. If the system is unbootable then after booting from a recovery disk you will find out that you LVM disks are not visible. For many sysadmin at this point cold goes down the spine.
    
5. Unless you want to have /usr as read-only partition, in Suse it is not needed (nor makes much sense) to create separate partitions for /usr and /opt. They can be merged with root partition. That makes usage of disk space more efficient.   That means that you need just six partitions
   1. /boot
   2. swap (if you have service partition like in Dell, it is better  to put swap on the second pair of drives to avoid putting root filesystem under LVM)
   3. root (think twice before putting root partition under LVM)
   4. /var
   5. /srv
   6. /home
   7. /tmp.
6. With Suse 10 SP3 you probably should always use LVM at least for /var  /home and /srv as size requirements for those partitions can change: it looks like there is no difference in stability and LVM provides additional flexibility and ability to create snapshots.
7. If you use SAN for data and local harddrives just for storing OS using LVM does not make much sense as SAN provides necessary flexibility in resizing partitions. 

Steps

1. Create primary boot partition (200-300M). Type should be ext3.
2. Create primary swap partition on the second pair of drives. Recommended size of the swap is the size of the RAM, if RAM is 4G or less and half of the size of the RAM after that (actually depends on applications you will be running, but in general too much swapping is bad so it should not be that big).  See Linux swap
   • For most servers with over 4G memory swap can 1/2 of memory size, with 32G-64G 1/4 unless you are using database or other very memory hungry application, and for 64G or larger even less then that. For example 1/2 of memory size is Oracle recommendation for application servers.
   • On special purpose small servers with 512 of RAM (if such exists those days) it probably should be  double of memory size as Suse has a memory footprint around 1G. Beagle and other memory hogs should be de-installed in this case and server should use default run level 3 as running with X increase memory footprint considerably. Smaller footprint X manager can be  recommended instead of this fat pig called Gnome.
3. It is desirable to install LVM for all other partitions as this makes installation more flexible.
4. /usr (4-6G) and /opt (4G ) can be merged with root partition (total should be 8G or more
5. Some examples of partitioning

Example 1: mirrored pair of 36 drives (no LVM)

Filesystem           1K-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda5              4128320    338524   3580032   9% /
/dev/sda2               298471     16210    266850   6% /boot
/dev/sda10             5207780    737020   4206212  15% /home
/dev/sda8              4128320    735412   3183144  19% /opt
/dev/sda9              4128320    240456   3678100   7% /tmp
/dev/sda6              4128320   1851872   2066684  48% /usr
/dev/sda7              8256696    342928   7494288   5% /var

Example 2:  mirrored pair of 73G drives (with LVM)

Filesystem           1K-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/vg01-root
                       4128448    304384   3614352   8% /
/dev/sda2               297485     16507    265618   6% /boot
/dev/mapper/vg01-home
                       1032088     77000    902660   8% /home
/dev/mapper/vg01-opt   2064208    633432   1325920  33% /opt
/dev/mapper/vg01-tmp   4128448    136468   3782268   4% /tmp
/dev/mapper/vg01-usr   4128448   1404892   2513844  36% /usr
/dev/mapper/vg01-var  10321208    917848   8879072  10% /var
/dev/mapper/vg02-backup
                      17546044   6162448  10492308  38% /backup
	

Partitioning of hard drives using LVM

We will assume the first part of drive is visible as sda.

First you need to switch to the advanced mode in YAST2 Partitioner. You will see that one partition is already created.

• sda1     Dell Util      31MB              0-3 # created in prev step

If there are extra partitions on the boot drive you need to delete them.

1. Create primary partition for /boot by entering +200M. Set the type of partition to Ext3 and check "format"

   sda2     /boot                200MB            4-29            (format ext3)

2. Create another primary partition for  swap by using swap partition code from the menu For example for 64G of RAM enter +32G, but for 8G RAM or less you probably can afford 8G swap. 
   
   sda3     swap                32GB               30-4207
    
3. Create extended partition for the rest of the drive

   sda4            Extended         (rest of disk)
    

4. Create LVM partition out of extended (select Linux LVM partition type and default size)

   sda5     LVM                103GB
    

5. Switch LVM view by clicking on LVM button and create volume group  vg01 (or vg00 if you wish) by clicking on Add group button at the top right part of the screen
    
6. Enroll extended partition into this volume by clicking "Add volume" while extended partition is highlighted
    
7. Within LVM create additional partitions. Use name of partitions for labels ( root for / partition). For example:

   vg00                                   103GB

   vg00    lv01            /                4GB

   vg00    lv02            /usr             8GB

   vg00    lv03            /var            12GB

   vg00    lv04            /opt             4GB

   vg00    lv05            /tmp             8GB

   vg00    lv06            /home            8GB

8. Recheck that all partitions you created are Ext3 based.
    
9. If you have the second pair of drives you can create logical volume vg02 for the second pair of drives  and repeat the same procedure for creating the necessary partitions on the second volume group

Notes:

•  __________________________________________________________________________________
•  __________________________________________________________________________________
•  __________________________________________________________________________________
•  __________________________________________________________________________________
•  __________________________________________________________________________________

Etc

Society

Groupthink : Two Party System as Polyarchy : Corruption of Regulators : Bureaucracies : Understanding Micromanagers and Control Freaks : Toxic Managers :   Harvard Mafia : Diplomatic Communication : Surviving a Bad Performance Review : Insufficient Retirement Funds as Immanent Problem of Neoliberal Regime : PseudoScience : Who Rules America : Neoliberalism  : The Iron Law of Oligarchy : Libertarian Philosophy

Quotes

War and Peace : Skeptical Finance : John Kenneth Galbraith :Talleyrand : Oscar Wilde : Otto Von Bismarck : Keynes : George Carlin : Skeptics : Propaganda  : SE quotes : Language Design and Programming Quotes : Random IT-related quotes :  Somerset Maugham : Marcus Aurelius : Kurt Vonnegut : Eric Hoffer : Winston Churchill : Napoleon Bonaparte : Ambrose Bierce :  Bernard Shaw : Mark Twain Quotes

Bulletin:

Vol 25, No.12 (December, 2013) Rational Fools vs. Efficient Crooks The efficient markets hypothesis : Political Skeptic Bulletin, 2013 : Unemployment Bulletin, 2010 :  Vol 23, No.10 (October, 2011) An observation about corporate security departments : Slightly Skeptical Euromaydan Chronicles, June 2014 : Greenspan legacy bulletin, 2008 : Vol 25, No.10 (October, 2013) Cryptolocker Trojan (Win32/Crilock.A) : Vol 25, No.08 (August, 2013) Cloud providers as intelligence collection hubs : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2010 : Inequality Bulletin, 2009 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2008 : Copyleft Problems Bulletin, 2004 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2011 : Energy Bulletin, 2010 : Malware Protection Bulletin, 2010 : Vol 26, No.1 (January, 2013) Object-Oriented Cult : Political Skeptic Bulletin, 2011 : Vol 23, No.11 (November, 2011) Softpanorama classification of sysadmin horror stories : Vol 25, No.05 (May, 2013) Corporate bullshit as a communication method  : Vol 25, No.06 (June, 2013) A Note on the Relationship of Brooks Law and Conway Law

History:

Fifty glorious years (1950-2000): the triumph of the US computer engineering : Donald Knuth : TAoCP and its Influence of Computer Science : Richard Stallman : Linus Torvalds  : Larry Wall  : John K. Ousterhout : CTSS : Multix OS Unix History : Unix shell history : VI editor : History of pipes concept : Solaris : MS DOS :  Programming Languages History : PL/1 : Simula 67 : C : History of GCC development :  Scripting Languages : Perl history   : OS History : Mail : DNS : SSH : CPU Instruction Sets : SPARC systems 1987-2006 : Norton Commander : Norton Utilities : Norton Ghost : Frontpage history : Malware Defense History : GNU Screen : OSS early history

Classic books:

The Peter Principle : Parkinson Law : 1984 : The Mythical Man-Month :  How to Solve It by George Polya : The Art of Computer Programming : The Elements of Programming Style : The Unix Hater’s Handbook : The Jargon file : The True Believer : Programming Pearls : The Good Soldier Svejk : The Power Elite

Most popular humor pages:

Manifest of the Softpanorama IT Slacker Society : Ten Commandments of the IT Slackers Society : Computer Humor Collection : BSD Logo Story : The Cuckoo's Egg : IT Slang : C++ Humor : ARE YOU A BBS ADDICT? : The Perl Purity Test : Object oriented programmers of all nations : Financial Humor : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2008 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2010 : The Most Comprehensive Collection of Editor-related Humor : Programming Language Humor : Goldman Sachs related humor : Greenspan humor : C Humor : Scripting Humor : Real Programmers Humor : Web Humor : GPL-related Humor : OFM Humor : Politically Incorrect Humor : IDS Humor : "Linux Sucks" Humor : Russian Musical Humor : Best Russian Programmer Humor : Microsoft plans to buy Catholic Church : Richard Stallman Related Humor : Admin Humor : Perl-related Humor : Linus Torvalds Related humor : PseudoScience Related Humor : Networking Humor : Shell Humor : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2011 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2012 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2013 : Java Humor : Software Engineering Humor : Sun Solaris Related Humor : Education Humor : IBM Humor : Assembler-related Humor : VIM Humor : Computer Viruses Humor : Bright tomorrow is rescheduled to a day after tomorrow : Classic Computer Humor

The Last but not Least Technology is dominated by two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt. Ph.D

The statements, views and opinions presented on this web page are those of the author (or referenced source) and are not endorsed by, nor do they necessarily reflect, the opinions of the Softpanorama society. We do not warrant the correctness of the information provided or its fitness for any purpose. The site uses AdSense so you need to be aware of Google privacy policy. You you do not want to be tracked by Google please disable Javascript for this site. This site is perfectly usable without Javascript.

Last modified: July 12, 2011