Changing partition/slice sizes when installing AIX 5.3

[Job317]

Hi group,

How can I change the partition sizes at install? I am installing AIX 5.3 from scratch on a clean RS6000 B-50 and just installing some additional development tools has caused me to run out of space. The HD is 18.2 GB and here's the output of df:

Filesystem    512-blocks      Free %Used    Iused %Iused Mounted on
/dev/hd4           65536      7864   89%     2161    14% /
/dev/hd2         2686976     69408   98%    31697    10% /usr
/dev/hd9var        65536     37616   43%      415     6% /var
/dev/hd3          131072    126408    4%       30     1% /tmp
/dev/hd1           65536     54208   18%       22     1% /home
/proc                  -         -    -         -     -  /proc
/dev/hd10opt      196608      2216   99%     1742     8% /opt

I saw no obvious option at install to allocate more space to a desired partition. This table also does not account for all 18.2 GB.

What's going on here?

 

[p5wizard]

Google for / read up on AIX LVM. You can increase the size of a filesystem should you so desire.

As a start, try the "smitty chjfs" or "smitty chjfs2" shortcuts (depends on which JFS flavour you chose on install.

There's loads of threads in this forum on JFS and JFS2 filesystems. Use the search function.



HTH,

p5wizard

 

[Job317]

That's interesting that you said "chose to install". This is the root of my issue. I didn't see any options at all.

If it is helpful to troubleshoot, the entire install was command line. I got no gui from the install CDs. Did I miss something? I'm early enough in the process that if I need to reinstall I'm not losing anything.

So, you mentioned smitty. That's a post-install application right? My original question was about whether this was an install-time option.

Thanks.

 

[chgwhat]

With AIX you just increase the filesystem as needed , providing it will fix on your disks , That is why IBM does not ask you for file sizes during install.

Tony ... aka chgwhat

When in doubt,,, Power out...

 

[khalidaaa]

As what my friends above said, you can always increase the file system after you finish the install.

There is a way which people used to change (mainly to reduce it as it can't be decresed) the jfs's rootvg file system size on install using mksysb!

Have a look at this link:

http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/UserInfo/R.../a_doc_lib/aixbman/baseadmn/rootvg_reduce.htm

So you can create mksysb of your current (after install) image and then do the procedure above to change the filesystem sizes on mksysb install. But as every body said, you don't have to do this, its just a straight forward using chfs command!

for example:

chfs -a size=+1G /

Regards,
Khalid

 

[p5wizard]

But I personally wouldn't add 1GB to the root filesystem ;-) - take that as an example only...

SMIT = System Management and Information Tool
smitty is the character based version of smit.

And yes there are options somewhere in the install menu's to choose JFS or JFS2. If you didn't change anything, on a B50 you'll probably have JFS.

No worries, you can still increase the FSs on the fly (you don't even have to unmount, reboot, whatever), but you can't (easily) reduce the sizes. JFS2 gives that flexibility.

I'll say it again: google/search for AIX LVM.

Or go to "smit lvm" and play around a bit. If you get stuck or inadvertently increase a filesystem way too big and run out of space, as you said, you're early enough in the process to start all over.

No graphics software? What is your console? If you have a graphics adapter and screen plus keyboard and mouse, the install software should install X11 unless you change the defaults...

Did you install from the CD set or from another system's mksysb image?


HTH,

p5wizard

 

[khalidaaa]

Ok then a better example would be:

chfs -a size=+1G /usr



well, even with that you will have to know why you are adding 1GB to /usr

 

[Job317]

OK. For an AIX newby I am now seeing the difference from other *nixes. I am coming from a predominantly Linux background and didn't get that this simply was not an install-time option.

I still don't understand why AIX does it this way but I'll use this information today and enlarge my partitions.

Thanks a lot guys.

 

[p5wizard]

LVM gives you freedom to grow your filesystems as needs arise. You don't even need to keep a filesystem as one disk partition, you just add more chunks (Physical Partitions = PPs) to the Logical Volume (= LV) that a filesystem is on, on any disk (Physical Volume = PV) in the same set of disks (VolumeGroup = VG).

So you can have a filesystem that is bigger than one hard drive.


HTH,

p5wizard

 

[khalidaaa]

You can even reduce the file systems if you r running under jfs2 and AIX 5.3!

Regards,
Khalid

 

[mrn]

And if your not using JFS2, it's a simple process to convert JFS to JFS.

Mike

"Whenever I dwell for any length of time on my own shortcomings, they gradually begin to seem mild, harmless, rather engaging little things, not at all like the staring defects in other people's characters."

 

[mrn]

That should have been JFS to JFS2



Mike

"Whenever I dwell for any length of time on my own shortcomings, they gradually begin to seem mild, harmless, rather engaging little things, not at all like the staring defects in other people's characters."

 

[p5wizard]

Read the LVM redbook mentioned in this thread: thread52-1453793.


HTH,

p5wizard