Playing with KVM virtualization - part 1.1

Looks like I bumped into a small issue when updating one of the VMs (Debian) I was playing with: Shortage of diskspace on the root volume. Disaster when running dist-upgrade!

# df -h
Filesystem              Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/vm2-root    1.5G  1.4G     0 100% /
udev                     10M     0   10M   0% /dev
tmpfs                    25M  224K   25M   1% /run
tmpfs                   5.0M     0  5.0M   0% /run/lock
tmpfs                    49M     0   49M   0% /run/shm
/dev/vda1               228M   58M  158M  27% /boot
/dev/mapper/vm2-home    2.1G  3.6M  2.0G   1% /home

Fortunately, it’s an LVM so it’s not so difficult to extend this, even on-the-fly.

Let’s create our new disk first

virsh# vol-create-as MyVolume vm2-2.img 2G --format raw
Vol vm2-2.img created

virsh # vol-list --details MyVolume
Name                 Path                                  Type   Capacity  Allocation
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Android-x86-4.0.img  /virtualmachines/Android-x86-4.0.img  file   4,00 GiB  498,75 MiB
cvm3.img             /virtualmachines/cvm3.img             file  16,00 GiB   61,81 MiB
vm2-2.img            /virtualmachines/vm2-2.img            file   2,00 GiB    2,00 GiB
vm2.img              /virtualmachines/vm2.img              file   4,00 GiB    1,83 GiB

Now that we have created the volume, let’s attach it to the VM. It is possible while it’s running live.

virsh # list
 Id    Name                           State
----------------------------------------------------
 4     vm2                            running

virsh # attach-disk vm2 /virtualmachines/vm2-2.img vdc
Disk attached successfully

Within the VM it’s automatically detected as well.

vm2# tail /var/log/kern.log
...
Dec 21 11:58:00 vm2 kernel: [ 3978.289939]  vdc: unknown partition table

The new disk is there, but it has not been partitioned yet. So let’s do that

root@vm2:/# fdisk /dev/vdb
Device contains neither a valid DOS partition table, nor Sun, SGI or OSF disklabel
Building a new DOS disklabel with disk identifier 0xc9f8eafe.
Changes will remain in memory only, until you decide to write them.
After that, of course, the previous content won't be recoverable.

Warning: invalid flag 0x0000 of partition table 4 will be corrected by w(rite)

Command (m for help): m
Command action
a toggle a bootable flag
b edit bsd disklabel
c toggle the dos compatibility flag
d delete a partition
l list known partition types
m print this menu
n add a new partition
o create a new empty DOS partition table
p print the partition table
q quit without saving changes
s create a new empty Sun disklabel
t change a partition's system id
u change display/entry units
v verify the partition table
w write table to disk and exit
x extra functionality (experts only)

Command (m for help): n
Partition type:
p primary (0 primary, 0 extended, 4 free)
e extended
Select (default p): p
Partition number (1-4, default 1): 1
First sector (2048-4095999, default 2048):
Using default value 2048
Last sector, +sectors or +size{K,M,G} (2048-4095999, default 4095999):
Using default value 4095999

Command (m for help): t
Selected partition 1

Hex code (type L to list codes): 8e

8e is the code for Linux LVM

Changed system type of partition 1 to 8e (Linux LVM)

Command (m for help): w
The partition table has been altered!

Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table.
Syncing disks.

Done! Now we need to add it to our LVM. First let’s check the volume group (vm2 here).

# vgdisplay
  --- Volume group ---
  VG Name               vm2
  System ID             
  Format                lvm2
  Metadata Areas        1
  Metadata Sequence No  4
  VG Access             read/write
  VG Status             resizable
  MAX LV                0
  Cur LV                3
  Open LV               3
  Max PV                0
  Cur PV                1
  Act PV                1
  VG Size               3.76 GiB
  PE Size               4.00 MiB
  Total PE              962
  Alloc PE / Size       962 / 3.76 GiB
  Free  PE / Size       0 / 0   
  VG UUID               ksC1ha-y05g-E6gx-JshG-b09N-dw6q-kcF2t7

As you can see, no Free space left (Free PE / Size). We are ready to add our new disk and its freshly created partition

# vgextend vm2 /dev/vdb1
No physical volume label read from /dev/vdb1
Physical volume "/dev/vdb1" successfully created
Volume group "vm2" successfully extended

# vgdisplay
  --- Volume group ---
  VG Name               vm2
  System ID             
  Format                lvm2
  Metadata Areas        2
  Metadata Sequence No  6
  VG Access             read/write
  VG Status             resizable
  MAX LV                0
  Cur LV                3
  Open LV               3
  Max PV                0
  Cur PV                2
  Act PV                2
  VG Size               5.71 GiB
  PE Size               4.00 MiB
  Total PE              1461
  Alloc PE / Size       1218 / 4.76 GiB
  Free  PE / Size       243 / 972.00 MiB
  VG UUID               ksC1ha-y05g-E6gx-JshG-b09N-dw6q-kcF2t7

Great! The new space has been allocated (VG Size, Free PE / Size). Now we are ready to exptend the root volume

# lvextend -L+1G /dev/vm2/root
Extending logical volume root to 2.47 GiB
Logical volume root successfully resized
# df -h
Filesystem              Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/vm2-root    2.5G  1.4G  945M  60% /
udev                     10M     0   10M   0% /dev
tmpfs                    25M  228K   25M   1% /run
tmpfs                   5.0M     0  5.0M   0% /run/lock
tmpfs                    49M     0   49M   0% /run/shm
/dev/vda1               228M   58M  158M  27% /boot
/dev/mapper/vm2-home    2.1G  3.6M  2.0G   1% /home

Just extending the logical volume does not automatically add the free space to the filesystem, that needs to be resized as well.

# resize2fs -p /dev/vm2/root 
resize2fs 1.42.8 (20-Jun-2013)
Filesystem at /dev/vm2/root is mounted on /; on-line resizing required
old_desc_blocks = 1, new_desc_blocks = 1
The filesystem on /dev/vm2/root is now 648192 blocks long.

root@vm2:/dev# df -h
Filesystem              Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/vm2-root    2.5G  1.4G  945M  60% /
udev                     10M     0   10M   0% /dev
tmpfs                    25M  224K   25M   1% /run
tmpfs                   5.0M     0  5.0M   0% /run/lock
tmpfs                    49M     0   49M   0% /run/shm
/dev/vda1               228M   58M  158M  27% /boot
/dev/mapper/vm2-home    2.1G  3.6M  2.0G   1% /home

Great success! One last look to the volume group stats shows that not all space has been allocated yet.

# vgdisplay
  --- Volume group ---
  VG Name               vm2
  System ID             
  Format                lvm2
  Metadata Areas        2
  Metadata Sequence No  6
  VG Access             read/write
  VG Status             resizable
  MAX LV                0
  Cur LV                3
  Open LV               3
  Max PV                0
  Cur PV                2
  Act PV                2
  VG Size               5.71 GiB
  PE Size               4.00 MiB
  Total PE              1461
  Alloc PE / Size       1218 / 4.76 GiB
  Free  PE / Size       243 / 972.00 MiB
  VG UUID               ksC1ha-y05g-E6gx-JshG-b09N-dw6q-kcF2t7

In case we need some tweaking to other logical volumes, it can be added accordingly.