I have 2 raid 5 suse 10.3 servers both with 3ware 4 port raid cards. These are my first servers built with linux. Suse installed fine and I allowed default settings for partition creation (I wasnt really sure what to do). It used all of 2TB creating 3 partitions (swp/tmp/main). When I use the partition manager in suse I can see the free space but it wont allow me to do anything with it.

I ran fdisk but it says it will wipe out the system. I was told to use parted by the 3ware people but I cant find it on the system.

I have Auto-carving turned on for one server but not the other.

What can I do now to create the 800 gigs of free space into a partition?

Please dont post a 1 word answer as that wont help me. I am not linux savy.

Hi.

You'll probably have to install the 'parted' package. Not too familiar with SuSE, buy I believe you should be able to find it in YAST, or maybe just download the package from rpmfind.net

Dave

is that the same as gparted?

Linux Archive

gparted is the GUI front-end to 'parted'.

Dave

Im starting to really hate linux. Even the simplest things are sooooooooooooooooooooooooo difficult. I got parted (which they buried and it took me 10 minutes to find). I eventually got it to download after it said it wasnt there. I read the 411 and "ATTEMPTED" to ./configure BUT NOOOOOOO it says------->
administrator@linux2:~/public_html/parted> ./configure
checking for a BSD-compatible install... /usr/bin/install -c
checking whether build environment is sane... yes
checking for a thread-safe mkdir -p... /bin/mkdir -p
checking for gawk... gawk
checking whether make sets $(MAKE)... yes
checking build system type... i686-pc-linux-gnu
checking host system type... i686-pc-linux-gnu
checking for style of include used by make... GNU
checking for gcc... no
checking for cc... no
checking for cl.exe... no
configure: error: no acceptable C compiler found in $PATH
See `config.log' for more details.
administrator@linux2:~/public_html/parted

So on a hunch I went into software and installed some compilers. Now I get this error when I run ./configure------>

checking for ld used by GCC... /usr/i586-suse-linux/bin/ld
checking if the linker (/usr/i586-suse-linux/bin/ld) is GNU ld... yes
checking for shared library run path origin... done
checking for CFPreferencesCopyAppValue... no
checking for CFLocaleCopyCurrent... no
checking for GNU gettext in libc... yes
checking whether to use NLS... yes
checking where the gettext function comes from... libc
checking for dlopen in -ldl... yes
checking for uuid_generate in -luuid... no
configure: error: GNU Parted requires libuuid - a part of the e2fsprogs package (but
sometimes distributed separately in uuid-devel or similar)
This can probably be found on your distribution's CD or FTP site or at:
http://web.mit.edu/tytso/www/linux/e2fsprogs.html
Note: if you are using precompiled packages you will also need the development
package as well (which may be called e2fsprogs-devel or something similar).
If you compile e2fsprogs yourself then you need to do 'make install' and
'make install-libs'.

So I go back to software and install the above missing files. Then I get this error (UGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
-------->
checking for dlopen in -ldl... yes
checking for uuid_generate in -luuid... yes
checking for library containing tgetent... no
configure: error: termcap could not be found which is required for the
--with-readline option (which is enabled by default). Either disable readline
support with --without-readline or download and install termcap from:
ftp.gnu.org/gnu/termcap
Note: if you are using precompiled packages you will also need the development
package as well (which may be called termcap-devel or something similar).
Note: (n)curses also seems to work as a substitute for termcap. This was
not found either - but you could try installing that as well.

.......
So once again on the never ending journey I go back to software and install termcap. But NOOOOOO! Its another error.

-------->
checking for uuid_generate in -luuid... yes
checking for library containing tgetent... no
configure: error: termcap could not be found which is required for the
--with-readline option (which is enabled by default). Either disable readline
support with --without-readline or download and install termcap from:
ftp.gnu.org/gnu/termcap
Note: if you are using precompiled packages you will also need the development
package as well (which may be called termcap-devel or something similar).
Note: (n)curses also seems to work as a substitute for termcap. This was
not found either - but you could try installing that as well.

........
So I do the whole termcap DL and install thing then get this error-------->
checking for uuid_generate in -luuid... yes
checking for library containing tgetent... -ltermcap
checking for readline in -lreadline... no
configure: error: GNU Readline could not be found which is required for the
--with-readline (which is enabled by default). Either disable readline support with
--without-readline or downloaded and install it from:
ftp.gnu.org/gnu/readline
Note: if you are using precompiled packages you will also need the development
package as well (which may be called readline-devel or something similar).

So I finally get through all the errors only to get yet another error after running make------>
-MD -MP -MF .deps/natmath.Tpo -c cs/natmath.c -fPIC -DPIC -o .libs/natmath.o
cc1: warnings being treated as errors
cs/natmath.c:79: warning: C99 inline functions are not supported; using GNU89
cs/natmath.c:79: warning: to disable this warning use -fgnu89-inline or the gnu_inline function attribute
cs/natmath.c:85: warning: C99 inline functions are not supported; using GNU89
make[2]: *** [natmath.lo] Error 1
make[2]: Leaving directory `/home/administrator/public_html/parted/libparted'
make[1]: *** [install-recursive] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/administrator/public_html/parted/libparted'
make: *** [install-recursive] Error 1
administrator@linux2:~/public_html/parted>



So Im stuck again. Even if I get this going it might not work. What has taken near 1 month in Linux would have taken me 2 hours with windows server 2003. Sorry for the rant.

Can I do this from a boot cd (gparted, partition magic, etc??) or will it not see the raid5 array and 3TB volumne?

Whoa there cowboy. There's no need to be compiling anything.

First thing - make sure it's not already installed - mine's at /sbin/parted (edit: SuSE keeps it at /usr/sbin/parted ).
If you can't find it, run 'yast' and look in there for the parted package to install (YAST should also be able to do the partition editing once parted is installed, by the way).
If you can't find it in YAST, you can grab the RPM from here:
ftp://ftp.pbone.net/mirror/ftp5.gwdg...-84.2.i586.rpm
assuming you're running 32 bit, and here:
ftp://ftp.pbone.net/mirror/ftp5.gwdg...4.2.x86_64.rpm
if you're on x86_64.

Dave

Side note: if you're downloading the RPM directly, it's '# rpm -ivh /path/to/file.rpm' to install the package.

Dave

OK

I could not get parted to run from the OS. I booted to the rescue cd and ran it from there. Woe is me yet another problem. How do you linux guys deal with so many issues? Sorry again for the rant.

parted print
disk /dev/sda:3000GB
sector size 512b/512b
partition table msdos

1 start 32.3kb end 2155mb size 2155mb type prim
2 start 2155mb end 23.6gb size 21.5gb prim ext3
3 start 23.6gb end 2199gb size 2175gb prim ext3

So I attempted to make a ext partition and then a primary partition and got the same error both times which was.......

Warning you requested a partition from 2200mb to 2990mb, the closest location we can manage is 2199gb to 2199gb is this ok?

Which is essentially no space for my new partition. Why cant I use the free space after 2199gb?

Ugh!


PS thanks for sticking with me and all the help.

Michael

Riiiiight.

The problem is that PC/DOS style MBRs can't handle >2TB partitions (a limitation of the type of partitioning - Windows can't do it with PC style MBRs either). I wasn't aware of this.

You'll have to use a GPT table instead - Linux instructions here:
http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/fdisk-...eater-2tb.html

Dave

Why did suse 10.3 default to a dos based mbr?

Im looking at the link now. What does this mean and how do I do it. -----> You must include GPT support in kernel in order to use GPT. If you don't include GPT support in Linux kernelt, after rebooting the server, the file system will no longer be mountable or the GPT table will get corrupted.

What does this mean? Is this something else I need to download and install?------To solve this problem use GNU parted command with GPT (what is gpt). It supports Intel EFI/GPT partition tables.

Where and how do I do this.--------> However, if you are using Debian or Ubuntu Linux, you need to recompile the kernel. Set CONFIG_EFI_PARTITION to y to compile this feature.

File Systems
Partition Types[*] Advanced partition selection[*] EFI GUID Partition support (NEW)


This is my first linux install. I dont know how to do all these things.

From trawling the lists, it looks like you're not the only one that's a bit miffed at SuSE's choice of disk label. Bugs have been filed, apparently.

From what I can tell, SuSE has GPT support in their kernels, so you should be OK. Worst that'll happen is it'll scribble on your disk, but since you've just repartitioned it there shouldn't be any data on it anyway, so no loss there.

Dave

I have far fewer problems with Linux than with anything else I've ever used, from mainframes to OSX. At least with Linux, the answers are available (through this and other resources like it), and you've got the tools to make it do what YOU want, not what someone else tells you it can do.

Is there a learning curve? Yep...just like there is with every new version of Windows, or going from OSX to Vista. Things are different, and you have to learn.

I agree with some but not all you have said.

So back to the over 2tb partition. Do I use the parted I have with a different command? I dont understand.

I tried this------>

# parted /dev/sdx
Output:

GNU Parted 1.8.1
Using /dev/sda
Welcome to GNU Parted! Type 'help' to view a list of commands.
(parted)
Creates a new GPT disklabel i.e. partition table:
mklabel gpt

Warning everything on the disk will be wiped out yes/no?

I dont want to make one giant partiition I just want to create a partition out of free space. How do I go about that? Both servers are on the domain and running. I dont want to go backwards.

Do you have data on the disk?

Re-labeling with any other disk label type (e.g. GPT) will destroy all the data on the disk. Unfortunately, there's no other way to claim the full 3TB. You'll have to back-up and restore.

Once you've made your GPT label, you can go in and re-create the 4 partitions you want with the mkpart command in parted.

Dave