[NTLUG:Discuss] Software RAID using file "device"?

[Drew Myers]

* Stuart Johnston (saj at thecommune.net) wrote:
> I have a server with two partitions, / and /home (not the best 
> setup, I know).  The /home partition is coming very close to 
> running out of disk space and I am trying to figure out a way to 
> use some of the extra space on / without requiring a trip down to 
> the data center.  This would only need to be a temporary solution.
> 
> When I setup the system, I didn't worry too much about the 
> partition setup because I was using LVM, which I thought would 
> allow me to easily re-allocate the partitions as needed.  It turns 
> out not to be quite so easy since you can't generally resize an 
> ext3 partition while it is mounted.
> 
> I was thinking about how in Linux, devices are treated like files 
> and you can often use them interchangeably.  So, if I created a 
> file on / then I could use it as a device in mdadm or lvm to 
> combine linearly with the /home partition (which can be unmounted 
> and resized remotely). Unfortuntately, neither mdadm nor lvm seem 
> to be willing to work with a non-block device.
> 
> Any suggestions on how to make this work?

What OS are you running?  In RHEL4 you can use the ext2online utility to
resize the FS while it's mounted.

drew
-- 

There are only two ways of telling the complete truth--anonymously and posthumously.
    - Thomas Sowell (1930 - )