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Warning: A Backup is made before doing anything else and your Linux OS is not running, therefore it is safe for the Linux Virtual HD that you work on. It is faster since you use you Host Operating System (Windows XP) to perform the Linux commands and copy files, this is faster than under coLinux. |
The differences between the descriptions are, that some needs complete Cygwin shell for all steps, others use only a subset of commands (f.e. fs2resize.exe) and others only use Windows tools and does the rest in Linux.
A backup of your current running system will be the old file later. So, you not need an extra backup here.
1) From windows, create a blank file of the new size. For 5*1024*1024*1024 bytes,
open a command prompt and run
fsutil file createnew C:\New.img 5368709120"
(If you do not havefsutil, see HowtoCreateSwapFile.)
2) Edit the colinux configuration file to add the blank file as a new device, for example:
cobd1="c:\New.img"
and restart colinux.
3) Switch into single user runlevel.init s(orshutdown now)
4) Format filesystem.mkfs.ext3 /dev/cobd1
5) Make a mountpoint and mount the new filesystem from the cobd device:
mkdir /tmp/mnt mount /dev/cobd1 /tmp/mnt (that's /dev/cobd/3 on GenToo)
(Do not mount it onmnt: thecp -xwould not work there)
6) Copy contents to new device.cp -ax / /tmp/mnt
7) Copy device nodes (only if udev system, i.e. kernel 2.6+).if [ -d /dev/.udev ]; then cp -a /dev/* /tmp/mnt/dev/; fi
8) Check that the file/tmp/mnt/etc/fstabdoes not have 'labels'. Use only/dev/cobd... there.
9) Check the used sizes withdf
10) Unmount new device.umount /dev/cobd1
11) Shuting down coLinux.shutdown -h now
12) From windows, edit your config file again. Change the entry of the old device to use the newly created file. Then remove the entry created above.
13) Restart coLinux. You should have a larger filesystem (use "df -h" to check).
Keep the old file until you are sure the new one works!
TopoResize will create new images or enlarge/shrink existing images using the ext2 or ext3 file system. It's still pretty new (and may have bugs), so use at your own risk. (There is in fact a bug where it won't work when your image filename has a space in it.) However, if you're squeezed for disk space, this program can be a real lifesaver! =) It uses a GUI so it is "newbie friendly" in terms of ease of use. The options are pretty straightforward.
This tool will increase the file size, resize the file system and checks the file system integrity. The programs behind this tool are Linux file systems tools, they are ported to Cygwin. TopoResize is also a good source for getting cygwin ports of e2fsprogs. It is just a tcl/tk front end for them so advanced users can use them at the command line.
Before you starts this tool, be sure, that you are not running other Cygwin shells, because you can run only one Cygwin.dll at same time.
TopoResize can now be found at Chris Semler that is the creator's webspace, or from one of the mirrors:
WARNING: Data loss possible! This method also has a limit on how much bigger the resulting image can be, see here.
Download dd for Windows: http://www.chrysocome.net/dd
Calculate size of root image in 16K blocks: Assuming root image size is 1 gigabyte / 16384 = 65472 blocks
Enlarge root image: (seek= argument specifies old image size in blocks, count= specifies how much to add in blocks)
dd bs=16384 if=/dev/zero of=root.img seek=65472 count=100000
On Ubuntu you'll need to download the deb file first, as it's no longer in the repository: (ext2online installs in /usr/sbin, so you'll only see this as root)
wget http://ubuntuarchive.hnsdc.com/ubuntu/pool/universe/e/ext2resize/ext2resize_1.1.19-9_i386.deb dpkg -i ext2resize_1.1.19-9_i386.deb ext2online /dev/cobd0
On Debian, kernel 2.6.17, coLinux 0.8.0 snapshot:
apt-get install ext2resize ext2online /dev/cobd0
Done!
Alternatively, you may use resize2fs, which is part of e2fsprogs. This may be preferable on a Ubuntu system as it is still in the repository.
apt-get install e2fsprogs resize2fs /dev/cobd0
Done.
As an alternate to dd you could use toporesize (from within windows) (see http://www.andlinux.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=131).
Resize to a 10G image:
C:\Program Files\andLinux\ImageResizeTool\toporesize-0.7.1>tfile ..\..\Drives\base.vdi 10000
I started with a 1GB partition and tried to resize it with topresize. Despite making the size around 10GB, the resulting file only had another 1GB available and using topresize to change the file a second time resulted in a kernel panic when it tried to mount the resulting file store.
I used toprestore to create an empty 32GB filestore without any problems and I mounted that at a second mount point, but I always wanted my file store in a single file to make it simpler to back up.
In the last 36 years I have always told users "If you reach the point where you wouldn't like to do it all again, you should already have backed it up." Do they listen? Guess.
The simplest option is to create a folder and copy your original image file into it and then create a config file that points to the file in this location.
In the following:
The size is in bytes (thanks MS) but you can always copy it out of Windoze calculator. A power of two is a very good plan, so multiply your required size by 1,024 * 1,024 for megs and by another 1,024 for gigs.
Open a command window, navigate to the folder that you want to use and then type:
fsutil file createnew bigfile {size}
This creates a sparse file of the required size. Never copy this file or it will magically shrink from umpteen gigs to a couple of K! Instead, type:
fsutil file setvaliddata bigfile {size}
This will make the file less sparse ready for the grand copy, type:
copy {old} /b + bigfile /b {new}
Note the /b option specifying binary format for both input files - omitting this will make the copy very fast and the output file very small.
{new} should now contain a file store of the original size with {size} bytes free on the pseudo partition.
Start up CoLinux using the alternative config file that specifies {new} and log in as root.
Assuming {new} is mapped in as /dev/cobd0, type:
resize2fs /dev/cobd0
and this will expand the file store to the maximum extent available in {new}.
All that remains is to delete bigfile and move the new file over to your preferred folder.
Enjoy :D
First, look at the very bottom of this page. There is a fairly easy way described how to resize root. You only need a very small program (mksparse) and no cygwin. Worked very well for me. Philipp
by Joe Wells (http://www.macs.hw.ac.uk/%7Ejbw/) on 2004-08-07
Here is a precise step-by-step guide with careful error checking to enlarging your coLinux root partition. These instructions were inspired by the earlier version which is still appended below. These instructions make a perfect copy of your current root partition, except larger.
These instructions improve on the earlier ones in that (1) they are more detailed, (2) they contain careful error checking steps that insure that nothing has gone wrong, (3) the invocation of dd is rearranged so that calculating the correct numbers to use is easier, and (4) they do not need you to install the ext2 file system tools under Cygwin (important because the standard Cygwin installer does not know where to find them).
This procedure is for ext3 file systems. It should also work for ext2 file systems, but I have not tried this. Only minor adaptations should be needed for reiserfs or XFS file systems. The earlier instructions still appended below should have the necessary adaptations.
This procedure assumes your current coLinux root partition is 2 gigabytes (2 * 1024 * 1024 * 1024 = 2147483648 bytes) in size and that you want to expand it to 4 gigabytes (4 * 1024 * 1024 * 1024 = 4294967296 bytes). If your current and desired sizes are different, it should be easy for you to adapt the instructions. Your host version of Windows must support files of the desired size.
This procedure needs disk space for both your current coLinux root partition and also the new larger version of it, because you will be using them simultaneously. Your current coLinux root partition is
version of your current partition.
This procedure assumes you have the Cygwin environment installed on your Windows host machine, including at least these programs: bash, dd, cmp, ls, cp. If you don't have Cygwin installed, it should be easy to substitute equivalent Windows actions for everything but the instructions using dd. If you can't get dd, see the instructions for using dd for an understanding of how you might substitute some equivalent action.
This procedure assumes that your current coLinux root partition has at least these programs installed on it: resize2fs, e2fsck, shutdown, mkdir, bc, mount, umount, echo (or your shell has echo built in).
In the instructions below, the old root partition file is named gentoo-i586-ext3-2g-deluxe, the old coLinux configuration file is named default.colinux.conf, the new enlarged root partition file is named gentoo-i686-ext3-4g, and the new coLinux configuration file is named gentoo-i686-ext3-4g.colinux.conf. You *must* replace these names by the names you are actually using.
Each step is marked with "Linux", "Cygwin", or "Windows" depending on whether you need to do the step in your running coLinux, on Windows using the Cygwin tools, or just on Windows with any text editor.
1. Linux: Shut coLinux down to insure sane state of root filesystem:
shutdown -h now
2. Cygwin: Copy old root partition, adding 2g of empty blocks at end:
dd if=/dev/zero bs=1k count=2M | cat gentoo-i586-ext3-2g-deluxe - > gentoo-i686-ext3-4g
(replace the 2 in 2M by the number of gigabytes you are adding. 2M does NOT mean "2 Megabytes" but 2 Million times a block of 1 kByte (bs=1k), so you get 2 Million * 1 kByte = 2 Gigabyte)
Oh, and please remember that copying from and to the same disk 'does' take some time.It _might_ take an hour or more for a 10GB size file on a fast computer !
3. Cygwin: Verify new partition file has correct contents:
cmp gentoo-i586-ext3-2g-deluxe gentoo-i686-ext3-4g
(should report binary files identical up to end of 1st file:
"cmp: EOF on gentoo-i586-ext3-2g-deluxe")
(seems to take at least as long as the initial copying)
4. Cygwin: Verify new partition file has correct size:
ls -l gentoo-i686-ext3-4g echo '4 * 1024 * 1024 * 1024' | bc
(the number output from bc should be the size of gentoo-i686-ext3-4g in bytes)
5. Cygwin: Copy old coLinux configuration file:
cp default.colinux.conf gentoo-i686-ext3-4g.colinux.conf
6. Windows: Edit the new configuration file to add the new partition:
cobd2="c:\Program Files\coLinux\gentoo-i686-ext3-4g"
(the number 2 should actually be the next unused number in your configuration file)
7. Cygwin: Boot coLinux using the new configuration file which still uses the old root partition:
colinux-daemon.exe @gentoo-i686-ext3-4g.colinux.conf
8. Linux: Check that the file system we are expanding is in fact in good shape:
nice --adjustment=+19 e2fsck -fv /dev/cobd2
(WARNING: The number 2 in /dev/cobd2 must match the number 2 in index="2" above. Check also with the mount program that /dev/cobd2 is not already mounted. If you make a mistake in choosing the correct partition number here, you will probably destroy your existing partitions!)
(-f forces checking even if not marked dirty, -v means verbose)
(the nice isn't really needed for a fast machine and a small filesystem)
9. Linux: Use resize2fs in Linux to resize copied file system on new partition:
resize2fs -p /dev/cobd2
(-p for progress indication, not really needed in this case)
10. Linux: Check that the new number of blocks reported by resize2fs (1048576 blocks) multiplied by the block size (1024 * 4 = 4096 bytes) is correct:
echo '1048576 * 4 * 1024' | bc
11. Linux: Check that the expanded file system is still in good shape:
nice --adjustment=+19 e2fsck -fv /dev/cobd2
(-f forces checking even if not marked dirty, -v means verbose)
(the nice isn't really needed for a fast machine and a small filesystem)
12. Linux: Mount the resized file system and play with it:
mkdir /tmp/newfs mount -t ext3 /dev/cobd2 /tmp/newfs
... various commands to test things are okay ...
umount /tmp/newfs
13. Linux: Shut coLinux down to allow coLinux to use the new larger file system as root:
shutdown -h now
14. Windows: Edit the new configuration file to replace old root partition by new enlarged partition:
cobd0="c:\Program Files\coLinux\gentoo-i686-ext3-4g"
(you must comment out or remove the mention of the old root partition and change the mention of the new partition to read as just above)
15. Cygwin: Boot coLinux with the new configuration and the new root partition:
colinux-daemon.exe @gentoo-i686-ext3-4g.colinux.conf
16. Linux: Test that it works!
The earlier (before 2004-08-07) instructions follow this point.
the SAFE way is the same way I create multiple gentoo images:
Requirements: 3 Images
A good chunk of spare disk space.
take and boot image 3 and when you get to a login, mount image 1 as /mnt/oldroot. mount image2 as /mnt/newroot (creating the filesystem if necessary).
Now, you just do ‘cp -ax /mnt/oldroot/* /mnt/newroot/’ and it'll copy all the files.
This is not, however, GROWING a filesystem, it's just making the file biger.
For reiserfs and XFS it's not that big a deal.
in cygwin, go to the directory that the image is in.
like
# cd /colinux
now find the size of the image:
# ls -al *img * rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4294967296 Feb 27 03:32 test-img
now what we want to do is dd onto the end of that file, I'm going to assume that the block size is 16K, although most systems will perform better at 32K.
This means our file is:
or
but we need blocks, not K, so we divide by blocksize now(16K)
this means our image is 262021 16K blocks long... now that we know that, we use dd.
Let me summarize what info we have so far:
now, we need to figure out how much larger we want it (keep in mind, some file systems don't like files larger than 2gb, which may require a Raid solution) lets assume we want to add 1GB. we need to find out how many 16K blocks that is. 1GB*(1024MB/GB)*(1024KB/MB)/(16KB/BLOCK} or 65536 this means we want the new image to be 65536 blocks larger than the original.
Warning: BACKUP YOUR ORIGINAL FILE NOW! |
here's where we start the grow. I'll explain it as we go...
We know so far:
our file is './test-img'it is 262021 blocks longbut we want to make it 65536 blocks longerwhere all those blocks are 16Kthis translates to the following dd command:dd if=/dev/zero of=./test-img bs=16K seek=262021 count=65536'if=/dev/zero reads from /dev/zero of=./test-img writes to ./test-img bs=16K read/write 16K blocks seek=262021 skip the first 26021 blocks count=65536 write 65,536 blocks.this should execute 'relatively' fast. 2-3 minutes.another option is to do seek=262021+65536 count=1this is considered 'safe' but I don't have experience with it.We've now grown the IMAGE… we still need to grow the actual filesystem.
I'll assume you know what filesystem the file is (probably ext3). it should be stated in the filename. To resize ext3 you need to install the filesystem tools for that filesystem in cygwin. For XFS, it's xfs_growfs, which needs to be run from within Colinux while the filesystem is mounted rw. For ext2, it's resize2fs which is in the e2fsprogs package, available from http://e2fsprogs.sourceforge.net/ (does also build under Cygwin) for sanity's sake (the method I KNOW that works)
resize2fs test-img
and you should be done. If you resize the image under cygwin install the e2fsprogs package. The tools e2fsck and resize2fs.exe are located under /usr/sbin. On cygwin:
c:\colinux> /usr/sbin/e2fsck -f test-img c:\colinux> /usr/sbin/resize2fs.exe test-img <new-size> c:\colinux> /usr/sbin/e2fsck -f test-img
(For the image size <new-size>, the units K, M, and G are valid. E.g 2400M, 3.4G)
<Gniarf> well there is one small issue : under FAT32, you are not limited to 4 Gb but to 4 Gb minus 2 bytes (check it if you dont believe me). for some reasons I believe it is safer to use 4095 Mb than 4096 here, there may be some nasty issues when co Linux tries to write down there, resulting in possible corruption of the coLinux image.
<GarrettSerack> Using MkSparse http://www.acc.umu.se/~bosse/mksparse.zip to make larger growable root filesystem: I used this to create a 10 gig sparse file, and moved the root filesystem over to it. On Windows:
c:\colinux> mksparse 10gigfs 10G
Alternatively you could also use fsutil as described in HowtoCreateSwapFile which is included in Windows XP and above:
c:\colinux> fsutil file createnew 10gigfs 10 737 418 240
Add it to the colinux config:
cobd3="c:\colinux\10gigfs"
Boot into colinux Login in as root, and perform the following:
# dd if=/dev/cobd0 of=/dev/cobd3 bs=1k count=2M # e2fsck -fv /dev/cobd3 # resize2fs -p /dev/cobd3 # e2fsck -fv /dev/cobd3
(remark from Dennis De Winter: replace /dev/cobd0 and /dev/cobd3 by /dev/cobd/0 and /dev/cobd/3 when using Gentoo dedicated to kernel 2.6 !!!!) Shut coLinux down to allow coLinux to use the new larger file system as root:
shutdown -h now
Remove the old root, and use the one you just made:
cobd3="c:\colinux\10gigfs"
Change device 0 to:
cobd0="c:\colinux\10gigfs"
'Note: despite what it says below, this method is not faster, nor is there any reason to assume it is safer. 82.139.85.20 07:33, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
The (safest) fastest possible way to expand your coLinux drive's space is to create a new virtual drive file in your Window's c:\colinux directory and use coLinux's Linux commands (maybe Cygwin or QEmu too) to re-initialize it as an ext3 type drive.
You can start the "shutdown -h now" procedure in coLinux and ALT-TAB to Windows while what comes next is being done.
First get a file on your Windows system (could be ANY file, but it would be more sensible if it had a size that was 1024^x - EG: 100M or 2 gigabytes, not 123456789 bytes), I suggest you use your swap file but you will need to wait for coLinux to finish it's shutdown before you use it.
If you want to make whatever file you use bigger then click your [START] button, click on "Run" and type "cmd" (and hit return) - this shells you to DOS.
Type this:
cd c:\colinux copy /b swap_2048Mb+swap_2048Mb drive_1.ext3.4GB exit
That will take two 2GB swap files and combine them to make one 4GB file. It will do so as quickly as your operating system can do it. That might take 20 minutes for some people. Add additional "+swap_2048"'s to increase the size further.
If you just want to use your swap file "as-is" (the size that it is) then copy it to a different directory (slow), rename it, and copy it back (instant) using Explorer and a few mouse clicks.
Now you should have a file called c:\colinux\drive_1.ext3.4GB .
Edit your configuration file (might be called c:\colinux\coLinux.conf) and add this after all your other drives (root / swap / cdrom etc.) :
# A second (virtual) HD - 4 GB in size cobd3="c:\colinux\drive_1.ext3.4GB"
Save the file and start coLinux the usual way.
Type the following to initialize the file to a Linux ext3 type, double check that it is correctly sized, and check the file system for problems:
mke2fs -b 1024 -j -v /dev/cobd3 e2fsck -f /dev/cobd3 resize2fs -p /dev/cobd3 e2fsck -f /dev/cobd3
Remember to use the correct number above where it says "/dev/cobd3". You might need 2 or 4 - but NEVER 0. Don't use "0". That should only take 5 minutes for a 10 GB file.
If everything is OK then mount it. If something went wrong re-check your typing. At worst the file on your computer will not be any good, but what use was the file made from a couple of spare files copied together?
You might do something wrong and make the file "c:\colinux\drive_1.ext3.4GB") unusable as a coLinux directory when you type (for example) "ls -l /tmp/newfs" (or wherever it is mounted).
You can NOT wreck your Windows drives (in coLinux) with the above commands (or something close, but wrong). You can NOT wreck your coLinux drives (in coLinux) with the above commands (or something close, but wrong). Thus, this method is quite safe.
To use the new drive immediately:
mkdir /tmp/newfs mount -t ext3 /dev/cobd3 /tmp/newfs
Type "df". You should see something like this:
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on /dev/cobd0 14449712 12817036 1339076 91% / ... /dev/cobd3 10318744 8472 9890842 1% /tmp/newfs
You can delete the "lost+found" directory if it exists, you don't want two.
rm -r /tmp/newfs/lost+found
If you want to move some files from the origonal drive to the new drive type:
cp -r --preserve=all /somedirectory/* /tmp/newfs/
Now you can erase "somedirectory" after checking that it copied OK. When you remove "somedirectory" you can make it re-appear by mounting the copied directory "/dev/cobd3" to "somedirectory" and then your coLinux drive will look exactly like it did before you started (and nothing will break). You will have extra space on your drive that you did not have before, that will be the only visible change.
Your coLinux directory (on Windows) (c:\colinux) will look slightly different since there will be a new file and the coLinux configuration file will have been edited. Other than that Windows will look the same as it did. If this is not the case you need to re-read these instructions.
For Debian (and some other systems) you can auto-mount the file by creating an fstab entry. Type "nano /etc/fstab" and add a line like this:
/dev/cobd3 /somedirectory ext2 suid,dev,exec 0 2
When you re-boot and type "ls -l /" you should see a directory called "somedirectory" in your root directory. That directory is actually the file on your Windows system called "c:\colinux\drive_1.ext3.4GB". You can copy files from other directories (like /root/downloads) to the new /somedirectory/dowanlods directory and it will look like you made your root dirve bigger. The two seperate Windows files will operate as one big HD on your coLinux system. You can do this many times. Each time you do it you are creating a new drive so there is a disk limit to consider.
After you reboot you can test if it is OK and delete "/tmp/newfs".
If you mess up (a little) in coLinux you will only wreck your "/dev/cobd3" file. Make sure you use "/dev/cobd?" (whatever comes AFTER the other, existing cobdX files) and DON'T use "/dev/cobd0" in any of the above instructions (no matter what you think you are try to do). This guarantees that your system WILL boot when you re-start and you can't loose everything (as you might with some of the following methods - they warn about this in some of those methods below).
The resulting Linux file system will appear as it did before you started so all your scripts will still work and you won't need to edit any configuration files.