resize /var

[Rick Stevens]

Ted Potter wrote:
> Greetings,
> 
> 
> a new IBM Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES (v.3 Update 3) X series machine
> has the following partitions 
> 
> /dev/sda3   264 gig  /root
> /dev/sda2     72 megs /boot
> /dev/sda6   243 Megs /var
> 
> we ran out of space on /var running up2date. From what I understand I
> think the /var partition is too small.
> 
> My questions are
> 
> 1. Is it correct to state the /var partition is to small and we should
> have something like 10 - 40 gigs

Well, it rather depends on what you're doing.  Remember that the vast
number of logs and such go into /var/log.  up2date and yum both keep
their downloads there (/var/spool/up2date or /var/cache/yum) and mail
usually ends up in /var/mail.

Again, it depends on what you're doing.  As a rule, I tend to make /var
at least 4GB.  I'd say 2.5 to 5% of your total disk is adequate.  In
your case that'd be 6.5 to 13GB.

> 2. How do I or can I resize the /var partition.

It's not easy to do.  Once you've partitioned the drive, you really
can't change it unless you used LVM to set it up or really know what
you're doing with a tool such as one of the parted variants (gparted,
parted, etc.).

If you have a later version of Partition Magic or Partition Commander,
those can bugger things for you.  If you don't, it might make more sense
to reinstall and partition things a bit better.  With your disk, I'd do
something like:

	/ (root)	512MB-1GB
	/boot		64-128MB
	/var		6.5-13GB
	swap		twice your RAM size
	/usr		rest of disk

However, to get you over the hump you could tell up2date to use a
directory in /usr to store its stuff.  For example,

	# mkdir /usr/up2date-stuff
	# up2date --tmpdir=/usr/up2date-stuff

You can also reconfigure up2date to use that /usr/up2date-stuff
directory in the future without having to specify it on the command
line.  Use "up2date --configure", go to the second tab
("Retrieval/Installation") and change the "package store directory".
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- Rick Stevens, Senior Systems Engineer     rstevens at vitalstream.com -
- VitalStream, Inc.                       http://www.vitalstream.com -
-                                                                    -
-        Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.        -
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