Filed under: Linux, — Tags: Centos, LVM, Linux, Vagrant, VirtualBox — Thomas Sundberg — 2015-09-10
Virtual servers are fantastic when you need to test something and want to make sure that you have a well know environment. A virtual server has no value. You can create it over and over again and it will only cost you some time to start and stop.
VirtualBox and Vagrant is a really easy combination to get started with. However, it may turn ut that the base box you use need to be enhanced. I will show you how you can increase the disk space available on the virtual host. Unfortunately, it isn't as easy as one could hope for. But it is possible and I will show you how. When the disk has been increased, I will repackage the virtual host so it can be reused easily.
I assume that you have VirtualBox and Vagrant installed. If not, stop here and install them. I also assume that you are able to run commands from a shell. I am on a Mac and this has been tested in my terminal. You might want to consider installing Cygwin if you are using a broken os.
I want to make it clear where each command is executed, either in my terminal och the mac or in the virtual host. I
will indicate the different environments like this:
The mac terminal: mac$ ls
The virtual host
terminal: virtaul$ pwd
This should be interpreted as that I did ls on the mac and
pwd on the virtual host.
I would cut and paste each command to the terminal. If you do so, do not include the initial part (mac$
or virtaul$).
I need to have a test host running CentOS. I will start from a base box created by Puppet Labs. The problem, however, is that the disk is too small for the application I want to test.
This means that the first thing I want to do is to increase the available disk space. This step by step guide has been my inspiration for increasing the disk: https://gist.github.com/christopher-hopper/9755310
As far as I know, I am not doing anything that is CentOS specific. This means that I expect this guide to be usable for any Linux box that uses LVM for managing its disks.
Let's go through a scenario step by step.
My virtual boxes should have a home in ~/virtual-boxes and this CentOS test host should live in ~/virtual-boxes/centos
Get a new Vagrant box for VirtualBox:
mac$ vagrant box add puppetlabs/centos-6.6-64-puppet --provider virtualbox
This will download the needed resources from the Internet. It may take a while, it is a large download.
Change to the home directory for this virtual box:
mac$ cd ~/virtual-boxes/centos
Initiate it:
mac$ vagrant init puppetlabs/centos-6.6-64-puppet
Start it:
mac$ vagrant up
SSH into it:
mac$ vagrant ssh
Check the physical volume:
virtaul$ sudo pvdisplay
The result is:
--- Physical volume --- PV Name /dev/sda2 VG Name VolGroup PV Size 19.51 GiB / not usable 3.00 MiB Allocatable yes (but full) PE Size 4.00 MiB Total PE 4994 Free PE 0 Allocated PE 4994 PV UUID wqDj0S-MIE8-RITx-Otf7-WsSe-5pPg-XYPCJw
This gave us something usable back, we have a LVM volume and can increase it.
Exit the host.
virtaul$ exit
Stop it.
mac$ vagrant halt
List all virtual boxes that VirtualBox is aware of:
mac$ VBoxManage list vms
I found "centos_default_1441182442099_63483" {b8bd7884-9c1a-4680-8fd6-52ac5b2d9ff3}
Locating the disk means searching for it using the box name. Let's do
mac$ VBoxManage showvminfo centos_default_1441182442099_63483
This tells me much more than I need. Let me grep for anything with the suffix 'vmdk'.
mac$ VBoxManage showvminfo centos_default_1441182442099_63483 | grep vmdk
The result looked like this:
IDE Controller (0, 0): /Users/tsu/VirtualBox VMs/centos_default_1441182442099_63483/packer-centos-6.6-x86_64-virtualbox-vagrant-puppet-1437997185-disk1.vmdk (UUID: 21a9238f-1ffe-4c53-8b0c-3168a2026f30)
I notice that the disk is stored in ~/VirtualBox VMs. That is the default location for VirtualBox
files.
VMDK disks can't be extended. I will therefore clone it to a vdi disk that can be extended.
mac$ cd ~/VirtualBox\ VMs/centos_default_1441182442099_63483/
mac$ VBoxManage clonehd packer-centos-6.6-x86_64-virtualbox-vagrant-puppet-1437997185-disk1.vmdk
clone-disk1.vdi --format vdi
Let's see how large the current disk is
mac$ VBoxManage showhdinfo clone-disk1.vdi
I got:
UUID: 62bb925f-ea3a-4325-85ac-7bfeaeb97761 Parent UUID: base State: created Type: normal (base) Location: /Users/tsu/VirtualBox VMs/centos_default_1441182442099_63483/clone-disk1.vdi Storage format: VDI Format variant: dynamic default Capacity: 20480 MBytes Size on disk: 1854 MBytes Encryption: disabled
This tells me that the current size is 20 GBytes, 20480 MBytes. That is too small for stuff I want to test. I will resize it to 40 GBytes.
mac$ VBoxManage modifyhd clone-disk1.vdi --resize 40960
Find out the name of the storage controller this resized disk should be attached to.
mac$ VBoxManage showvminfo centos_default_1441182442099_63483 | grep Storage
I got
Storage Controller Name (0): IDE Controller Storage Controller Type (0): PIIX4 Storage Controller Instance Number (0): 0 Storage Controller Max Port Count (0): 2 Storage Controller Port Count (0): 2 Storage Controller Bootable (0): on
mac$ VBoxManage storageattach centos_default_1441182442099_63483 --storagectl "IDE Controller" --port 0 --device 0
--type hdd --medium clone-disk1.vdi
Bring the box up again
mac$ cd ~/virtual-boxes/centos/
mac$ vagrant up
Ssh back into it and become root
mac$ vagrant ssh
virtaul$ sudo su -
Find the name of the logical volume for the file system
virtaul$ df
I got
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/VolGroup-lv_root
19003260 1185320 16845960 7% /
tmpfs 251080 0 251080 0% /dev/shm
/dev/sda1 487652 28352 433700 7% /boot
vagrant 487358464 263884424 223474040 55% /vagrant
The name I am looking for is
/dev/mapper/VolGroup-lv_root
Find the name of the physical volume using disk.
virtaul$ fdisk -l
This gave me
Disk /dev/sda: 42.9 GB, 42949672960 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 5221 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0x000906bd Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sda1 * 1 64 512000 83 Linux Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary. /dev/sda2 64 2611 20458496 8e Linux LVM Disk /dev/mapper/VolGroup-lv_root: 19.9 GB, 19906166784 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 2420 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0x00000000 Disk /dev/mapper/VolGroup-lv_swap: 1040 MB, 1040187392 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 126 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0x00000000
I am interested in /dev/sda
Let's use /dev/sda to create a new primary partition.
virtaul$ fdisk /dev/sda
Follow these steps:
p to print the partition table to identify the number of partitions. By default there are two
- sda1 and sda2.
n to create a new primary partitionp for primary3 for the partition number, depending the output of the partition table printt to change the system's partition ID3 to select the newly creation partition8e to change the Hex Code of the partition for Linux LVMw to write the changes to the partition tableA new partition was created.
Reboot the machine, ssh back into it and become root.
virtaul$ reboot
mac$ vagrant ssh
virtaul$ sudo su -
virtaul$ pvcreate /dev/sda3
Find the name of the logical volume group
virtaul$ vgdisplay
I got
--- Volume group --- VG Name VolGroup System ID Format lvm2 Metadata Areas 1 Metadata Sequence No 3 VG Access read/write VG Status resizable MAX LV 0 Cur LV 2 Open LV 2 Max PV 0 Cur PV 1 Act PV 1 VG Size 19.51 GiB PE Size 4.00 MiB Total PE 4994 Alloc PE / Size 4994 / 19.51 GiB Free PE / Size 0 / 0 VG UUID kolyjB-epDi-uOQt-pp9k-3WOe-twe8-JJb9pz
Extend the volume group to use the new physical volume
virtaul$ vgextend VolGroup /dev/sda3
Find the name of the logical volume
virtaul$ df
I got
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/VolGroup-lv_root
19003260 1185428 16845852 7% /
tmpfs 251080 0 251080 0% /dev/shm
/dev/sda1 487652 28352 433700 7% /boot
Extend the logical volume to use all available space
virtaul$ lvextend -l +100%FREE /dev/mapper/VolGroup-lv_root
Resize the file system
virtaul$ resize2fs /dev/mapper/VolGroup-lv_root
Verify that there are more space available
virtaul$ df -h
I got
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/VolGroup-lv_root
38G 1.2G 35G 4% /
tmpfs 246M 0 246M 0% /dev/shm
/dev/sda1 477M 28M 424M 7% /boot
The disk is increased! We are almost done.
Now we want to do some cleaning and then repackage this as a new base box.
Remove the command history and last login. As root, do this:
virtaul$ cat /dev/null > ~/.bash_history && cat /dev/null > /var/log/lastlog && history -c
&& exit
and then, as vagrant, do
virtaul$ cat /dev/null > ~/.bash_history && history -c && exit
Now there won't be any history available when you login again.
Time to re-package the new box.
mac$ vagrant package --output centos-6.6-64-puppet-40Gb.box
Move the new box somewhere where we can refer to it when a new box is created from it. Create a home for base boxes.
mac$ mkdir ~/virtual-boxes/base-boxes/
Then, move the newly created box there:
mac$ mv centos-6.6-64-puppet-40Gb.box ~/virtual-boxes/base-boxes/
Add this new box to Vagrant for later usage.
mac$ vagrant box add centos-6.6-64-puppet-40Gb ~/virtual-boxes/base-boxes/centos-6.6-64-puppet-40Gb.box
Destroy the current CentOS box
mac$ vagrant destroy -f
and finally delete the Vagrant file
mac$ rm Vagrantfile
Initiate the new box:
mac$ vagrant init centos-6.6-64-puppet-40Gb
Start it
mac$ vagrant up
Use the new box with the increased disk.
mac$ vagrant ssh
This was a step by step guide that initiated a small CentOS box, increased the disk and created a new base box.
I hope you have use for it.
I would like to thank Johan Helmfrid for proof reading.
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