Installing CentOS/RedHat on disks larger than 2Tb - Revision history

Ppapa at 02:45, 5 March 2012

2012-03-05T02:45:49Z

Ppapa at 02:44, 5 March 2012

2012-03-05T02:44:32Z

Ppapa at 02:33, 5 March 2012

2012-03-05T02:33:38Z

Ppapa at 03:41, 1 March 2012

2012-03-01T03:41:35Z

Ppapa at 03:40, 1 March 2012

2012-03-01T03:40:04Z

Ppapa at 03:28, 1 March 2012

2012-03-01T03:28:24Z

Ppapa: Created page with "So you have a new server that has a lot of disk! The classic example is you have a server with 8 x 1Tb drives or something similar and you do not want to be restricted to using ..."

2012-03-01T01:19:27Z

Created page with "So you have a new server that has a lot of disk! The classic example is you have a server with 8 x 1Tb drives or something similar and you do not want to be restricted to using ..."

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So you have a new server that has a lot of disk! The classic example is you have a server with 8 x 1Tb drives or something similar and you do not want to be restricted to using only 2Tb of disk, as dictated by the default MSDOS disk label. You may read things about using EFI instead of BIOS, but that can be a massive hassle. The easier way to get this happening is to use a Guid Partition Table (GPT) disk label. This will allow you to have partitions greater than 2Tb without having to change from using BIOS to EFI. The method I describe here is a little fiddly, but it works. You will need a [http://gparted.sourceforge.net/ GParted Live CD]

← Older revision		Revision as of 02:45, 5 March 2012
Line 1:		Line 1:
−	So you have a new server that has a lot of disk! The classic example is you have a server with 8 x 1Tb drives or something similar and you do not want to be restricted to using only 2Tb of disk, as dictated by the default MSDOS disk label. You've set up a RAID-5 or 6 array using these drives and want to use all the available space. You may read things about using EFI instead of BIOS, but that can be a massive hassle. The easier way to get this happening is to use a Guid Partition Table (GPT) disk label. This will allow you to have partitions greater than 2Tb without having to change from using BIOS to EFI. This is CentOS 6 specific as CentOS 5 does not support booting off GPT partitions! The method I describe here is a little fiddly, but it works. You will need a [http://gparted.sourceforge.net/ GParted Live CD] and a Kickstart server.	+	So you have a new server that has a lot of disk! The classic example is you have a server with 8 x 1Tb drives or something similar and you do not want to be restricted to using only 2Tb of disk, as dictated by the default MSDOS disk label. You've set up a RAID-5 or 6 array using these drives and want to use all the available space. You may read things about using EFI instead of BIOS, but that can be a massive hassle. The easier way to get this happening is to use a Guid Partition Table (GPT) disk label. This will allow you to have partitions greater than 2Tb without having to change from using BIOS to EFI. This is CentOS 6 specific as the version of GRUB that comes with CentOS 5 does not support booting off GPT partitions! The method I describe here is a little fiddly, but it works. You will need a [http://gparted.sourceforge.net/ GParted Live CD] and a Kickstart server.

	1. Download the GParted ISO image and boot off it.		1. Download the GParted ISO image and boot off it.

← Older revision		Revision as of 02:44, 5 March 2012
Line 1:		Line 1:
−	So you have a new server that has a lot of disk! The classic example is you have a server with 8 x 1Tb drives or something similar and you do not want to be restricted to using only 2Tb of disk, as dictated by the default MSDOS disk label. You've set up a RAID-5 or 6 array using these drives and want to use all the available space. You may read things about using EFI instead of BIOS, but that can be a massive hassle. The easier way to get this happening is to use a Guid Partition Table (GPT) disk label. This will allow you to have partitions greater than 2Tb without having to change from using BIOS to EFI. This is CentOS 6 specific! The method I describe here is a little fiddly, but it works. You will need a [http://gparted.sourceforge.net/ GParted Live CD] and a Kickstart server.	+	So you have a new server that has a lot of disk! The classic example is you have a server with 8 x 1Tb drives or something similar and you do not want to be restricted to using only 2Tb of disk, as dictated by the default MSDOS disk label. You've set up a RAID-5 or 6 array using these drives and want to use all the available space. You may read things about using EFI instead of BIOS, but that can be a massive hassle. The easier way to get this happening is to use a Guid Partition Table (GPT) disk label. This will allow you to have partitions greater than 2Tb without having to change from using BIOS to EFI. This is CentOS 6 specific as CentOS 5 does not support booting off GPT partitions! The method I describe here is a little fiddly, but it works. You will need a [http://gparted.sourceforge.net/ GParted Live CD] and a Kickstart server.

	1. Download the GParted ISO image and boot off it.		1. Download the GParted ISO image and boot off it.

← Older revision		Revision as of 02:33, 5 March 2012
Line 1:		Line 1:
−	So you have a new server that has a lot of disk! The classic example is you have a server with 8 x 1Tb drives or something similar and you do not want to be restricted to using only 2Tb of disk, as dictated by the default MSDOS disk label. You've set up a RAID-5 or 6 array using these drives and want to use all the available space. You may read things about using EFI instead of BIOS, but that can be a massive hassle. The easier way to get this happening is to use a Guid Partition Table (GPT) disk label. This will allow you to have partitions greater than 2Tb without having to change from using BIOS to EFI. The method I describe here is a little fiddly, but it works. You will need a [http://gparted.sourceforge.net/ GParted Live CD] and a Kickstart server.	+	So you have a new server that has a lot of disk! The classic example is you have a server with 8 x 1Tb drives or something similar and you do not want to be restricted to using only 2Tb of disk, as dictated by the default MSDOS disk label. You've set up a RAID-5 or 6 array using these drives and want to use all the available space. You may read things about using EFI instead of BIOS, but that can be a massive hassle. The easier way to get this happening is to use a Guid Partition Table (GPT) disk label. This will allow you to have partitions greater than 2Tb without having to change from using BIOS to EFI. This is CentOS 6 specific! The method I describe here is a little fiddly, but it works. You will need a [http://gparted.sourceforge.net/ GParted Live CD] and a Kickstart server.

	1. Download the GParted ISO image and boot off it.		1. Download the GParted ISO image and boot off it.

@@ Line 62: / Line 62: @@
    bootloader --location=mbr --driveorder=sda --append="crashkernel=auto rhgb quiet"
-'''NOTE:'''  The following lines should '''NOT''' be in your kickstart file:
+'''NOTE:'''  The following lines should '''NOT''' be in your Kickstart file:
    zerombr
@@ Line 68: / Line 68: @@
 This will destroy the disk label and put an msdos label back in place!

← Older revision		Revision as of 03:40, 1 March 2012
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	parted /dev/sda rm 2		parted /dev/sda rm 2

−	3.	+	You may get the following error:
		+
		+	Error: Partitions(s) 1 on /dev/sda have been written, but we have been unable to
		+	inform the kernel of the change, probably because it/they are in use. As a
		+	result, the old partition(s) will remain in use. You should reboot now before
		+	making further changes.
		+	Ignore/Cancel?
		+
		+	It is safe to ignore this error and keep going!
		+
		+	3. Now use parted to change the disk label to GPT
		+
		+	sudo parted -s /dev/sda mklabel gpt
		+
		+	You may get the same error as in step 2b, but again, keep going!
		+
		+	4. Reboot the machine and begin the Kickstart install. Your Kickstart file should have something like this for the disk layout:
		+
		+	ignoredisk --only-use=sda
		+
		+	clearpart --linux --drives=sda
		+
		+	part /boot --fstype=ext4 --size=500
		+	part pv.pv1 --grow --size=1
		+
		+	volgroup vg1 --pesize=4096 pv.pv1
		+	logvol /data --fstype=ext4 --name=data --vgname=vg1 --size=6498824
		+	logvol /home --fstype=ext4 --name=home --vgname=vg1 --size=40960
		+	logvol / --fstype=ext4 --name=root --vgname=vg1 --size=51200
		+	logvol swap --name=swap --vgname=vg1 --size=20480
		+	logvol /usr --fstype=ext4 --name=usr --vgname=vg1 --size=20480
		+	logvol /var --fstype=ext4 --name=var --vgname=vg1 --size=40960
		+
		+	bootloader --location=mbr --driveorder=sda --append="crashkernel=auto rhgb quiet"
		+
		+	'''NOTE:''' The following lines should '''NOT''' be in your kickstart file:
		+
		+	zerombr
		+	clearpart --all --initlabel
		+
		+	This will destroy the disk label and put an msdos label back in place!

← Older revision		Revision as of 03:28, 1 March 2012
Line 1:		Line 1:
−	So you have a new server that has a lot of disk! The classic example is you have a server with 8 x 1Tb drives or something similar and you do not want to be restricted to using only 2Tb of disk, as dictated by the default MSDOS disk label. You may read things about using EFI instead of BIOS, but that can be a massive hassle. The easier way to get this happening is to use a Guid Partition Table (GPT) disk label. This will allow you to have partitions greater than 2Tb without having to change from using BIOS to EFI. The method I describe here is a little fiddly, but it works. You will need a [http://gparted.sourceforge.net/ GParted Live CD]	+	So you have a new server that has a lot of disk! The classic example is you have a server with 8 x 1Tb drives or something similar and you do not want to be restricted to using only 2Tb of disk, as dictated by the default MSDOS disk label. You've set up a RAID-5 or 6 array using these drives and want to use all the available space. You may read things about using EFI instead of BIOS, but that can be a massive hassle. The easier way to get this happening is to use a Guid Partition Table (GPT) disk label. This will allow you to have partitions greater than 2Tb without having to change from using BIOS to EFI. The method I describe here is a little fiddly, but it works. You will need a [http://gparted.sourceforge.net/ GParted Live CD] and a Kickstart server.
		+
		+	1. Download the GParted ISO image and boot off it.
		+
		+	NOTE: If you don't want to use the GParted ISO, then use any Live CD that has parted on it.
		+
		+	2. If there are no existing partitions go to step 3. If there are any partitions, delete them using either the GUI or the following commands:
		+
		+	a. List the current partitions:
		+
		+	sudo bash
		+	parted /dev/sda print
		+
		+	Output will look something like:
		+
		+	Disk /dev/sda: 6998GB
		+	Sector size (logocal/physical): 512B/512B
		+	Partition Table: gpt
		+
		+	Number Start End Size File system Name Flags
		+	1 1049kB 525MB 524MB ext4 boot
		+	2 525MB 6998GB 6997GB lvm
		+
		+	b. Delete the partitions you saw in the output of the previous command
		+
		+	parted /dev/sda rm 1
		+	parted /dev/sda rm 2
		+
		+	3.