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So I have a need to expand a partition (/tmp) on a system and not understanding exactly how to proceed with this (I did not initially set the partitions up).

The following commands show:

fdisk -l Disk /dev/sda: 4798.6 GB, 4798552211456 bytes, 9372172288 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk label type: gpt # Start End Size Type Name 1 2048 411647 200M EFI System EFI System Partition 2 411648 1435647 500M Microsoft basic 3 1435648 395407359 187.9G Microsoft basic 4 395407360 446607359 24.4G Microsoft basic 5 446607360 497807359 24.4G Microsoft basic 6 497807360 549007359 24.4G Microsoft basic 7 549007360 569487359 9.8G Microsoft basic 8 569487360 585871359 7.8G Linux swap 9 585871360 6585871360 2.8T Linux filesyste

The various partitions I have created are:

/dev/sda3 on / type xfs (rw,relatime,attr2,inode64,noquota) /dev/sda4 on /var type xfs (rw,relatime,attr2,inode64,noquota) /dev/sda9 on /home type ext4 (rw,relatime,data=ordered) /dev/sda7 on /tmp type xfs (rw,relatime,attr2,inode64,noquota) /dev/sda2 on /boot type xfs (rw,relatime,attr2,inode64,noquota) /dev/sda1 on /boot/efi type vfat (rw,relatime,fmask=0077,dmask=0077,codepage=437,iocharset=ascii,shortname=winnt,errors=remount-ro) /dev/sda5 on /var/log type xfs (rw,relatime,attr2,inode64,noquota) /dev/sda6 on /var/log/audit type xfs (rw,relatime,attr2,inode64,noquota)

I see the following sizes allocated:

Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/sda3 188G 123G 66G 66% / /dev/sda4 25G 3.8G 21G 16% /var /dev/sda9 2.8T 224G 2.4T 9% /home /dev/sda7 9.8G 46M 9.8G 1% /tmp /dev/sda2 497M 161M 337M 33% /boot /dev/sda1 200M 9.8M 191M 5% /boot/efi /dev/sda5 25G 151M 25G 1% /var/log /dev/sda6 25G 71M 25G 1% /var/log/audit

From what I can see, /dev/sda8 must have been deleting and recreated from an XFS to EXT4 partition.

I need to expand /dev/sda7 to have more space and from a quick tally, /dev/sda is roughly 5TB and we are only using a bit over 3TB for /dev/sda1 --> /dev/sda9. Leads me to believe I have 1-2TB left sitting on /dev/sda. I need to grow this without losing data and preferably without downtime.

I "think" I will need to create another partition (/dev/sda10) and assign this with the desired space. From there I would run "mkfs -t ext4 /dev/sda10" to assign it a filesystem. Then update /etc/fstab to point /dev/sda10 to /tmp (maybe mount /dev/sda10 first and copy all of /tmp over?).

Am I on the correct path for this? Thanks

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Your mount and df outputs confirm that /tmp is a mounted filesystem residing on /dev/sda7.

Your fdisk output shows that /dev/sda7 is immediately followed on /dev/sda by a partition /dev/sda8 of type "Linux Swap". Chances are this partition is in use as a swap partition. (You can verify that with the swapon command.) If you want to grow /dev/sda7 in place you'll have to remove /dev/sda8 first.

Your fdisk output also shows that the total size of the disk is 9372172288 sectors, but the last partition /dev/sda9 ends at sector 6585871360. So there is 9372172288 - 6585871360 = 2786300928 sectors, or 1.3 TB, of unpartitioned free space after the last partition.

This leaves you with two possible avenues:

a) Move the swap partition to the unpartitioned space and extend the /tmp partition to the space formerly occupied by the swap partition. You can do that without downtime, by first creating a new swap partition /dev/sda10 of the required size starting at sector 6585871360, activating it with swapon /dev/sda10, then deactivating the old swap partition with swapoff /dev/sda7. After the old swap partition has drained you can delete partition 8 and extend partition 7 to that space. This will give you a /tmp partition of at most 585871360 - 549007360 = 36864000 sectors, or 17.6 GB.

b) Move the /tmp partition to the unpartitioned space. This will allow you to extend it up to 1.3 TB. It will however require a (short) downtime since you'll need to unmount the current /tmp partition which is not possible while the system is running.

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  • Thanks. Created sda10 and just copied data over then remounted tmp to this instead. Appreciate the assistance! Commented Feb 14, 2022 at 21:20

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