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Earlier I had shared steps to create a file system and check file system type in Linux. Now in this article I will share the steps to resize primary partition, here we will extend non lvm root partition. With LVM it is far more easier and less riskier to change size of partition in an volume group in Linux.
- This article covers steps to resize primary partition (non-lvm) which can be dangerous and can leave your Linux system in an unusable broken state. It is important that you backup your content before you attempt to change size of partition.
- You can change size of partition (non-lvm) only on the last partition on the storage device with unallocated space. If the respective partition is not the last partition then the only way to expand partition is to backup your data, rebuild the disk and partitions, then restore the data. No tool such as gparted, parted or fdisk can help you change size of partition in such case.
- You must have some unallocated space or free space available in the concerned device to be able to expand partition. In some of the virtual environment you have an option to change the storage device size but on physical node if there is no enough unallocated space then resize primary partition (extend non lvm root partition) is not possible
- This article assumes you're using either a GPT partition table, or an msdos partition table using primary partition types to extend non lvm root partition.
Lab Environment to resize primary partition (RHEL/CentOS 7/8) in Linux
I have performed resize primary partition operation on Virtual Machine running on Oracle VirtualBox installed on Linux server. My VM is running with CentOS 8 but I have also verified these steps on RHEL/CentOS 7 and RHEL 8 Linux.
Here my VM is installed on /dev/sda device where /dev/sda1 is boot partition, /dev/sda2 is root while /dev/sda3 is for swap.. Additionally I have left some unallocated free space in /dev/sda for the demonstration of this article to extend non lvm root partition.
Method 1: Change size of partition using parted CLI utility
You can either use gparted (GUI utility) or parted (CLI utility) to change size of partition in Linux. Here we plan to resize primary partition which in our case is /dev/sda.
List available partitions
To list the available partitions in /dev/sda we will execute below command
[root@centos-8 ~]# parted -l /dev/sda
Model: ATA VBOX HARDDISK (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 16.1GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos
Disk Flags:
Number Start End Size Type File system Flags <--- This is my partition layout
1 1049kB 538MB 537MB primary ext4 boot
2 538MB 11.3GB 10.7GB primary ext4
3 11.3GB 12.3GB 1074MB primary linux-swap(v1)
As I mentioned in the disclaimer section, you can change size of partition only on the last partition of the device but here root partition (/dev/sda2) is not the last one instead swap (/dev/sda3) is my last partition. So to expand root partition I must delete swap device to be able to to use unallocated space and extend non lvm root partition. After deleting swap, root partition will become the last partition on /dev/sda after which we can resize primary partition.
Disable swap partition
Currently I have around 1GB reserved for swap partition
[root@centos-8 ~]# free -m
total used free shared buff/cache available
Mem: 3781 164 3245 8 371 3389
Swap: 1023 0 1023
I will turn off my swap (disable swap partition) and use this space to extend non lvm root partition in Linux
[root@centos-8 ~]# swapoff -a
Verify the swap partition space, as you see not it is 0
[root@centos-8 ~]# free -m
total used free shared buff/cache available
Mem: 3781 164 3241 8 375 3389
Swap: 0 0 0
Update /etc/fstab to make sure swap partition is not mounted at boot up stage.
[root@centos-8 ~]# cat /etc/fstab
UUID=b3ba77fc-86a7-40dc-a93e-402d8e3987ab / ext4 defaults 1 1
UUID=621d26e4-4bcc-441d-b336-a9bae280343d /boot ext4 defaults 1 2
#UUID=3816d191-31fd-4e20-874d-b18360133aca swap swap defaults 0 0
Delete swap and expand partition
Now to resize primary partition /dev/sda2 and expand partition to a new value we must first delete swap partition using parted utility. As we need root partition to be the last partition of /dev/sda before we expand partition.
[root@centos-8 ~]# parted /dev/sda GNU Parted 3.2 Using /dev/sda Welcome to GNU Parted! Type 'help' to view a list of commands. (parted) p Model: ATA VBOX HARDDISK (scsi) Disk /dev/sda: 16.1GB Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B Partition Table: msdos Disk Flags: Number Start End Size Type File system Flags 1 1049kB 538MB 537MB primary ext4 boot 2 538MB 11.3GB 10.7GB primary ext4 3 11.3GB 12.3GB 1074MB primary linux-swap(v1) (parted) rm 3 <-- First we need to delete swap partition (parted) p Model: ATA VBOX HARDDISK (scsi) Disk /dev/sda: 16.1GB Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B Partition Table: msdos Disk Flags: Number Start End Size Type File system Flags 1 1049kB 538MB 537MB primary ext4 boot 2 538MB 11.3GB 10.7GB primary ext4 (parted) u <-- Change the unit type to sector to avoid any risk of loosing data when you resize root partition Unit? [compact]? s (parted) p <-- Print the available partition table Model: ATA VBOX HARDDISK (scsi) Disk /dev/sda: 31457280s Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B Partition Table: msdos Disk Flags: Number Start End Size Type File system Flags 1 2048s 1050623s 1048576s primary ext4 boot 2 1050624s 22022143s 20971520s primary ext4 <--- Note down the start sector number, this will be used in next step (parted) rm 2 <-- We will delete the root partition's entry. This will not impact the content of root partition and only partition table is modified. Warning: Partition /dev/sda2 is being used. Are you sure you want to continue? Yes/No? Yes Error: Partition(s) 2 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? Ignore <-- If you reboot your server at this stage then you may end up with a broken node so don't reboot your node at this stage. (parted) p <-- Print the current partition table Model: ATA VBOX HARDDISK (scsi) Disk /dev/sda: 31457280s Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B Partition Table: msdos Disk Flags: Number Start End Size Type File system Flags 1 2048s 1050623s 1048576s primary ext4 boot (parted) mkpart <-- Now we will create root partition with new size Partition type? primary/extended? primary File system type? [ext2]? ext4 Start? 1050624s <-- Here give the start sector as it was earlier for root partition End? 24022143s <-- Give the new end sector higher than the earlier value to resize root partition (parted) p <-- Print the new partition table after you extend non lvm root partition Model: ATA VBOX HARDDISK (scsi) Disk /dev/sda: 31457280s Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B Partition Table: msdos Disk Flags: Number Start End Size Type File system Flags 1 2048s 1050623s 1048576s primary ext4 boot 2 1050624s 24022143s 22971520s primary ext4 lba (parted) quit <-- We are all done here Information: You may need to update /etc/fstab.
But our root partition is showing the same size as earlier i.e. ~10GB
[root@centos-8 ~]# df -h /dev/sda2 Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/sda2 9.8G 1.2G 8.1G 13% /
To complete the steps to resize non lvm root partition, execute resizefs for ext3 and ext4 partitions or xfs_growfs for xfs partition to expand partition and refresh the changes
[root@centos-8 ~]# resize2fs /dev/sda2 resize2fs 1.44.3 (10-July-2018) Filesystem at /dev/sda2 is mounted on /; on-line resizing required old_desc_blocks = 2, new_desc_blocks = 2 The filesystem on /dev/sda2 is now 2871440 (4k) blocks long.
Re-verify the new size of root partition to make sure our steps to extend non lvm root partition was successful.
[root@centos-8 ~]# df -h /dev/sda2 Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/sda2 11G 1.3G 9.0G 12% /
Re-create swap partition
Now we must create Swap partition which we deleted earlier in this article. We will again use parted utility to create swap partition
[root@centos-8 ~]# parted /dev/sda GNU Parted 3.2 Using /dev/sda Welcome to GNU Parted! Type 'help' to view a list of commands. (parted) mkpart Partition type? primary/extended? primary File system type? [ext2]? linux-swap <-- To create swap partition Start? Start? 24022144s End? 98% Warning: The resulting partition is not properly aligned for best performance: 24022144s % 2048s != 0s Ignore/Cancel? Ignore (parted) p Model: ATA VBOX HARDDISK (scsi) Disk /dev/sda: 16.1GB Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B Partition Table: msdos Disk Flags: Number Start End Size Type File system Flags 1 1049kB 538MB 537MB primary ext4 boot 2 538MB 12.3GB 11.8GB primary ext4 3 12.3GB 12.8GB 512MB primary linux-swap(v1) lba <-- Now we have a swap partition (parted) quit Information: You may need to update /etc/fstab.
Now with parted we only created a partition with file system type as swap. Use mkswap to turn this partition into swap.
[root@centos-8 ~]# mkswap /dev/sda3
Setting up swapspace version 1, size = 488.3 MiB (511995904 bytes)
no label, UUID=decb7df5-8d7a-41b4-bfd7-bee076006ec9
Next we must update /etc/fstab with the UUID of our new swap partition. To get the new UUID of swap partition
[root@centos-8 ~]# blkid /dev/sda3 /dev/sda3: UUID="decb7df5-8d7a-41b4-bfd7-bee076006ec9" TYPE="swap" PARTUUID="5290bf38-03"
Update this UUID in /etc/fstab as shown below
[root@centos-8 ~]# cat /etc/fstab UUID=b3ba77fc-86a7-40dc-a93e-402d8e3987ab / ext4 defaults 1 1 UUID=621d26e4-4bcc-441d-b336-a9bae280343d /boot ext4 defaults 1 2 UUID=3816d191-31fd-4e20-874d-b18360133aca swap swap defaults 0 0
Finally turn on the new swap partition
[root@centos-8 ~]# swapon /dev/sda3
Verify the new swap partition
[root@centos-8 ~]# free -m
total used free shared buff/cache available
Mem: 3781 155 3390 8 235 3407
Swap: 488 0 488
Now you can reboot your Linux server to make sure everything is OK and resize primary partition was successful.
Method 2: Change size of partition using fdisk utility
Similar to parted command, you can also use fdisk utility to resize primary partition and extend non lvm root partition.
List available partitions
Before we resize primary partition, let us list the available partitions
[root@centos-8 ~]# fdisk -l /dev/sda
Disk /dev/sda: 15 GiB, 16106127360 bytes, 31457280 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
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x5290bf38
Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type
/dev/sda1 * 2048 1050623 1048576 512M 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 1050624 22022143 20971520 10G 83 Linux <-- This is our root partition
/dev/sda3 22022144 24119295 2097152 1G 82 Linux swap / Solaris
Now as you see my existing root partition /dev/sda2 size is ~10G. Here we will expand partition with +1GB using unallocated disk space from /dev/sda.
[root@centos-8 ~]# df -h /dev/sda2 Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/sda2 9.8G 1.3G 8.1G 14% /
Delete swap partition
Currently my swap partition is enabled and is the last partition of /dev/sda. So we must first delete swap partition here before we change size of partition as we need root to be the last partition in /dev/sda
[root@centos-8 ~]# free -m
total used free shared buff/cache available
Mem: 3781 165 3243 8 372 3388
Swap: 1023 0 1023
So we will turn off the swap partition before we disable it
[root@centos-8 ~]# swapoff -a
Now it is time to use fdisk utility to resize partition
[root@centos-8 ~]# fdisk /dev/sda Welcome to fdisk (util-linux 2.32.1). Changes will remain in memory only, until you decide to write them. Be careful before using the write command. Command (m for help): p <-- Print the partition table Disk /dev/sda: 15 GiB, 16106127360 bytes, 31457280 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 Disklabel type: dos Disk identifier: 0x5290bf38 Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type /dev/sda1 * 2048 1050623 1048576 512M 83 Linux /dev/sda2 1050624 22022143 20971520 10G 83 Linux /dev/sda3 22022144 24119295 2097152 1G 82 Linux swap / Solaris Command (m for help): d <-- To delete a partition ude 'd' Partition number (1-3, default 3): 3 <-- Provide the partition number which you wish to delete. Here our swap partition number is 3 Partition 3 has been deleted. Command (m for help): p <-- Next we will print the new partition table again Disk /dev/sda: 15 GiB, 16106127360 bytes, 31457280 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 Disklabel type: dos Disk identifier: 0x5290bf38 Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type /dev/sda1 * 2048 1050623 1048576 512M 83 Linux /dev/sda2 1050624 22022143 20971520 10G 83 Linux
Part 1 - Resize root partition
We will continue with the steps to extend non lvm root partition in the same fdisk session. Note down the start sector of the root partition before you expand partition.
Command (m for help): d <-- Now we need to delete root partition before we extend non lvm root partition. This will not impact the content stored in root partition and will only clear the partition table. Partition number (1,2, default 2): 2 <-- provide the root's partition number Partition 2 has been deleted. Command (m for help): p <-- Print the partition table with the new changes Disk /dev/sda: 15 GiB, 16106127360 bytes, 31457280 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 Disklabel type: dos Disk identifier: 0x5290bf38 Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type /dev/sda1 * 2048 1050623 1048576 512M 83 Linux <-- Now we only have a boot partition Command (m for help): n <-- Next we will create and expand partition for root Partition type p primary (1 primary, 0 extended, 3 free) e extended (container for logical partitions) Select (default p): p <-- This will be a primary partition Partition number (2-4, default 2): 2 <-- For root partition we know the partition number was 2 so we will use the same as it is important to use the same start sector First sector (1050624-31457279, default 1050624): 1050624 <-- Use the same first sector as it was earlier to resize root partition Last sector, +sectors or +size{K,M,G,T,P} (1050624-31457279, default 31457279): +11G <-- Here you can define the new size to resize root partition and expand partition Created a new partition 2 of type 'Linux' and of size 11 GiB. Partition #2 contains a ext4 signature. Do you want to remove the signature? [Y]es/[N]o: N <-- Since we want to retain ext4 signature on our root partition we will use "N" Command (m for help): p <-- Now print the new partition table once resize root partition is successful Disk /dev/sda: 15 GiB, 16106127360 bytes, 31457280 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 Disklabel type: dos Disk identifier: 0x5290bf38 Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type /dev/sda1 * 2048 1050623 1048576 512M 83 Linux /dev/sda2 1050624 24119295 23068672 11G 83 Linux <-- We have our new root partition with 11G as new size
Create swap partition
After we resize primary partition, in the same fdisk session we will also create a new swap partition which we had deleted initially with new start and end sector
Command (m for help): n <-- Now we will also create a new swap partition Partition type p primary (2 primary, 0 extended, 2 free) e extended (container for logical partitions) Select (default p): p <-- This also will be a primary partition Partition number (3,4, default 3): 3 <-- We can give any partition number here but we will use 3 as earlier First sector (24119296-31457279, default 24119296): <-- This can be the same as default option Last sector, +sectors or +size{K,M,G,T,P} (24119296-31457279, default 31457279): +512M <--- My new swap partition size will be 512MB Created a new partition 3 of type 'Linux' and of size 512 MiB. Command (m for help): p <-- Print the new partition table Disk /dev/sda: 15 GiB, 16106127360 bytes, 31457280 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 Disklabel type: dos Disk identifier: 0x5290bf38 Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type /dev/sda1 * 2048 1050623 1048576 512M 83 Linux /dev/sda2 1050624 24119295 23068672 11G 83 Linux /dev/sda3 24119296 25167871 1048576 512M 83 Linux <-- Now resize root partition was successful and we have all the partitions with us Command (m for help): t <-- We must also change the filesystem type of our swap partition Partition number (1-3, default 3): 3 <-- This is our swap partition Hex code (type L to list all codes): 82 <-- 82 is the code for Linux swap filesystem type Changed type of partition 'Linux' to 'Linux swap / Solaris'. Command (m for help): p <-- Print the partition table to verify the new changes Disk /dev/sda: 15 GiB, 16106127360 bytes, 31457280 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 Disklabel type: dos Disk identifier: 0x5290bf38 Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type /dev/sda1 * 2048 1050623 1048576 512M 83 Linux /dev/sda2 1050624 24119295 23068672 11G 83 Linux /dev/sda3 24119296 25167871 1048576 512M 82 Linux swap / Solaris Command (m for help): w <-- Save the new partition table with the changes to expand partition The partition table has been altered. Syncing disks.
Update the kernel regarding the recent changes we did to change size of partition
[root@centos-8 ~]# partprobe /dev/sda
But our swap partition is still shown as 0
[root@centos-8 ~]# free -m
total used free shared buff/cache available
Mem: 3781 164 3238 8 378 3389
Swap: 0 0 0
Now let us complete our steps to create swap partition using mkswap
[root@centos-8 ~]# mkswap /dev/sda3 Setting up swapspace version 1, size = 512 MiB (536866816 bytes) no label, UUID=f34150e6-6d37-448c-b81f-69ecdcb13ed5
Next update /etc/fstab with the UUID for your new swap partition. You can use blkid to get the UUID
[root@centos-8 ~]# blkid /dev/sda3
/dev/sda3: UUID="f34150e6-6d37-448c-b81f-69ecdcb13ed5" TYPE="swap" PARTUUID="5290bf38-03"
Update the same in /etc/fstab as shown below. Alternatively you can also mount filesystems using systemd instead of /etc/fstab file.
UUID=f34150e6-6d37-448c-b81f-69ecdcb13ed5 swap swap defaults 0 0
Now you can turn on the swap partition
[root@centos-8 ~]# swapon -a
Verify the same using free command
[root@centos-8 ~]# free -m
total used free shared buff/cache available
Mem: 3781 164 3237 8 378 3388
Swap: 511 0 511
Part 2 - Resize root partition
If not done already in above steps, once you exit fdisk utility, update the kernel regarding the recent changes we did to change size of partition
[root@centos-8 ~]# partprobe /dev/sda
We are not done with resize primary partition, as df command still shows old partition size for root partition
[root@centos-8 ~]# df -h /dev/sda2 Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/sda2 9.8G 1.3G 8.1G 14% /
Execute resize2fs for ext3 and ext4 partitions or xfs_growfs for xfs partition to expand partition on /dev/sda2 with the new changes
[root@centos-8 ~]# resize2fs /dev/sda2 resize2fs 1.44.3 (10-July-2018) Filesystem at /dev/sda2 is mounted on /; on-line resizing required old_desc_blocks = 2, new_desc_blocks = 2 The filesystem on /dev/sda2 is now 2883584 (4k) blocks long.
Now you can verify the new size of root partition
[root@centos-8 ~]# df -h /dev/sda2
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda2 11G 1.3G 9.0G 12% /
Lastly I hope the steps from the article to resize primary partition and extend non lvm root partition on RHEL/CentOS 7/8 Linux was helpful. So, let me know your suggestions and feedback using the comment section.
really helped after hours of digging in internet finally found this wonderful article with clean instructions. i don’t usually comment but i’m really thankful for this one.
thank you for this wonderful guid
Saved my skin! Thanks,
-New Linux User
This was very well put together. I achieved what I desired.
Thank you very much for your efforts
Regards from Finland 🙂
Hey, very detailed instruction, thank you for that! I was able to do the same with fdisk on RHEL 8 but that didn’t work on my RHEL 7 machine. Your way with parted was nearly the same but helped me still a lot! Just one thing to add: If you have a xfs Filesystem you can extend it later with xfs_growfs instead of resize2fs …
Cheers!
Thanks for the Hint, I missed to add that part earlier. Updated the article.
Cant see who wrote this article but wow, great article. I read a dozen other web pages trying to describe how to achieve this and NONE of them mentioned the most obvious issue: The SWAP partition is in the way!!!!
Thanks for the article! Well done and keep posting.
You the man keep the hard work, thank you for your clean vivid instruction.
I have just used this fantastic guide on a vps (Gentoo installed) and it worked flawlessly.
Thank you very much!
Works great on Debian 8 as well. It required a reboot after fdisk write with w.
This is very helpfull material thanks