Fedora 28 Server - Linux 101 - How do you partition your drives
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The only time I don't let
/use up all my drive space is (usually every time) when I know I will have important data or a need for an amount of storage to be separate from the OS. I like to keep the OS stateless, and the stateful data separate, when possible or when it makes sense.This has already saved me a few times, when having to reload or restore the OS while keeping the
/dataor/homepartitions intact. All cases were when using LVM.One could say "well, backups", but you know what's faster? Not having to restore from backups because you made a simple decision when installing the OS that has no negative consequence, only potential benefits.
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I don't separate partitions on my Linux workstation, however, I was referring to servers above.
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@obsolesce said in Fedora 28 Server - Linux 101 - How do you partition your drives:
This has already saved me a few times, when having to reload or restore the OS while keeping the
/dataor/homepartitions intact. All cases were when using LVM.I've had to do this a few times & re-installing the o/s on the separate partition made it super easy!
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@obsolesce said in Fedora 28 Server - Linux 101 - How do you partition your drives:
The only time I don't let
/use up all my drive space is (usually every time) when I know I will have important data or a need for an amount of storage to be separate from the OS. I like to keep the OS stateless, and the stateful data separate, when possible or when it makes sense.This has already saved me a few times, when having to reload or restore the OS while keeping the
/dataor/homepartitions intact. All cases were when using LVM.One could say "well, backups", but you know what's faster? Not having to restore from backups because you made a simple decision when installing the OS that has no negative consequence, only potential benefits.
Yeah we have logs and data on separate volumes from the OS. Saves you if the logs take off or if you have more data than expected.
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@ccwtech said in Fedora 28 Server - Linux 101 - How do you partition your drives:
I'm very new with Linux, so feel free to over explain.
I am setting up Fedora 28 server and see that the auto partition feature doesn't seem to do a great job.
Is anyone aware of a good walk through on how best to manually partition?
Ultimately the same advice tends to stick, and that is "treat it like Windows." With the one thing to know is that we often have a dedicated /boot partition in Linux.
Beyond that...
- We don't use partitions. Not in Windows, not in Linux. We use volumes. Partitions as a means of separating drive space is a vestige of the 1990s and earlier. By Windows 2000 or around 1998 in the Linux world, we no longer used partitions, they are rigid and fragile.
- Separate out what you need, and nothing more.
That's really it. Would you create a new volume for the space in Windows? If so, you likely need it on Linux. Storage is storage, so that it is Windows, Linux, Solaris, AIX doesn't matter.
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@ccwtech said in Fedora 28 Server - Linux 101 - How do you partition your drives:
@travisdh1 Can you dumb that down for me?
I'm looking for more step by step or a walk through video if possible. Maybe Linux 098 vs. 101...
Just use the advanced GUI storage tool during install. It's just like the one on Windows.
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@ccwtech said in Fedora 28 Server - Linux 101 - How do you partition your drives:
@fateknollogee said in Fedora 28 Server - Linux 101 - How do you partition your drives:
How many drives does your system have?
Just 1 - a 256 SSD.
Then, don't partition or create volumes unless you have an extremely good reason. That's an itty, bitty single device. What purpose would there be to splitting it up?
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@ccwtech said in Fedora 28 Server - Linux 101 - How do you partition your drives:
@travisdh1 said in Fedora 28 Server - Linux 101 - How do you partition your drives:
@ccwtech said in Fedora 28 Server - Linux 101 - How do you partition your drives:
@travisdh1 Can you dumb that down for me?
I'm looking for more step by step or a walk through video if possible. Maybe Linux 098 vs. 101...
Try this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olPWqd3gVY8 Around 2:05 is where you want to look for creating a custom partition layout.
In that video would I just make the / partition larger since I have a larger drive and keep the others the same? Isn't XFS preferred now?
XFS has been preferred for a very long time for most use cases. But this isn't Windows and isn't limited to a single general purpose filesystem (NTFS), but has many with different features and performance. So people tend to pick and choose based on what they want it to do. XFS is the best choice if you don't know exactly what you are doing and why you'd pick something else, but if you really know all of the ins and outs of the filesystems, then picking EXT4, ZFS, BtrFS, JFS2, or others can make sense. But for experts only, if you have to ask, you don't need them.
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@ccwtech said in Fedora 28 Server - Linux 101 - How do you partition your drives:
In that video would I just make the / partition larger since I have a larger drive and keep the others the same?
You don't "make it" anything, you just have the / volume, not partition, fill the entire drive remaining after the /boot is made.
Make a 1GB /boot on EXT4. Then fill the rest with XFS. Best to use LVM, but if that's too complex, just fill the space with XFS. That's all that there is to it. Keep it really, really simple.
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@fateknollogee said in Fedora 28 Server - Linux 101 - How do you partition your drives:
You could do something similar to this & use /data for storing vm's
Could do that, but it loses usable space, and is unnecessarily complex. Unless he's doing something complex with the /data partition, like using a different file system or needs to snap it separately from the OS, this is just a waste.
Also, don't use swap partitions. That's not horrible, but it's unnecessarly complex and rigid and not considered best practice today.
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@ccwtech said in Fedora 28 Server - Linux 101 - How do you partition your drives:
@fateknollogee said in Fedora 28 Server - Linux 101 - How do you partition your drives:
You could do something similar to this & use /data for storing vm's
I used this example just changing /data to /var instead and adding /home as a 2 GiB as well. I'm not sure that was necessary however.
THis is just lots of complexity for its own sake. Don't do it.
1GB /boot EXT4
All remaining / XFSThat simple. Anything beyond this is just unnecessarily complication.
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@travisdh1 said in Fedora 28 Server - Linux 101 - How do you partition your drives:
Yep. /home would have just been a directory on the root partition if you hadn't added a partition for it. Always good to have a separate /home for file servers, but imo, not needed if it's just going to be admin users on the system.
I don't agree at all. A separate /home is useful about 1% of the time, even with file servers. Having it separate is for a very specific use case where the file servers are giving individual users their own space, rather than shared space, and that you want that individual space controlled separately from the rest of the file server. Neither of those situations is normal for a file server today. So to have both be true would be super rare.
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@obsolesce said in Fedora 28 Server - Linux 101 - How do you partition your drives:
The only time I don't let
/use up all my drive space is (usually every time) when I know I will have important data or a need for an amount of storage to be separate from the OS. I like to keep the OS stateless, and the stateful data separate, when possible or when it makes sense.I do it on large systems where I need to treat it differently. So my NextCloud or Zimbra servers where they have a tiny OS and application space on / and then a huge /data space for files or email. That way my drive sizing and tuning are independent.
For application servers or anything on small fixed disks, just using / makes the most sense.
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@scottalanmiller said in Fedora 28 Server - Linux 101 - How do you partition your drives:
@fateknollogee said in Fedora 28 Server - Linux 101 - How do you partition your drives:
You could do something similar to this & use /data for storing vm's
Could do that, but it loses usable space, and is unnecessarily complex. Unless he's doing something complex with the /data partition, like using a different file system or needs to snap it separately from the OS, this is just a waste.
Also, don't use swap partitions. That's not horrible, but it's unnecessarly complex and rigid and not considered best practice today.
Swap is part of the auto-partition setup.
I did not create the swap...yes I know it says "manual" at the top -
@fateknollogee said in Fedora 28 Server - Linux 101 - How do you partition your drives:
@scottalanmiller said in Fedora 28 Server - Linux 101 - How do you partition your drives:
@fateknollogee said in Fedora 28 Server - Linux 101 - How do you partition your drives:
You could do something similar to this & use /data for storing vm's
Could do that, but it loses usable space, and is unnecessarily complex. Unless he's doing something complex with the /data partition, like using a different file system or needs to snap it separately from the OS, this is just a waste.
Also, don't use swap partitions. That's not horrible, but it's unnecessarly complex and rigid and not considered best practice today.
Swap is part of the auto-partition setup.
I did not create the swap...yes I know it says "manual" at the topYes, but once doing any intentional management of the storage beyond just taking the defaults, best to remove it.
