No more space in root filesystem, how could I increase the size?

Question

This is my filesystem :

 $ df -h -x tmpfs -x devtmpfs
Filesystem               Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/fedora-root  9.8G  7.6G  1.7G  83% /
/dev/mapper/fedora-home   50G   27G   21G  57% /home
/dev/sda9               1022M  8.4M 1014M   1% /boot/efi

And as you can see the root filesystem is full.

I already tried to delete all the useless things but still I don't have enough space.

How could I increase it ? I have 60 giga left in my hard drive, is there any way I can move my root filesystem there ?

Solution 1

Good news! pvscan shows PV /dev/sda10 VG fedora lvm2 [141.56 GiB / 77.56 GiB free] — so you should be able to add up to 77.56GiB to any of your filesystems. I'd suggest adding it in smaller blocks (like 10GiB), so you have a reserve to put into /home if you decide you need growth there later.

This is a relatively well-tested and generally safe operation, but all root-level volume and filesystem operations have some risk — make sure you have a functioning backup first. Then....

You can extend your root logical volume to use the free space with lvextend, like this:

sudo lvextend --size +10G --resizefs /dev/fedora/root

(Or -L and -r instead of --size and --resizefs, if you prefer short options.)

Solution 2

More general answer for LVM:

Firstly - make sure you have additional unpartitioned storage. Then:

1. Use fdisk to create new partition (safer than expanding existing one)

2. Use pvcreate to create physical LVM volume:

   pvcreate /dev/sdxx
   

3. Use vgextend to extend existing LVM group using new physical volume:

   vgextend groupname /dev/sdxx
   

   You can get group names with vgdisplay

4. Use lvextend on lvm mapper to expand lvm volume:

   lvextend -l +100%FREE /dev/mapper/xxx
   

5. Grow the filesystem:

   xfs_growfs /dev/mapper/xxx
   

   Or

   resize2fs /dev/mapper/xxx
   

Solution 3

The / filesystem may be a particular challenge, as that needs to be supported by the boot loader.

This answer doesn't specify how to accomplish the requested task, but does provide a workaround.

Another option: find a sub-directory (e.g., /big/) which has lots of data. Then copy that data onto your 60GB of space, mv the directory with lots of space (e.g., mv /big /bigback), and mount your 60GB (or a portion of it) onto /big. After confirming everything works as expected, rm /bigback to re-gain space on /

Comments

[mattdm]

Can you show the result of sudo pvscan, please?

[Dimitri Danilov]

@mattdm PV /dev/sda10 VG fedora lvm2 [141.56 GiB / 77.56 GiB free] Total: 1 [141.56 GiB] / in use: 1 [141.56 GiB] / in no VG: 0 [0 ]

[J. Shmoe]

Erm, 1.7G free, where is the problem?

[Lightness Races in Orbit]

If this is your definition of "full" you should see my filesystem lol

[Dimitri Danilov]

@SimonRichter I had 1.9 giga when I removed all my /var/cache, but this directory filled very quickly and I have ~ 100 mo in average

[J. Shmoe]

I'd check what is filling it, and how to avoid that. If it's the package manager, can it be configured to clean its cache?

[mattdm]

If you do this, immediately after, do touch /.autorelabel; reboot to make sure the moved files have the right SELinux labels.

[Gombai Sándor]

This is a valid and useful solution (not requiring much knowledge) when we fly without LVM. With it, the change is even less painful.

[plugwash]

While it's always a good idea to have backups. I would consider this to be pretty low risk since no existing data is moved and the filesystem is (presumablly) native linux, not reverse engineered.

[Insane]

141.56 GiB / 77.56 GiB free reads like X out of Y free. So at first I thought it was a joke :P

[mattdm]

@Insane Yeah, that's not the best formatting. You can get the same information formatted in different ways from pvs or pvdisplay, if you prefer.

[Joshua]

There is no reason in principle that / needs to be supported by the bootloader, but in this case it is true because there is no separate /boot. When monkeying with LVM, always make /boot real.