--- layout: single title: "Resize a Centos 7 Virtual Machine in KVM/QEMU" date: 2019-05-09 22:45:00 categories: [Linux Administration] tags: linux kvm zfs virtualization vm ubuntu comments: true --- Being relatively new to the RHEL/Centos world, it's safe to say I'm learning a lot as I go. While Linux is mostly, well, *Linux* between distributions, each one has its own particular nuances. One of these nuances bit me last weekend on a new Centos 7 VM. I was spinning up a [borg-backup](https://www.borgbackup.org/) server to back up my roughly 50GB [Nextcloud](https://nextcloud.com/) instance, so I provisioned a 160GB qcow2 image to give it adequate wiggle room. After logging in for the first time post-install, I was dismayed to see only 100GB available for backup. It turns out that Centos 7 default paritioning included separate `/` and `/home` partitions, and allocated a whole 50GB for root. What good is 50GB going to do me when all I'm instaling is borg? One additional differentiator of RHEL/Centos from Ubuntu is the use of [XFS](https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/XFS) as the default filesystem. XFS is a solid, feature-packed filesystem, but one thing it can't do is shrink. This ruled out shrinking `/` and expanding `/home`, so I decided to eat my mistake and just expand the whole VM. Below is the process for future reference. ## Extend the QCOW2 Image Shut down your VM ``` bash $ sudo poweroff ``` \\ SSH into your host machine and run the `qemu-img` tool on your VM guest image. I added an additional 100GB in the example below. ``` bash $ sudo qemu-img resize /path/to/image.qcow2 +100G Image resized. ``` ## Extend the Partition Since resizing root LVM paritions can be difficult from a running system, we're going to boot into a live environment for the remaining steps. You can use any Linux live environment for this, but I'll be using [GParted](https://gparted.org/) to keep things simple. Open up virt-manager and load the GParted ISO into the VM's optical drive, then click Apply. ![resize01](/assets/images/screenshots/resize01.png){:class="img-responsive"} \\ Select Boot Options and enable the optical drive before moving it to first in the boot order, then click Apply. ![resize02](/assets/images/screenshots/resize02.png){:class="img-responsive"} \\ Start your VM and follow the prompts to boot into the GParted live environment. You should notice the extra space you added as "unallocated". ![gparted01](/assets/images/screenshots/gparted01.png){:class="img-responsive"} \\ Select the LVM parition and click on Resize/Move. ![gparted02](/assets/images/screenshots/gparted02.png){:class="img-responsive"} \\ Drag the slider to fill in the remaining space and click Resize. ![gparted03](/assets/images/screenshots/gparted03.png){:class="img-responsive"} \\ Click Apply. ![gparted04](/assets/images/screenshots/gparted04.png){:class="img-responsive"} ![gparted05](/assets/images/screenshots/gparted05.png){:class="img-responsive"} ## Extend the Logical Volume Close/minimize GParted and open the Terminal in the live environment. ![gparted06](/assets/images/screenshots/gparted06.png){:class="img-responsive"} \\ We have to help the live environment disover the logical volumes. You'll be able to use `sudo` without a password in all the following commands. ``` bash $ sudo pvscan PV /dev/vda2 VG centos lvm2 [<259.00 GiB / 100.00 GiB free] Total: 1 [<259.00 GiB] / in use: 1 [<259.00 GiB] / in no VG: 0 [0 ] ``` ``` bash $ sudo vgscan Reading volume groups from cache. Found volume group "centos" using metadata type lvm2 ``` ``` bash $ sudo vgdisplay --- Volume group --- VG Name centos System ID Format lvm2 Metadata Areas 1 Metadata Sequence No 5 VG Access read/write VG Status resizable MAX LV 0 Cur LV 3 Open LV 0 Max PV 0 Cur PV 1 Act PV 1 VG Size <259.00 GiB PE Size 4.00 MiB Total PE 66303 Alloc PE / Size 40702 / 158.99 GiB Free PE / Size 25601 / 100.00 GiB VG UUID r8vEjh-ZHBf-WWfi-lBSb-xfSd-HiTy-02TPMe ``` \\ You can see from the above information that our Volume Group is resizable and has 100GB available for expansion. Take note of the number after "Free PE / Size". \\ Let's confirm our available volumes. ``` bash $ sudo lvs LV VG Attr LSize Pool Origin Data% Meta% Move Log Cpy%Sync Convert home centos -wi-a----- 106.99g root centos -wi-a----- 50.00g swap centos -wi-a----- 2.00g ``` \\ Now we'll use the `lvextend` tool tool to expand our `/home` volume. The number noted earlier from the `vgdisplay` command will be used to signify the size increase. ```bash $ sudo lvextend -l +25601 /dev/centos/home Size of logical volume centos/home changed from 106.99 GiB (27390 extents) to <207.00 GiB (52991 extents). Logical volume centos/home successfully resized. ``` ## Expand the Filesystem Since Centos 7 defaults to XFS, we'll use the `xfs_growfs` tool. This requires the filesystem to be mounted first, so lets create a mount point and mount it there. ```bash $ sudo mkdir /mnt/home ``` ```bash $ sudo mount /dev/centos/home /mnt/home ``` \\ Now run `xfs_growfs` to expand the filesystem into the available volume space. ```bash $ sudo xfs_growfs /mnt/home meta-data=/dev/mapper/centos-home isize=512 agcount=4, agsize=7011840 blks = sectsz=512 attr=2, projid32bit=1 = crc=1 finobt=0 spinodes=0 rmapbt=0 = reflink=0 data = bsize=4096 blocks=28047360, imaxpct=25 = sunit=0 swidth=0 blks naming =version 2 bsize=4096 ascii-ci=0 ftype=1 log =internal bsize=4096 blocks=13695, version=2 = sectsz=512 sunit=0 blks, lazy-count=1 realtime =none extsz=4096 blocks=0, rtextents=0 data blocks changed from 28047360 to 54262784 ``` \\ Confirm the new volume size. ```bash $ df -h Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on udev 489M 0 489M 0% /dev /dev/sr0 309M 309M 0 100% /run/live/medium /dev/loop0 269M 269M 0 100% /run/live/rootfs/filesystem.squashfs /dev/mapper/centos-home 207G 44G 164G 21% /mnt/home ``` You can see that your `/home` volume is now '207GB' total in size. Power off your VM and be sure to remove the optical drive from the boot list in `virt-manager` before booting into your Centos 7 install. \\ That's it! Please let me know via email or comment if you have a more efficient way to accomplish this. Going forward, the best thing to do is to set the desired paritioning at install time. Thanks for reading and happy hacking!