Can't resize a partition using resize2fs

Question

I recently resized the hard drive of a VM from 150 GB to 500 GB in VMWare ESXi. After doing this, I used Gparted to effectively resize the partition of this image. Now all I have to do is to resize the file system, since it still shows the old value (as you can see from the output of df -h):

Filesystem                     Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/owncloud--vg-root  157G   37G  112G  25% /
udev                           488M  4.0K  488M   1% /dev
tmpfs                          100M  240K  100M   1% /run
none                           5.0M     0  5.0M   0% /run/lock
none                           497M     0  497M   0% /run/shm
/dev/sda1                      236M   32M  192M  14% /boot

However, running sudo resize2fs /dev/mapper/owncloud--vg-root returns this:

resize2fs 1.42 (29-Nov-2011)
The filesystem is already 41608192 blocks long.  Nothing to do!

Since Gparted says that my partition is /dev/sda5, I also tried running sudo resize2fs /dev/sda5, but in this case I got this:

resize2fs 1.42 (29-Nov-2011)
resize2fs: Device or resource busy while trying to open /dev/sda5
Couldn't find valid filesystem superblock.

Finally, this is the output of pvs:

PV         VG          Fmt  Attr PSize   PFree
/dev/sda5  owncloud-vg lvm2 a-   499.76g 340.04g

fdisk -l /dev/sda shows the correct amount of space.

How can I resize the partition so that I can finally make the OS see 500 GB of hard drive?

Joel gave the right answer. Your question contains now the complete picture of your - quite common - problem. — Nils, Jun 20 '14 at 21:07

score 88 · Answer 1 · edited Apr 03 '23 at 16:04

88

Thanks a lot for @Bratchley answer and the comments. It helped me :)

My environment: Ubuntu 18.04 in VirtualBox 6.1

My case: I created 10GB fixed VDI disk and increased to 30GB dynamic using VirtualBox GUI. But still the increased space is not available to filesystem. Then came across @Bratchley answer.

Steps I ran:

Run below command to get PV (Physical Volume) name (Ex: /dev/sda1)

sudo pvs

Resize the PV (Ex: sudo pvresize /dev/sda1)

sudo pvresize <PV name from above step>

Run below command to get root logical volume name (Filesystem value of / row; ex: /dev/mapper/ubuntu--vg-root)

df -h

Expand logical volume (ex : sudo lvextend -r -l +100%FREE /dev/mapper/ubuntu--vg-ubuntu--lv):

sudo lvextend -r -l +100%FREE <root logical volume name from above step>

edited Apr 03 '23 at 16:04

silverknightone

103

answered Apr 30 '20 at 12:24

manikanta

981

6

Best answer of all! – SHM Dec 04 '20 at 10:48
Step 3: what does this mean? I have no idea what I'm looking for or how to get that information. – twistedpixel Jun 07 '21 at 15:03
1

Run df -h command, and look for the Filesystem value of / mount path. (it will be something like /dev/xxxxx) – manikanta Jun 09 '21 at 09:42
Note: Doesn't work with gfs2 filesystem. – Hùng Nguyễn Aug 23 '22 at 02:59
after the last step, it fails with: inodes (7690084352) must be less than 4294967295 – Ömer An Sep 26 '22 at 04:42
how can I install pvs? – alper Jun 24 '23 at 14:01
@alper, I already have that installed by default. But you may check this for more detailed help: https://www.thegeekdiary.com/pvs-command-not-found/ – manikanta Aug 20 '23 at 16:58
1

I am only joining this stack exchange to upvote you! solved, thanks – sekomer Oct 24 '23 at 11:11
Ahh, that is very kind of you. Again, major credits to @Bratchley answer. I just improvised a little and made it easy to follow steps. – manikanta Nov 10 '23 at 01:41
Thank you this is very helpful! – aaa acb Feb 04 '24 at 06:28
Thanks a lot - I had to search quite a while to find this easy and working answer! – Chris Mar 12 '24 at 03:50

Bratchley · Accepted Answer · 2015-07-02T21:46:43.423

32

If you only changed the partition size, you're not ready to resize the logical volume yet. Once the partition is the new size, you need to do a pvresize on the PV so the volume group sees the new space. After that you can use lvextend to expand the logical volume into the volume group's new space. You can pass -r to the lvextend command so that it automatically kicks off the resize2fs for you.

Personally, I would have just made a new partition and used vgextend on it since I've had mixed results with pvresize.

edited Jul 02 '15 at 21:46

answered Jun 19 '14 at 19:07

Bratchley

16,824
14
67
103

I have run pvresize followed by lvextend -r -L 500G /dev/sda2, and this is what I get: Path required for Logical Volume "sda2" Please provide a volume group name Run 'lvextend --help' for more information. – user1301428 Jun 19 '14 at 21:20
8

Once you do the pvresize you're done dealing with regular partitions. You need to specify the path of the logical volume which in this case is /dev/mapper/owncloud--vg-root Personally I'd run lvextend -r -l +100%FREE /dev/mapper/owncloud--vg-root – Bratchley Jun 19 '14 at 21:23
After you run the pvresize command, you can verify the space is in the volume group by running the vgs command. – Bratchley Jun 19 '14 at 21:24
Also, you didn't mention it in your question but does fdisk -l /dev/sda show the correct hard drive size? If not you may have to reboot or rescan the SCSI bus. – Bratchley Jun 19 '14 at 21:26
That worked, thanks! For some reason it did not autocomplete /dev/mapper/owncloud--vg-root and so I kept trying /sda5 XD – user1301428 Jun 20 '14 at 17:59

deokyong song · Answer 3 · 2022-08-09T00:58:51.080

2

sudo btrfs filesystem resize max / should be able to resize the partition.

Extended virtual disk size up to 100GB but command df -h said old spase size after resizing with fdisk.

btrfs simply resolves the resize2fs: Device or resource busy issue.

edited Aug 09 '22 at 00:58

answered Aug 09 '22 at 00:58

deokyong song

21
2

3

That assumes that the file system is Btrfs, not Ext4 (which is apparently what the OP was using). – Stephen Kitt Aug 10 '22 at 16:52
Your answer could be improved with additional supporting information. Please [edit] to add further details, such as citations or documentation, so that others can confirm that your answer is correct. You can find more information on how to write good answers in the help center. – Community Aug 20 '22 at 09:29

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Dec 20 '21 at 09:42

0

This happened to me too, I have checked /etc/fstab and than I realized that I have renamed the VG and this did not change everywhere that rename, I was able to solve this by renaming back my VG!

answered Dec 20 '21 at 09:42

Daniel O

1

score 0 · Answer 5 · edited Dec 06 '22 at 16:02

0

First of all, you must extend your drive size to get all the free space. Then resize your drive to use all the space.

Extend drive space

lvextend -l +100%FREE /dev/mapper/owncloud--vg-root
Resize drive size

resize2fs /dev/mapper/owncloud--vg-root

edited Dec 06 '22 at 16:02

Edward

2,509

answered Dec 06 '22 at 07:03

Amintabar

101

Can't resize a partition using resize2fs

5 Answers5

Linked