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Storage

Updated Mar 27, 2021 ·

Tasks​

Note: You will need an additional 10GiB additional ahrddisk on your virtual machine. This will be divided into three parts

Part 1:

  1. Create a primary partition with a size of 1GiB.
  2. Format it with ext4.
  3. Mount it persistently on /mount/files, using its UUID.

Part 2:

  1. Create an extended partition that covers all remaining disk spaces.
  2. On the extended partition, create a 500MiB xfs partition.
  3. Mount it persistently on /mount/xfs using label myxfs.

Part 3:

  1. Create a 500MiB swap partition.
  2. Mount it persistently.

Solution​

Part 1​

You can use tools like fdisk or parted to create the partition. Here, we'll use fdisk for the example.

sudo fdisk /dev/sdb

Note:

  • Type n for a new partition.
  • Choose p for a primary partition.
  • Specify the size (e.g., +1G).
  • Type w to write changes.

Format the partition with ext4:

sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdb1

Find the UUID of the partition:

sudo blkid /dev/sdb1

Note down the UUID that is displayed. Create a mount point and modify the /etc/fstab to persistently mount it.

sudo mkdir -p /mount/files
sudo nano /etc/fstab

Add the following line to /etc/fstab, replacing <UUID> with the UUID obtained in step 3:

UUID=<UUID> /mount/files ext4 defaults 0 0

Save and exit the editor (Ctrl+X, then Y and Enter). Mount the partition:

sudo mount -a

Verify.

lsblk -f

Part 2​

Use fdisk or parted similarly as in Part 1, but create an extended partition that spans the remaining disk space (/dev/sdb2).

Use fdisk to create a logical 500MiB xfs partition inside the extended partition (/dev/sdb5 in this example):

sudo fdisk /dev/sdb

Note:

  • Type n for a new partition.
  • Choose e for an extended partition.
  • Use the default start and end values to use all remaining space.
  • Type n again for a new logical partition.
  • Specify the size (e.g., +500M).
  • Choose t to change the partition type to 83 (Linux filesystem).
  • Type w to write changes.

Format the xfs partition:

sudo mkfs.xfs /dev/sdb5 -L myxfs

Create a mount point and mount the xfs partition persistently:

sudo mkdir -p /mount/xfs
sudo nano /etc/fstab

Add the following line to /etc/fstab:

LABEL=myxfs /mount/xfs xfs defaults 0 0

Save and exit the editor (Ctrl+X, then Y and Enter). Mount the partition:

sudo mount -a

Verify.

lsblk -f

Part 3​

Use fdisk or parted to create a 500MiB swap partition (/dev/sdb6 in this example):

sudo fdisk /dev/sdb

Note:

  • Type n for a new partition.
  • Choose p for a primary partition.
  • Specify the size (e.g., +500M).
  • Choose t to change the partition type to 82 (Linux swap).
  • Type w to write changes.

Format the swap partition:

sudo mkswap /dev/sdb6

Enable the swap partition:

sudo swapon /dev/sdb6

Make the swap partition persistent by editing the /etc/fstab again:

sudo nano /etc/fstab

Add the following line:

/dev/sdb6 none swap defaults 0 0

Save and exit the editor (Ctrl+X, then Y and Enter).

Verify.

lsblk -f