Extending XFS Partition Based LVM by Increasing the Disk Size

This is the original disk layout before the disk extension

We can see that the LVM is built on /dev/sda2, which is a partition, and not a disk. The disk, /dev/sda is now extended by 100G on the VM manager level. After a reboot, we can now see that the disk size is now 130G. 

 

To include this new space into existing LVM, create a new partition on the new disk space using a tool called cfdisk. Please refer to this post on how to use cfdisk to create a new partition.

The first step is to become root. If you prefer using sudo, please append sudo on each of these commands.

Once we can see that the partition is available, create a new physical volume (PV) using the new partition. 

# pvcreate /dev/sda3 

We should see the message as per below

Then, check what is the name of our volume group (VG)

# vgs 

Extend our VG by including the new PV

# vgextend centos /dev/sda3 

Check what is our logical volume (LV) path

# lvdisplay | grep Path 

Extend our LV to use the whole free space available on the VG

# lvextend -l +100%FREE /dev/centos/root

Check that our LV's size is now expanded 

# lvs 

Determine what is our filesystem type, at the same time we can see that our filesystem is not aware of the new size 

# df -Th / 

Grow xfs filesystem to suit the new partition size

# xfs_growfs /  

We can see that the filesystem is now grown to the full size as per our LV

# df -Th / 

 

Extending Virtual Disk in a Linux Virtual Machine Using LVM

To increase a disk size in a virtual machine with Linux operating system configured with LVM, below are the steps (these steps were tested using virtualbox):

1. Power off the virtual machine

2. Increase the virtual disk size in the virtual machine using the virtual machine manager

3. Restart the virtual machine

4. Even though the virtual disk has been increased in size, but LVM is not aware of the change. To make LVM aware of the change, run pvresize command

$ sudo pvresize <pv name>

You can get the physical volume (PV) name by running "pvs" command

$ sudo pvs

5. Once the physical volume (PV) has been resized, run "vgs" to see the new volume group (VG) size

$ sudo vgs

6. Resize logical volume (LV) to make the new size available for us to use. Use below command to resize LV to use 100% of the free space available in VG

$ sudo lvextend -l +100%FREE <LV path>

You can get the LV path by running lvdisplay

$ sudo lvdisplay | grep Path

7. Now the partition is aware of the size change, but not the filesystem. Check the filesystem type and mountpoint using below command

$ df -Th

8. Depending on the filesystem type, extend your filesystem to suit the new partition size. 

For xfs:

$ sudo xfs_growfs <mountpoint>

and for ext4:

$ sudo resize2fs <mountpoint>

9. Verify that your filesystem is now using the new size

$ df -Th