A data centre machine has 6 disks attached as follows:

# pvscan
pvscan -- ACTIVE   PV "/dev/sda"  of VG "dev"   [1.95 GB / 0 free]
pvscan -- ACTIVE   PV "/dev/sdb"  of VG "sales" [1.95 GB / 0 free]
pvscan -- ACTIVE   PV "/dev/sdc"  of VG "ops"   [1.95 GB / 44 MB free]
pvscan -- ACTIVE   PV "/dev/sdd"  of VG "dev"   [1.95 GB / 0 free]
pvscan -- ACTIVE   PV "/dev/sde1" of VG "ops"   [996 MB / 52 MB free]
pvscan -- ACTIVE   PV "/dev/sde2" of VG "sales" [996 MB / 944 MB free]
pvscan -- ACTIVE   PV "/dev/sdf1" of VG "ops"   [996 MB / 0 free]
pvscan -- ACTIVE   PV "/dev/sdf2" of VG "dev"   [996 MB / 72 MB free]
pvscan -- total: 8 [11.72 GB] / in use: 8 [11.72 GB] / in no VG: 0 [0]

# df
Filesystem           1k-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/dev/cvs           1342492    516468    757828  41% /mnt/dev/cvs
/dev/dev/users         2064208   2060036      4172 100% /mnt/dev/users
/dev/dev/build         1548144   1023041    525103  66% /mnt/dev/build
/dev/ops/databases     2890692   2302417    588275  79% /mnt/ops/databases
/dev/sales/users       2064208    871214   1192994  42% /mnt/sales/users
/dev/ops/batch         1032088    897122    134966  86% /mnt/ops/batch
          

As you can see the "dev" and "ops" groups are getting full so a new disk is purchased and added to the system. It becomes /dev/sdg.

The new disk is to be shared equally between ops and dev so it is partitioned into two physical volumes /dev/sdg1 and /dev/sdg2 :

# fdisk /dev/sdg

Device contains neither a valid DOS partition table, nor Sun or SGI
disklabel Building a new DOS disklabel. Changes will remain in memory
only, until you decide to write them. After that, of course, the
previous content won't be recoverable.

Command (m for help): n
Command action
   e   extended
   p   primary partition (1-4)
p
Partition number (1-4): 1
First cylinder (1-1000, default 1):
Using default value 1
Last cylinder or +size or +sizeM or +sizeK (1-1000, default 1000): 500

Command (m for help): n
Command action
   e   extended
   p   primary partition (1-4)
p
Partition number (1-4): 2
First cylinder (501-1000, default 501): 
Using default value 501
Last cylinder or +size or +sizeM or +sizeK (501-1000, default 1000): 
Using default value 1000

Command (m for help): t
Partition number (1-4): 1
Hex code (type L to list codes): 8e
Changed system type of partition 1 to 8e (Unknown)

Command (m for help): t
Partition number (1-4): 2
Hex code (type L to list codes): 8e
Changed system type of partition 2 to 8e (Unknown)

Command (m for help): w
The partition table has been altered!

Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table.

WARNING: If you have created or modified any DOS 6.x partitions,
please see the fdisk manual page for additional information.

          

Next physical volumes are created on this partition:

# pvcreate /dev/sdg1
pvcreate -- physical volume "/dev/sdg1" successfully created

# pvcreate /dev/sdg2
pvcreate -- physical volume "/dev/sdg2" successfully created
          

The volumes are then added to the dev and ops volume groups:

# vgextend ops /dev/sdg1
vgextend -- INFO: maximum logical volume size is 255.99 Gigabyte
vgextend -- doing automatic backup of volume group "ops"
vgextend -- volume group "ops" successfully extended

# vgextend dev /dev/sdg2
vgextend -- INFO: maximum logical volume size is 255.99 Gigabyte
vgextend -- doing automatic backup of volume group "dev"
vgextend -- volume group "dev" successfully extended

# pvscan
pvscan -- reading all physical volumes (this may take a while...)
pvscan -- ACTIVE   PV "/dev/sda"  of VG "dev"   [1.95 GB / 0 free]
pvscan -- ACTIVE   PV "/dev/sdb"  of VG "sales" [1.95 GB / 0 free]
pvscan -- ACTIVE   PV "/dev/sdc"  of VG "ops"   [1.95 GB / 44 MB free]
pvscan -- ACTIVE   PV "/dev/sdd"  of VG "dev"   [1.95 GB / 0 free]
pvscan -- ACTIVE   PV "/dev/sde1" of VG "ops"   [996 MB / 52 MB free]
pvscan -- ACTIVE   PV "/dev/sde2" of VG "sales" [996 MB / 944 MB free]
pvscan -- ACTIVE   PV "/dev/sdf1" of VG "ops"   [996 MB / 0 free]
pvscan -- ACTIVE   PV "/dev/sdf2" of VG "dev"   [996 MB / 72 MB free]
pvscan -- ACTIVE   PV "/dev/sdg1" of VG "ops"   [996 MB / 996 MB free]
pvscan -- ACTIVE   PV "/dev/sdg2" of VG "dev"   [996 MB / 996 MB free]
pvscan -- total: 10 [13.67 GB] / in use: 10 [13.67 GB] / in no VG: 0 [0]
          

The next thing to do is to extend the file systems so that the users can make use of the extra space.

There are tools to allow online-resizing of ext2 file systems but here we take the safe route and unmount the two file systems before resizing them:

# umount /mnt/ops/batch
# umount /mnt/dev/users
          

We then use the e2fsadm command to resize the logical volume and the ext2 file system on one operation. We are using ext2resize instead of resize2fs (which is the default command for e2fsadm) so we define the environment variable E2FSADM_RESIZE_CMD to tell e2fsadm to use that command.

# export E2FSADM_RESIZE_CMD=ext2resize
# e2fsadm /dev/ops/batch -L+500M
e2fsck 1.18, 11-Nov-1999 for EXT2 FS 0.5b, 95/08/09
Pass 1: Checking inodes, blocks, and sizes
Pass 2: Checking directory structure
Pass 3: Checking directory connectivity
Pass 4: Checking reference counts
Pass 5: Checking group summary information
/dev/ops/batch: 11/131072 files (0.0<!--  non-contiguous), 4127/262144 blocks
lvextend -- extending logical volume "/dev/ops/batch" to 1.49 GB
lvextend -- doing automatic backup of volume group "ops"
lvextend -- logical volume "/dev/ops/batch" successfully extended

ext2resize v1.1.15 - 2000/08/08 for EXT2FS 0.5b
e2fsadm -- ext2fs in logical volume "/dev/ops/batch" successfully extended to 1.49 GB


# e2fsadm /dev/dev/users -L+900M
e2fsck 1.18, 11-Nov-1999 for EXT2 FS 0.5b, 95/08/09
Pass 1: Checking inodes, blocks, and sizes
Pass 2: Checking directory structure
Pass 3: Checking directory connectivity
Pass 4: Checking reference counts
Pass 5: Checking group summary information
/dev/dev/users: 12/262144 files (0.0% non-contiguous), 275245/524288 blocks
lvextend -- extending logical volume "/dev/dev/users" to 2.88 GB
lvextend -- doing automatic backup of volume group "dev"
lvextend -- logical volume "/dev/dev/users" successfully extended

ext2resize v1.1.15 - 2000/08/08 for EXT2FS 0.5b
e2fsadm -- ext2fs in logical volume "/dev/dev/users" successfully extended to 2.88 GB
          

We can now remount the file systems and see that the is plenty of space.

# mount /dev/ops/batch
# mount /dev/dev/users
# df
Filesystem           1k-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/dev/cvs           1342492    516468    757828  41% /mnt/dev/cvs
/dev/dev/users         2969360   2060036    909324  69% /mnt/dev/users
/dev/dev/build         1548144   1023041    525103  66% /mnt/dev/build
/dev/ops/databases     2890692   2302417    588275  79% /mnt/ops/databases
/dev/sales/users       2064208    871214   1192994  42% /mnt/sales/users
/dev/ops/batch         1535856    897122    638734  58% /mnt/ops/batch