Increase Disk Space

Starting version IP Fabric 5.0.0, appliance is distributed as one hard disk installation instead of two.

IP Fabric appliance is using LVM type for root and swap partitions.

On default installation swap has 16GB and root has ~72GB of space.

We automatically resize the boot disk as follows:

• resize primary partition to full size of the disk
• resize extended partition to full size of primary partition
• extend ipfabric-vg/root to +100%FREE
• online resize ext4 partition

Increasing Disk Space On IP Fabric Appliance

If you need any help with a disk space expansion, please contact our Support Team

Resizing Root/First Disk

The easiest way how to resize IP Fabric system disk is to

1. Shutdown the appliance

2. Resize root/first disk to a desired size

3. Start virtual machine

cloud-init will take care of resizing this disk.

Expanding System Volume By Adding Additional Disk(s)

If you want to add secondary or any additional disk as a system disk, you will need to manually add it to ipfabric-vg/root volume.

To do that follow LVM resource:

• Debian LVM wiki
• Arch LVM wiki

Local Backup Disk

When enabling local backups, a backup tool creates backups to the /backup directory. The tool first checks if the local backup directory exists and then the backups are created.

Any additional disk or LVM volume (see hypervisor specific configuration on the bottom of this page) of your choice can be mounted as a backup directory. We recommend using for local backups an additional disk that is physically located on a different datastore then the root volume.

Example Of A Physical Disk Being Mounted To /backup Directory

Find a device which you want to use as a /backup directory. In this case /dev/sdb.

osadmin@ST-105:~$ lsblk
NAME                    MAJ:MIN RM  SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda                       8:0    0 19.1G  0 disk
|-sda1                    8:1    0  487M  0 part /boot
|-sda2                    8:2    0    1K  0 part
`-sda5                    8:5    0 18.6G  0 part
  |-ipfabric--vg-root   254:0    0 17.6G  0 lvm  /
  `-ipfabric--vg-swap_1 254:1    0  980M  0 lvm  [SWAP]
sdb                       8:16   0   20G  0 disk             # <- I want to use this device for a /backup directory
sr0                      11:0    1 1024M  0 rom

Create a filesystem on the new /dev/sdb disk (in this example ext4)

osadmin@ST-105:~$ sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdb
mke2fs 1.46.2 (28-Feb-2021)
Discarding device blocks: done
Creating filesystem with 5242880 4k blocks and 1310720 inodes
Filesystem UUID: beb1625a-7d35-404b-bb05-972a46b8becf
Superblock backups stored on blocks:
    32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912, 819200, 884736, 1605632, 2654208,
    4096000

Allocating group tables: done
Writing inode tables: done
Creating journal (32768 blocks): done
Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done

Note down Filesystem UUID from previous example.

If you loose history of terminal output, you can find it later with the following command

osadmin@ST-105:~$ sudo blkid --output value --match-tag UUID /dev/sdb
beb1625a-7d35-404b-bb05-972a46b8becf

Create a new fstab entry

UUID=beb1625a-7d35-404b-bb05-972a46b8becf /backup   ext4    defaults        0       0

Disk can be now mounted with

osadmin@ST-105:~$ sudo mount /backup

Finally check lsblk

osadmin@ST-105:~$ lsblk
NAME                    MAJ:MIN RM  SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda                       8:0    0 19.1G  0 disk
|-sda1                    8:1    0  487M  0 part /boot
|-sda2                    8:2    0    1K  0 part
`-sda5                    8:5    0 18.6G  0 part
  |-ipfabric--vg-root   254:0    0 17.6G  0 lvm  /
  `-ipfabric--vg-swap_1 254:1    0  980M  0 lvm  [SWAP]
sdb                       8:16   0   20G  0 disk /backup
sr0                      11:0    1 1024M  0 rom

Deprecated Resize Wizard

IP Fabric appliance < 5.0.0 was using two LVM volumes by default. ipfabic-vg/root for system and data, backup-vg/backup for /backup. System and data volume was extended over two disks (usually first two). For third and onward, one could choose to extend root or backup volume. This was dropped in favour of one system/data disk with possibility to add backup disk. The original script is still present in the system, but is discouraged to use it as it is expecting only boot disk to be sda, sdb as extended ipfabic-vg/root and one could choose how sd[c-z] would be used. The new approach with one disk is more versatile, and it is not limited to sd[a-z] disks.

Script location: /opt/nimpee/sys-lvm-resize.sh

Increase Disk Space For VMware

Extend Existing Virtual Disk (For System And Data)

1. Open VMware vSphere web console.
2. Right click on VM name and select Edit Settings.
3. Select Hard disk and change its size.
4. Click OK.
5. Restart VM (using CLI or web UI).
6. Disk space is automatically increased if you resized the first drive.

Add New Virtual Disk (As An Additional Backup Disk)

1. Open VMware vSphere web console.
2. Right click on VM name and select Edit Settings.
3. Click Add New Device → Hard Disk
4. Select new size
5. Specify Location: 1. for system disk expansion is recommended to select Store with the virtual machine 2. for backup volume is recommended to select different datastore ideally on a different physical storage
6. Click OK
7. Launch Remote (Web) Console.
8. Reboot(Send Ctrl+Alt+Delete function can be also used) or power on IP Fabric VM.
9. Follow Adding additional disk(s) or Example adding disk to backup

Increase Disk Space For Hyper-V

Extend Existing Virtual Disk (For System And Data)

1. Open Hyper-V Manager.
2. Shutdown VM. (when Started, HyperV won't let you change any hardware settings)
3. Right click on VM name and select Settings.
4. Select IDE Controller - Hard Drive - ipfabric-x-x-x-disk1.vhdx
5. Click Edit - Choose Action - select option Expand, click Next.
6. Set up required disk size and click Finish.
7. Start VM.
8. Disk space is automatically increased, if you resized the first disk.

Add New Virtual Disk (As An Additional Backup Disk)

1. Open HyperV Manager.
2. Shutdown VM. (when Started, HyperV won't let you change any hardware settings)
3. Right click on VM name an select Settings.
4. Select IDE Controller 1 - Hard Drive - click Add
5. Select Virtual hard disk - click New - select Choose Disk Format - select VHDX - click Next.
6. Select Dynamically expanding - click Next
7. Specify name and location of disk.
8. Configure Disk - select Create a new blank virtual hard disk - change Size to required value - click Finish.
9. Apply new disk on Settings window - close Settings.
10. Start VM.
11. Follow Adding additional disk(s) or Example adding disk to backup