You must design a partitioning scheme (commonly called a partition map, partition plan, or disk layout) for a Linux system. You will use this plan when you install your Linux system. (You must determine the size of the hard drive before starting, as well as the amount of memory present; see partitioning hints.) If using a virtual machine, you may be able to set these somewhat arbitrarily.
For this project, you will not implement or install anything. This project is a plan, or partitioning scheme that you will submit. In the install project (which is the next project, not this project), you will use your approved plan from this project.
Be sure to determine the size of your disk. If using an old computer for our class, you can determine these sizes from BIOS. If using a dual-boot setup, you must determine how much memory you have and also how much disk space you can afford to use. If using a virtual machine, You must determine how much memory you can allocate to the virtual machine and how much disk space you have available for the virtual machine's storage.
Your partitioning scheme really doesn't matter in a classroom setting
such as ours, so you are free to imagine any real-world scenario you
wish and design a partitioning scheme for that.
Example scenarios include a web server, a database server, an email
server, an application server, or even a personal use workstation.
Please make sure you leave enough room on /
(the root filesystem) and/or /usr to
install everything.
(How much space that takes, is up to you to figure out.)
You must also follow the additional requirements below.
Read the Hard disk partitioning guide before proceeding with this project. Note how the plan is presented in a table, and includes all relevant information. You should use those examples for your own submission.
Your plan must be sufficiently detailed so that someone else can set up a system exactly the same way, with the same volume names, types, sizes, etc. Be sure to include the size of the disk and the amount of RAM. (You will have to determine these values yourself, using the techniques discussed in class.)
/home.
Its size doesn't matter, you can make it quite small (say 100
megabytes if not using a GUI) or as large as you wish.
If it is too small, you may not be able to run the
GUI or download (or compile) any software!
(Consider for example the Internet cache for a web browser will
be Gibibytes in size.
Compiling a custom Linux kernel could require over 10 GiB in your home
directory as well.)
Also, keep in mind at some point you will need to back up your
home directory onto YborStudent, and that has a 3 gigabyte
quota per student. ext4
filesystem type for all storage volumes (except for swap of course).
Some future projects will require this.
Note that Red Hat distros (including Fedora) may default to XFS,
so you must manually select ext4.
You should partition your disk
into two partitions only, one for the /boot partition
(which might cause problems if placed under LVM),
and all the rest into one large LVM physical
volume.
(Other partitions, such as one for “BIOS Boot”, may be created
automatically if needed.
You should have those partitions in addition to the other two.)
You will then implement the rest of your partitioning scheme using
logical volumes.
(Note that having the root partition/volume under
LVM will require a RAM disk boot setup (i.e., using
initrd.)
Fedora Linux has support for LVM built into its
installer, and in fact uses it by default.
When you get to the partitioning tool during the
install process, you can let the installer choose a disk layout
for you that you will then modify.
This should set up LVM automatically.
This is much easier than setting it up later using the
command line tools.
Note that the Fedora installer handles the boot setup
(including “initrd” and the BIOS boot partition,
if needed) for you.
If you choose “Custom Layout” instead
of letting it create a layout, automatically, you can use the button
to create all the volumes automatically anyway; but this way you can
edit the result and make any changes you wish.
/tmp.
(Red Hat systems use a RAM disk for that, so any disk space would be
wasted.
Instead, remember to allow extra space in your swap volume.) /boot) unassigned to any storage volume for now.
(The reason is that you will create additional logical volumes later,
and you don't want to have to shrink any volumes to make room.)
/home
needs
30 * 5 * 5MiB = 750MiB
minimum, and to allow room for additional classes in the future
1 GiB will be used.”)
The layout of directories is fairly well standardized
across all Unix and Linux systems.
Check the man pages for hier on Linux
and filesystem on Solaris.
Also see the on-line
Filesystem
Hierarchy Standard.
Check the partitioning scheme for similar systems you have access to, including YborStudent or a LiveCD setup. You can also check on how full each partition is, to get an estimate of how large each must be, at a minimum.
It pays to read any install requirements when planning out a partitioning scheme. In our case, you should read the install project requirements. As you read them, think about how each requirement affects your partition plan.
Disk requirements for a given distribution can often be found on-line, in their install documentation. In the case of Fedora, check the on-line release notes for the version we will install (discussed in class).
Since there is a requirement to use LVM but you may not have the time now to read the LVM guide, here is a somewhat over-simplified summary of what you should know:
/dev/sda or /dev/sdb), volume groups must
be given names.
Currently, Fedora picks the default name of
“fedora”.
I generally prefer a short, descriptive name, such as
“vg”.
You will need to pick a name and document it. /dev/sda2”.)
I generally use a naming scheme such as “lv_home”,
“lv_root”, and so on.
Then, your logical volumes are named volume-group/logical-volume,
for example “/dev/vg/lv_var”.
You can use such names in your table for your partition plan. Use the Partitioning Scheme Documentation as a guide for the format to use.
You can type or send as email to . Please use the subject similar to “Unix/Linux Admin I, Project 1 (Partitioning) Submission”, so I can tell which emails are submitted projects.
Submit your project to the correct Canvas dropbox for this assignment. Remember to include the name(s) of other students you worked with on this project!
Send questions about the assignment to . Please use a subject similar to “Unix/Linux Admin I, Project 1 (Partitioning) Questions” so I can tell which emails are questions about the assignment (and not submissions).
Please see your syllabus for more information about submitting projects.