While my Linode 360 has been running, I created a disk image using extra space that wasn't allocated, I then realized I wanted to make it bigger and can't without shutting down my Linode.

The disk isn't part of my currently running profile, the profile was already running when the disk image was created. Why can't I resize it? Can someone explain in simple terms? Or is it just hard coded into the Linode Manager that you can't resize an image while your Linode is running, no matter what?

Yeah, I've already found and read this:
http://www.linode.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=4141

I was just about to suggest reading my thread, then I realized you already have.

The thing is, your linode is "aware" of that unmounted disk (as suggested by /proc/partitions). And, as long as the disk shows in /proc/partitions, you can't dynamically resize it.

I don't know - I seem to see the same thing.

It's easy enough to test - as an experiment, I created a brand new 100MB disk image. I did absolutely nothing other than the create disk image option, so there's no way any of my configuration profiles reference that disk. It's certainly unavailable in my currently running system.

I verified that my /proc/partitions matches exactly what I have configured in my running configuration profile, but nothing more. There's no change after I've created the image.

Attempting a resize submits a job, and then the job fails saying the Linode has to be stopped. Certainly seems like it ought to be able to work.

Maybe the system is structured so that the resize operation executes within the same set of resources as the Linode itself or something like that. Although if they can create an unrelated disk image while the Linode is running, you'd think it could be resized.

But I suspect is really is just an overzealous safety check.

-- David

PS: While I can't resize, I can delete the image, which I don't think I'd be able to do if it were associated with a running system.

In short, prove it

Right now, I have 5 disk images. One 5GB for the OS that I'm booted into, one 256MB for swap and three other 1GB disks that are not used or mounted anywhere. Debian knows nothing about those 1GB disks as far as I can tell. These three disks were also created after the OS was booted.

As you can see from what I posted previously from /proc/partitions it doesn't know anything about the other three disks, one of which I'm trying to resize. I have a Linode 360, which has a total of 20GB of space available. In Windows this would be easy, just check under disk management and Windows sees all space on the drives in the machine it's installed on, whether it's been allocated or not. But I don't see anything like that on Linux. As far as I can tell it's not under /proc/partitions, unless, which is quite possible, I'm not reading those numbers correctly.

I'm not sure how to read those numbers either, someone else can enlighten both of us on this one.

Still, your /proc/partitions shows 2 images, whereas you have 5. This might happen because they are created after boot time. If that's the case, if you reboot you should be able to see those in /proc/partitions as well.

This is how the Linode manager behaves. It requires that your Linode be shut down to resize any partition, whether or not it is in the active profile, but it allows the deletion of partitions that are not in the active profile. There might be a reason for this, or it might just be the way that the resize mechanism is coded. Perhaps someone from Linode can tell us why this is?

_________________
/ Peter

# df -k
Filesystem           1K-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/xvda              5461616   1727704   3733912  32% /
tmpfs                   184428         0    184428   0% /lib/init/rw
tmpfs                   184428         4    184424   1% /dev/shm

I don't know how what that 2nd tmpfs is, nor do I know why either are mounted where they are. But I'm a Linux n00b and don't know much about swap.

Just rebooted, no change:


I've not added these disks to any profile, they are just disk images sitting under my Linode, not setup for any profile to be able to see or mount them yet.

I'm really just looking for an explanation I guess. Is it coded this way on purpose? Is it an oversight? More importantly, is it a bug in the Linode Manager?

In the "real world" you probably wouldn't run into this at all because you'd create an image, edit your profile to attach that image to the profile, reboot and mount the image. If you want/need to resize at that point you would need to shutdown anyway.

Well actually you might, you might do just as I did and realize you didn't create the disk the size you wanted and want to make it the right size before rebooting to be able to mount it.

But if Linode wants to err on the side of caution and safety I have no problems with that.

We err on the side of caution only allowing images to be resized when the Linode is shutdown regardless of wether the currently running Linode has access to them. This is something that may change in the not to distant future as some new code for another feature makes which images are currently attached to a running Linode known.