Wipe and reinstall a running Linux system via SSH (2017)
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Re: Wipe and reinstall a running Linux system via SSH (2017)
#2The Stack Overflow answer linked is horrifyingly delightful: https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/226872/how-to-shrin...
Re: Wipe and reinstall a running Linux system via SSH (2017)
#3The Stack Overflow answer linked is horrifyingly delightful: https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/226872/how-to-shrin...
I love how the first comment praises it for being "straightforward". For reference, this is how you shrink a file system on Windows:
diskpart
select volume C:
shrink desired=4096
Re: Wipe and reinstall a running Linux system via SSH (2017)
#4The Stack Overflow answer linked is horrifyingly delightful: https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/226872/how-to-shrin...
I love how the first comment praises it for being "straightforward". For reference, this is how you shrink a file system on Windows: diskpart select volume C: shrink desired=4096 I guess it's nice that the Linux version lets you move the partition as well (or "shrink from behind", so to speak), but damn, "straightforward" is not a word I would have used to describe it.
You can also resize partitions online in Linux. The point of the article was how to migrate the running system into memory and then wipe and reinstall the system. Try doing that from Windows :)
Re: Wipe and reinstall a running Linux system via SSH (2017)
#5The Stack Overflow answer linked is horrifyingly delightful: https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/226872/how-to-shrin...
I love how the first comment praises it for being "straightforward". For reference, this is how you shrink a file system on Windows: diskpart select volume C: shrink desired=4096 I guess it's nice that the Linux version lets you move the partition as well (or "shrink from behind", so to speak), but damn, "straightforward" is not a word I would have used to describe it.
Yeah, admittedly if you don't know what's going on there it might feel pretty convoluted and "wtf am I doing here". OTOH, on Linux you could do this since forever, it's not been that long ago that Windows finally shipped tools to do so. Now actually, Windows seems even more convenient since you can easily shrink a FS that is online. On Linux I'm not even sure that is possible; maybe with btrfs but I never really needed to do that, so I have no idea.
Re: Wipe and reinstall a running Linux system via SSH (2017)
#6The Stack Overflow answer linked is horrifyingly delightful: https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/226872/how-to-shrin...
I love how the first comment praises it for being "straightforward". For reference, this is how you shrink a file system on Windows: diskpart select volume C: shrink desired=4096 I guess it's nice that the Linux version lets you move the partition as well (or "shrink from behind", so to speak), but damn, "straightforward" is not a word I would have used to describe it.
[deleted]
Re: Wipe and reinstall a running Linux system via SSH (2017)
#7Earlier quoted context omitted.
I love how the first comment praises it for being "straightforward". For reference, this is how you shrink a file system on Windows: diskpart select volume C: shrink desired=4096 I guess it's nice that the Linux version lets you move the partition as well (or "shrink from behind", so to speak), but damn, "straightforward" is not a word I would have used to describe it.
You can also resize partitions online in Linux. The point of the article was how to migrate the running system into memory and then wipe and reinstall the system. Try doing that from Windows :)
He is not talking about the article but the stack overflow question and answer of parent; and the point of that is to resize the root partition without booting into another OS, not to wipe or migrate to memory (ergo the question being asked: "How to shrink root filesystem without booting a livecd").
You can do that just fine on Windows, hell you can even do it with a nice GUI using computer management.
Re: Wipe and reinstall a running Linux system via SSH (2017)
#8The Stack Overflow answer linked is horrifyingly delightful: https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/226872/how-to-shrin...
I love how the first comment praises it for being "straightforward". For reference, this is how you shrink a file system on Windows: diskpart select volume C: shrink desired=4096 I guess it's nice that the Linux version lets you move the partition as well (or "shrink from behind", so to speak), but damn, "straightforward" is not a word I would have used to describe it.
This is mostly filesystem-dependent. If you have a LVM or ZFS volume for instance resizing is (usually) trivial. When you think about it resizing and in particular shrinking a filesystem is very much a non-trivial operation behind the curtains, it's not surprising that some filesystems don't support it out of the box especially since it's not a super common operation in the wild in my experience.
Re: Wipe and reinstall a running Linux system via SSH (2017)
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can also resize partitions online in Linux. The point of the article was how to migrate the running system into memory and then wipe and reinstall the system. Try doing that from Windows :)
He is not talking about the article but the stack overflow question and answer of parent; and the point of that is to resize the root partition without booting into another OS, not to wipe or migrate to memory (ergo the question being asked: "How to shrink root filesystem without booting a livecd"). You can do that just fine on Windows, hell you can even do it with a nice GUI using computer management.
Yeah, but the Linux method is so much more generic; so can be used for more than just downsizing the partition.
Re: Wipe and reinstall a running Linux system via SSH (2017)
#10The Stack Overflow answer linked is horrifyingly delightful: https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/226872/how-to-shrin...
I love how the first comment praises it for being "straightforward". For reference, this is how you shrink a file system on Windows: diskpart select volume C: shrink desired=4096 I guess it's nice that the Linux version lets you move the partition as well (or "shrink from behind", so to speak), but damn, "straightforward" is not a word I would have used to describe it.
I think by straightforward they mean you can follow it properly, that's because it's a full step by step that explains each step in enough details to be used, and even includes details for "what to do if you're not in the state expected".
A lot of such guides have a fair amount of "then use tool X to do important part Y" without explaining any of it, making it horrible if you don't know X or the details of Y.
Source: I once tried to fix and resize half-broken LVM volumes and if the sonology guys didn't take time to help me I would probably have just ended up wiping it all and recovering all 16 TB from backups because internet self help is still a harsh place on some linux fs matter.