[SOLVED] Need Current Partioning Explained

[sisyphus1978]

Hi.

Posted this over at ubuntu forums (thread 1257037). Since I've had no luck getting an answer, I thought I would try somewhere else:

Hope you fine folk can help. I have successfully set up a clonezilla pxe machine, and I've been using it for a couple of months. The machine itself has two HDD. Fdisk -l gives this:

Quote:
Disk /dev/sda: 122.9 GB, 122942324736 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14946 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xd435d435

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 14916 119812738+ 8e Linux LVM
/dev/sda2 14917 14946 240975 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 14917 14946 240943+ 83 Linux

Disk /dev/sdb: 120.0 GB, 120034123776 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14593 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x5f6e52d2

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 1 14593 117218241 83 Linux

*****First question. Have I set this up incorrectly? All I want the machine for is to backup and store/restore the clonezilla images I have created.

*****Second question. I want to clone the first HDD to the second, so that if the first dies, I can swap it in (and I don't have to set it up again). I was going to DD the first to the second, but the partitioning of the first HDD is confusing me.

So. Can I grow sda2 (sda5) into sda 1. Or am I better off cloning sda5 onto the other disk and then copying back?

/dev/mapper/ubuntu-root (113.01 GiB)
/dev/mapper/ubuntu-swap_1 (1.24 GiB)
/dev/sda (114.49 GiB)
/dev/sdb (111.79 GiB)

Okay. This is still confusing me. Here's my fstab:

Quote:
# Entry for /dev/mapper/ubuntu-root :
UUID=8aaaade5-3b89-482f-9ad7-a32cb1c40016 / ext3 relatime,errors=remount-ro 0 1
# Entry for /dev/sda5 :
UUID=20ab1fa3-bebf-4153-b44f-aacf15320cb9 /boot ext2 relatime 0 2
# Entry for /dev/mapper/ubuntu-swap_1 :
UUID=f4dd9d3a-87f5-4c83-8045-40270d052219 none swap sw 0 0
# Entry for /dev/sdb1 :
UUID=e917ce08-8524-4cb1-99a9-758d23c8ce7c /media/store ext2 defaults 0 0
And. If you check out the screen-dump, what the heck is sdc1?

Like I say, I am flummoxed. I would like to get it sorted without destroying any functionality...

I just want somebody to explain the current partitioning in more human terms.

[rcgreen]

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 14916 119812738+ 8e Linux LVM
/dev/sda2 14917 14946 240975 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 14917 14946 240943+ 83 Linux

/dev/sda1 is an LVM (logical volume management) partition.
it is divided into logical volumes, one of which is swap, and the other
is a linux volume.
/dev/sda2 is an extended partition.
/dev/sda5 is a logical partition, contained
within /dev/sda2

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 1 14593 117218241 83 Linux

Your second hard drive is devoted to a single partition.

# Entry for /dev/mapper/ubuntu-root :
UUID=8aaaade5-3b89-482f-9ad7-a32cb1c40016 / ext3 relatime,errors=remount-ro 0 1
# Entry for /dev/sda5 :
UUID=20ab1fa3-bebf-4153-b44f-aacf15320cb9 /boot ext2 relatime 0 2
# Entry for /dev/mapper/ubuntu-swap_1 :
UUID=f4dd9d3a-87f5-4c83-8045-40270d052219 none swap sw 0 0
# Entry for /dev/sdb1 :
UUID=e917ce08-8524-4cb1-99a9-758d23c8ce7c /media/store ext2 defaults 0 0

/dev/mapper/ubuntu-root is part of that LVM partition.
It is mounted at /, the root of your file system.

/dev/sda5 is mounted at the /boot directory.
It contains essential files for booting

/dev/mapper/ubuntu-swap_1 is the other part of the LVM,
and is a obviously for swap (virtual memory).

/dev/sdb1 is mounted at the /media/store directory.

[sisyphus1978]

Okay. That really helps me understand.

Can you give me your opinion of what is the best/easiest way to clone sda to sdb.

If it's not clear, I have set up a fully working clonezilla pxe server (which I use daily backing up the various computers I have around the house - xbmc ftw) and the only one that isn't backed up is the pxe server. So I want sdb to be a fallback copy, so I don't have to go through setting it up again.

[sisyphus1978]

The reason I'm asking is because the LVM is confusing me. Anyone?

[rcgreen]

I'm not an expert on LVM. LVM volumes are managed by software
instead of being physical disk partitions. therefore, they can be resized
dynamically, and managed on a live system without the pain
of resizing or rewriting partitions.

As to whether your system will do the tasks you require of it,
Maybe someone else is familiar with the software you are using.

[sisyphus1978]

Thanks for responding. TBH this still makes my head hurt every time I start thinking about it. Think I need to read up on linux partitioning, rather than asking for hints (which tbh hasn't got me too far).