[Gllug] Virtual disk allocation advice requested

David L Neil Mailing list a/c GLLUG at getaroundtoit.co.uk
Sun Jun 29 10:31:59 UTC 2008


I'm home sick and in consolation am building myself a Xen VM test-bed
server but have not used Xen before, nor LVM. I'll appreciate competent
advice about organising and allocating disk space, please.

Using a single large HDD initially, I thought:
a) primary partition, <1GB, ext3, /boot
b) LVM logical volume(s) for Xen's Dom0
c) multiple logical volumes, one for each Xen DomU
d) NFS shared space (both for network and between DomUs)
e) Samba shared space (somewhat optional because have other such spaces)
- that latter revealing that I have an heterogeneous network

Queries:
1 would it make better sense to put all of the Dom0 onto the primary
partition or even a separate extended partition?

2 for Dom0 I thought something like:
 2GB, swap, /swap
 5GB, reiser, /var
 2GB, reiser, /root (rootuser)
 10GB, ext3, /
but is it as necessary to break things out in a Dom0 situation?

3 I thought to use LVM logical volumes for the DomUs for the inherent
extensibility, eg one domain will be used to build an email server, and
if the project is successful I would add another HDD; but would it be
somehow better to use extended partitions?

4 I haven't figured out where/when/how one allocates space within a
DomU. Does/should one separate out space allocated to logs, the root
user, etc, as we were advised in 'the good old days' or has such gone by
the board/become irrelevant in the brave new virtual world?

5 will NFS 'play nicely' in an LVM logical volume or should it be an
extended partition?

6 similarly will Samba go into an LVM logical volume or should it be an
extended partition?

7 if I set up a DomU temporarily, eg to test some software/project, and
subsequently discontinue it, should I also remove the partition/virtual
disk allocated within LVM and then build space anew before creating some
future DomU, or can/should one simply recycle the nominated logical volume?

Any and all advice (or reference to reading materials) will be much
appreciated!
Regards,
=dn

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