Adding a SCSI Hard drive to Ubuntu 6 Server

[stevenewman]

I have Ubunto 6 LTS running on a Dell Poweredge server which I am trying to convert into a mail server running Zimbra.

I have downloaded and started the Zimbra install only for it to tell me that I have insufficient disc space. I have a single 8G SCSI hard drive at the moment.

The server has 5 more free SCSI hotswap bays and I have another 8 G drive pulled from a windows 2000 server (I don't know what's on the drive in terms of files etc but it can all be got rid of).

What I need to be able to do is to add this drive on to the server so that I can use it to install the Zimbra ZCS on it.

I am a complete newbie to a) Linux, b) Ubuntu and c) Zimbra so I would appreciate someone pointing me in the right direction with regard to getting this drive up and running.

Many thanks

[kmount]

Hi Steve,

Good to see you again.

I think the best bet would be to slap the disk in and boot the machine up.

Once its up, login and type:

df -h

Paste that output somewhere as it may be useful later.

Then again the following command:

ls /dev/sd*

It should report back with a list of partitions on the disks both the original and the new.

We need to establish which is the new one, it'll probably be sdb but you'll know because it will be the one NOT mentioned in the output of df -h.

Once we know which one the new is, we can partition/format it.

Again, in the command window, we need to run the following:

fdisk newdisklocation (eg. fdisk /dev/sdb)
type p and press enter, it will list the partitions (if any) on the disk.
Once your happy its definitely the new disk as opposed to the old, press n and enter.
Press p for primary partition.
Press 1 for the partition number.
Use the default values for the cylinders so it uses the whole disk.

Once its complete press w and enter to write the changes to the disk and exit from FDISK back to the command line.

On the command line, we use the following command to format the disk:

mkfs.ext3 newhddpartitionname (eg. mkfs3.ext3 /dev/sdb1) - note the 1 is the number of the partition created.

Once this is done, we're good to mount the drive to a location on the system.

Linux as I'm sure you'll be aware doesn't use drive letters like windows, and instead each 'directory' could be a different drive, partition, or even machine and you'd be unlikely to know unless you looked.

So, we need to decide where to put this disk, and I think from memory Zimbra likes to install itself into /opt.

Its up to you at this point whether we make /opt the entire new disk, or whether we make /opt/zimbra and set the new disk to just hold zimbra.

Either way, you use the following command to mount the new drive

mount /dev/sdb1 /opt

OR

mkdir /opt/zimbra
mount /dev/sdb1 /opt/zimbra

This assumes /dev/sdb1 is the name of the partition.


If this works, re-run df -h and you should see a new entry as the new drive.

Bear in mind though, this will only work for this current boot up, we'll need to add it to fstab (or via a little script) to mount this on boot up.

We'll cross that bridge when we get there.

[CyberNerd]

Take a look at gparted

sudo apt-get install gparted && sudo gparted

[kmount]

Bah, pretty gui!

[stevenewman]

If this works, re-run df -h and you should see a new entry as the new drive.

Bear in mind though, this will only work for this current boot up, we'll need to add it to fstab (or via a little script) to mount this on boot up.
We'll cross that bridge when we get there.

Thanks for that Kim, it all worked once I got the drive in the case etc. What do I need to do to get it to do this permanently each time I boot?
Thanks
Steve

[CyberNerd]

edit the file /etc/fstab

sudo nano /etc/fstab

and add a line such as

/dev/sda1        /opt/zimbra      ext3    defaults,errors=remount-ro        0

(assuming sda1, the mountpoint and an ext3 filesystem
and to test the mount (unmount first) and run

sudo  mount -a

which will mount anything specified in the fstab file

[kmount]

Bingo. - I think you'll need to tab and put another 0 in the line though in the example above.

/dev/sdb1 /opt/zimbra ext3 defaults,errors=remount-ro 0 0

Its important to test it before rebooting just to be sure its not mashed up fstab (and prevents booting!).

So, mount it as we did, and then type:

cd /
umount /opt/zimbra
Confirm this with df -h to make sure its not there anymore.
mount -a
Confirm its now in df -h
Reboot