# LVM + XFS + Reiserfs?

## Nitro

Has anyone tried using LVM + XFS + Reiserfs?

Will I lose preformance (I realize it will utilize a little more CPU)?  My partitions would be faster if kept them smaller right? I want to make my / and /home XFS, /var and /tmp Reiserfs.  All would be LVM lv's with the exception of a 50 MB /boot created as ext3.  LVM will allow me to resize the partitions if I need to do so right?

Any suggestions?  This is going to be running on a server and running Gentoo of course!

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## lude

 *Nitro wrote:*   

> Has anyone tried using LVM + XFS + Reiserfs?

 

I got an 'almost'. I run Software Raid0 + ReiserFS on a production server. Gave it a huge performance boost, and from what I can tell it's solid as a rock.

 :Confused:  Please power, don't go out...

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## rawlz

My setup is quite similar to the one you describe, although I ditched reiserfs and decided to go with xfs. I haven't noticed a performance drop at all. My /portage fs is a 4Kb swidth striped volume on 2 IDE disks and it at least 'feels' fast...

 *Quote:*   

> LVM will allow me to resize the partitions if I need to do so right?

 

This is the main advantage of lvm: resizing a volume is very easy and space can be allocated from different resources (disks).

my .02

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## gilgames

 *Nitro wrote:*   

> All would be LVM lv's with the exception of a 50 MB /boot created as ext3.

 

this might be hard. I stuck to a 50MiB /boot and a 200MiB / because I just couldn't make booting from an initrd work(which lvmcreate_initrd should set up properly but apparently doens't  :Sad:  )

 *Nitro wrote:*   

> LVM will allow me to resize the partitions if I need to do so right?

 

Sure, LVM is made for that (I think), but remember that XFS filesystems can only grow larger (in-place that is).

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## daos

I use Reiserfs with kernel 2.4 and I have File system corruption many times. Ext3 or XFS may be more stable. Gentoo document does not recommend using Reiser fs with kernel 2.4.x

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## mossmann

I'm running everything on LVM except for /boot (ext2).  My root fs is XFS, and I'm also using some reiserfs logical volumes from a volume group that was originally created by a different distro.

Everything seems to run fine, although I have had some problems with the lvmcreate_initrd script.  The initrd image I created during the Gentoo install process (in the chroot environment) works okay, although I had to ln -s /lib/modules/2.4.19-r1 /lib/modules/2.4.19 to get the script to create it.  I can boot with it, but I get a bunch of modprobe errors during startup.

I have updated my kernel a couple times since then but have not been able to get a new initrd to boot.  lvmcreate_initrd appears to work (with the -r1 now), but when I boot up, I get:

VFS: Cannot open root . . .

where I should be seeing a vgscan.  I'm just starting to dig into this.  I have a strong background with LVM under HP-UX but I'm new to booting to logical root volumes under Linux.  If anyone has any fixes or tips, I'd love to hear them.

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## gpwolfe

HOW did you get the vgcreate to work?

I have and have done:

1) hda1 = 100MB type 83, hda2=3.28GB type 8e, hda3=512MB type 82

2) vgscan to create lvmtab

3) pvcreate -v /dev/hda2

4) pvdisplay /devhda2 (says it's a new physical volume).

5) vgcreate -v /dev/vg00 /dev/hda2 

OR

    vgcreate -v vg00 /dev/hda2

dies saying that there was no physical volumes specificied on the command line.  What *IS* the problem?

Under HPUX lvm you have to make the /dev/vg00 directory and the group file but I trying that just results in vgcreate bailing saying that vg00 already exists.  Someone mentioned that vgcreate is supposed to take of that in linux.  So what is the deal?  Is it that the lvm tools aren't devfs aware?  If so how do you disable devfs?  The install documentation says (towards the end) to use gentoo=nodevfs.  I tried that with the installation ISO but /dev still gets mounted as devfs.

PLEASE help. 

Thanks,

Gary

wgary4@qwest.net

 :Mad: 

 *mossmann wrote:*   

> I'm running everything on LVM except for /boot (ext2).  My root fs is XFS, and I'm also using some reiserfs logical volumes from a volume group that was originally created by a different distro.
> 
> Everything seems to run fine, although I have had some problems with the lvmcreate_initrd script.  The initrd image I created during the Gentoo install process (in the chroot environment) works okay, although I had to ln -s /lib/modules/2.4.19-r1 /lib/modules/2.4.19 to get the script to create it.  I can boot with it, but I get a bunch of modprobe errors during startup.
> 
> I have updated my kernel a couple times since then but have not been able to get a new initrd to boot.  lvmcreate_initrd appears to work (with the -r1 now), but when I boot up, I get:
> ...

 

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## Nitro

Well, I got it to work!  Now, only if XFS partitions could shrink.  :Sad: 

 *gpwolfe wrote:*   

> HOW did you get the vgcreate to work? 

 

  Try using /dev/ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part2 instead of /dev/hda2.  Also check that you set the partition type to Linux LVM (8e i think...) in fdisk.

My fdisk looks like this:

```
Disk /dev/hda: 255 heads, 63 sectors, 2482 cylinders

Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 bytes

   Device Boot    Start       End    Blocks   Id  System

/dev/hda1             1         6     48163+  83  Linux

/dev/hda2             7        32    208845   83  Linux

/dev/hda3            33      1435  11269597+  8e  Linux LVM

/dev/hda4   *      1436      2482   8410027+   7  HPFS/NTFS
```

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## Guest

After reading several articles that compare current filesystems, ReiserFS smokes them all.  If anything, you'll gain lots of performance over something like ext2 or ext3.

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