On Sat, 2019-08-17 at 09:38 +1000, Cameron Simpson wrote: > On 16Aug2019 13:18, Patrick O'Callaghan <pocallaghan@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > I'm trying to rationalise space by moving my /var directory from its > > own partition to /, as currently there's a lot of wastage. I've copied > > /var to /newvar with rsync, and now want to mount /newvar as /var on > > reboot by creating an entry in /etc/fstab. This is it (using /var-tst > > for testing): > > > > /newvar /var-tst ext4 loop 0 0 > > That isn't what loop is for. loop is for associating a file with a > device. > > What you want is "bind", not "loop", because you're binding an > _existing_ mount to another location. > > > but I'm getting: > > > > mount: /var-tst: failed to setup loop device for /newvar. > > Because /var-tst is a directory, not a file-shaped-like-a-partition. Yes, I finally got that. > Example from our home server: > > /app8tb/media/video /exports/video none bind,relatime 0 0 > > > PS Suggestions on how to move /var without all this jiggery-pokery are > > also welcome. > > If you want /var to be on /, rsync it as you have done, and just make a > symlink as /var. That implies overwriting the existing /var directory entry, which is not possible while the system is running, even in single-user mode. > Really, all you need to do is to remove the /var fstab entry, umount the > existing /var mount, rsync /newvar BACK INTO the stub /var mountpoint > which is there, scrub /newvar. /var cannot be unmounted while the system is running (see above). I did finally solve it following the suggestion from Francis.Montagnac@xxxxxxxx (adding rd.break=pre-pivot to the boot line, then remounting /sysroot etc.) > No fstab trickery required (other than erasing/commenting the /var > line). > > Then afterwards you need to decide what to do with the partition you > have been using for /var. I'm going to merge it with / (the two are contiguous) but that will have to be via a live USB stick. I know that doing this with LVM would be easy (for certain values of "easy") but I gave up on LVM years ago as it made my head spin :-) poc _______________________________________________ users mailing list -- users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe send an email to users-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Fedora Code of Conduct: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/project/code-of-conduct/ List Guidelines: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines List Archives: https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
