Best way to enlarge /var partition - discussion

[FreeWebOS]

Hi guys,

as stated in another thread (or two),
my /var partition (sized 62M) filled up.

For now, I could move /var/mtd to another partition (28M!)
not having any clue what mtd stands for.

In the long run, I should either outsource further subdirs
to dedicated custom partitions (maby loop devices on
files in /media/internal? - least choice!).

To start with the status quo:

1. LVM is a valuable tool to do so from
within a system up and running.

2. To get spare space, the vfat data partition
needs to get shrinken^Hd.

Can't I do this just from my desktop Debian system?
It's kernel reports:

[68216.987041] usb 1-5: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 15
[68217.102107] usb 1-5: New USB device found, idVendor=0830, idProduct=8002
[68217.102114] usb 1-5: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[68217.102117] usb 1-5: Product: Pre
[68217.102119] usb 1-5: Manufacturer: Palm Inc.
[68217.102121] usb 1-5: SerialNumber: 8cd58660f5a4b2e9a457423c012719fb0e468860
[68217.104947] scsi11 : usb-storage 1-5:2.0
[68222.106143] scsi 11:0:0:0: Direct-Access     Palm     Pre              0000 PQ: 0 ANSI: 2
[68222.111243] sd 11:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg8 type 0
[68222.117618] sd 11:0:0:0: [sdg] Attached SCSI removable disk
[68234.555463] sd 11:0:0:0: [sdg] 29032448 512-byte logical blocks: (14.8 GB/13.8 GiB)
[68234.556357] sd 11:0:0:0: [sdg] Assuming drive cache: write through
[68234.558567] sd 11:0:0:0: [sdg] Assuming drive cache: write through
[68234.558581]  sdg:
[68237.355847] FAT: utf8 is not a recommended IO charset for FAT filesystems, filesystem will be case sensitive!

And fdisk -l returns:

Disk /dev/sdg: 14.9 GB, 14864613376 bytes
64 heads, 32 sectors/track, 14176 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 2048 * 512 = 1048576 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Now, I should be able to shrink /dev/sdg using fatresize (file system),
then I could shrink the lvm volume accordingly before blowing up
/var in lvm, and then its ext3 fs.

Just wondering how to do so from within a running system?

The custom partitioning patch is not available for Webos 2.1.0
via Preware, currently, AFAICS.

Cheers for any hints.
Regards
FwO

[geekpeter]

wouldnt be as bad if we could just symlink bits to somewhere else nice and safe, or auto delete logs/email attachments/obsolete archived material and other waste on bootup.

[dkirker]

I wrote up some instructions for resizing the /var/db partition (it is a special partition). You should be able to follow parts of it to resize /var.

MojoDB Partition Resize - WebOS Internals