ext2online fails when trying to expand volume on sles

This document (7001438) is provided subject to the disclaimer at the end of this document.

Environment

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 Service Pack 2
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 Service Pack 1

Situation

Sles10sp1 server with 140 gig LVM volume configured with EXT3. Customer added 100 gigs disk space to LVM group. When customer executes ext2online to extend EXT3 file system, the console shows the following error:

slesserv:~ # ext2online /dev/vg01/lv_local
ext2online v1.1.18 - 2001/03/18 for EXT2FS 0.5b
ext2online: group 0, block 11 not reserved

ext2online: unable to resize /dev/mapper/vg01-lv_local

Resolution

Volume was created with shipping e2fsprogs 1.38-25.21. Using dumpe2fs -h, we observe vol with following values:

Filesystem features: has_journal filetype needs_recovery sparse_super

In order to perform on line resize the value of "resize_inode" needs to be present. This will be added on volumes created with e2fsprogs 1.38-29.3 (or later). A volume created with updated code shows the following default values:

Filesystem features: has_journal resize_inode filetype needs_recovery sparse_super large_file

The value "resize_inode" is now present, which allows online resizing for this volume.

It must be noted, that there is no way to add this value to an existing EXT3 volume. The volume will need to be recreated, or perform resize with volume off line. Other versions of SLES may also have this issue, depending on what code level was present when the volume was created. I simple check of the device using dumpe2fs -h will tell you if online resizing is possible.

The e2fsprogs patch can be downloaded, update e2fsprogs to e2fsprogs-1.38-25.29.3.
The ext3-online resizing support begins with SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 SP 2, but only for freshly created file systems.

Additional Information

If servers are installed via autoyast, the install source will need to be updated with the new e2fsprogs 1.38-25.19.3. Instructions can be found at:

ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/people/hvogel/Update-Media-HOWTO

The following link has very good information on configuration details for adding new e2fsprogs to sles10 install:

http://opseast.wordpress.com/2007/06/05/autoyast-how-and-why-you-may-need-to-update-your-sle-installation-environment-source/

Disclaimer

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