Ubuntu – How to extend partition in Ubuntu Guest on Vmware

gpartedpartitioningvmware

On my Windows 7 host, I am using VMware Player to use Ubuntu. I had initially allocated 20GB and now getting Disk space full errors. So I wanted to extend partition. By searching on forums I saw how to add more disk and used this command to make it 30G –

sudo lvextend -L30G /dev/sda1

But still df command shows that max is 20GB. After more searching it seems that I need to extend partition using gparted. I tried using that but Resize button is disabled. I searched for that and they say that if the partition shows a key image then that partition is active and I cannot change it if it is live.
Screenshot

After some more search looks like this can also be fixed by using booting the OS from CD or using gparted boot from cd, boot using iso etc etc without giving any clear instructions. Can someone please guide or post any link which has clear instructions including screenshots for a linux layman as to how I can extend the partition.

Best Answer

Just did it in a Ubuntu 18.04 Server guest over a Windows 10 host.

The easiest way is, like you already suggested, to boot a live Ubuntu (the regular one, not server) and use GParted.

But first you need to "configure" the VMWare to increase the "virtual disk" size. Follow these steps:

Shutdown the guest
Click on "edit virtual machine settings" of that guest
Click on "Hard disk" and "Expand..."
A VMware window will let you modify the size, in GBs, of the device. Set the size you want and click on "Expand". After a while it will end.

At this point, the hard drive is bigger than before, but the partition is not. You must resize the partition also. To do so, download the ISO file of the regular Ubuntu distribution. Any other bootable device will also work, but this is the simplest way. Having the ISO downloaded do this:

In the same configuration window as before, instead of configure the "Hard Disk" go to "CD/DVD" section.
Make sure the option "Connect at power on" is set.
Select "Use ISO image file:" and browse to the ISO file you downloaded.

After this, the guest is ready to be launched. Click in "Play virtual machine" and pay attention because you need to press the Esc key very quick to enter the boot menu, just before the VMWARE logo appears. As it were the BIOS of your physical computer.

Tip: After click on "Play..." click again over the VMWare window (black screen at this point) to make sure that the control of keyboard and mouse are in the guest, and not in the host. If you miss this step, you can simply reboot and try again.

Once you see the boot options:

Press the down arrow key to highlight "CD-ROM Drive" and press enter.
Ubuntu will start as live session.
Select appropriate language and "Try Ubuntu".
Wait until the desktop is loaded.

Look for the GParted tool and launch it. You will see two main blocks, one with some color (yellow probably) and the other in gray. The colored block is your actual partition (probably called /sda/sda1). To resize it do:

Right click on the yellow block and select "ummount" or "stop"
Right click again and "resize".
In the new window, drag the limit of the partition to wherever you want of the free space (gray).
Click "Ok"
Don't forget to click in "Apply changes" in Gparted's main window before closing, otherwise the operation is not performed.

Once it is finished, you have already a bigger partition, just reboot and you will be good to go. (Don't forget to uncheck the CD/DVD Connect at power on if it is not needed).

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – Increase Ubuntu partition size under virtual machine

You have to boot from Ubuntu live disk.So that you can be able to resize your installed Ubuntu partition on Virtualbox.

First Right-click on the Ubuntu virtual machine and select settings option.From the settings menu, select Storage option.Finally choose CD/DVD virtual disk file(choose an iso file of Ubuntu in which you want to boot).I had choosed Ubuntu 13.04 iso file.
Now from the Ubuntu settings, select System option.From the boot-order, enable only CD/DVD option and put it on the top.
Now strat the selected Ubuntu virtual machine(Ubuntu is name given for my virtual machine).
It will boot from the iso file(live disk) you have to select Try Ubuntu option on startup.Then open gparted from dash.

In my case /dev/sr0 represents Ubuntu 13.04 live disk and /dev/sda1 represents the partition where Ubuntu 13.10 is installed.
Now You can be able to unmount all the /dev/sda disk partitions like in the above screenshot.
Resize your /dev/sda1 ext4 partition by adding the unallocated space with it or just add some space from the free space then using the remaining space, create an extended partition(make a swap within it).
After resizing, shutdown the virtual machine and change the boot-order to Hard-disk on virtual machine settings.
It will boot from the hard-disk.Now your Ubuntu partition size will be resized.

Note: I am running Virtual box not vmware fusion.

Ubuntu – How to extend the root (/) partition

You actually can use the 4.25 GiB at the end without any reboot, because Linux supports on-line partition resizing since kernel 2.6 (meaning you can resize partitions while they're mounted, even the root partition, without any reboot).

I'll show you how to remove the swap partition and extend the root partition with all the free space at the end. Then I'll use the unallocated space in the beginning (14.35 GiB) for a new swap partition. Of course 14.35 GiB is a bit much so you can also choose to use some to extend your NTFS partition.

Open GParted
Right click on /dev/sda11 and select Swapoff
Right click on /dev/sda11 and select Delete
Click on Apply All Operations
Open a terminal
Extend the root partition:
```
sudo resize2fs /dev/sda10
```
Go back to GParted
Open the GParted menu and click on Refresh Devices
Right click on the unallocated space and select New
Select linux-swap as file system
Click on Add
Click on Apply All Operations

Initially I wrote this using the command line only, but then I decided to try to use GParted as much as possible as this may be easier for you to see what's going on. You may even extend the root partition using GParted. But you need to unmount your root partition before you work on it. I mean you should work offline (using a liveUSB). In some cases your grub may get damaged. So do reinstall your grub before you leave out from your offline working.

I believe GParted will automatically enable the new swap partition but I'm not sure. You can always check by right clicking on it and then selecting Swapon. If this option is not available the swap partitions is probably already enabled.

Also the Refresh Devices step is probably unnecessary, but you should follow it just to be sure.

We cannot resize the extended partition (sda4, in this case) as it has a mounted logical partition within it. So we need to boot into the live mode of an Ubuntu USB/CD drive. From there, start GParted, turn off swap if necessary, right click on the extended partition and resize it to suit your needs. Then, follow the steps mentioned as needed to resize root and add back swap. In the event that your root partition UUID gets changed, you can update Grub by executing these steps in the live mode:

sudo mount /dev/sda10 /mnt 
sudo mount -o bind /dev/ /mnt/dev 
sudo grub-install --root-directory=/mnt /dev/sda 
sudo chroot /mnt /bin/bash 
# Now within the chroot
sudo update-grub
exit
# Now outside chroot

The first couple of commands mount the root partition (sda10, in this case) and set up /dev/ for use within a chroot environment. (Other partitions that can be similarly mounted for a more functional chroot are /proc, /sys and /dev/pts.) Then we reinstall grub (not really necessary). Then, we enter the chroot and update grub. This causes grub to use the new UUIDs where necessary. After exiting the chroot, reboot and we should get the grub menu back.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – Increase Ubuntu partition size under virtual machine

Ubuntu – How to extend the root (/) partition

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