R81.20 increase an on prem ESXi VM management lv_current disk space using 'unalocatted space'

[Adam276]

I have seen that to increase disk space on a VMWare management VM (ESXi on premises). You need to follow a specific article (sk94671) to add a disk and bring it into the vg_splat LVM Volume Group and then use lvm_manager utility to increase the lv_current partition.

The VM has enough unallocated space in vg_splat to just expand lv_current though using article sk95566 and lvm_manager only.  It would appear I can just skip adding a disk to the VM in VMWare and just expand lv_current using lvm_manager.  There is 16 GB of unallocated space in vg_splat so my plan was to add 5 GB to lv_current which would then end up using 10GB total since another 5GB would also need to be reserved for upgrades.

I wanted to make sure there wasn't something with adding a disk that is necessary under VMWare VM when only increasing lv_current with lvm_manager that I would be missing if I just used article sk95566.  None of the commands before lvm_manager in sk94671 would seem to indicate adding a disk is necessary if you have enough unallocated space in vg_splat to expand it, but I just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something that gets done behind the scenes that wouldn't be done with following (sk# EDIT correction) )sk95566 that just uses lvm_manager.

Also is there a certain amount of unallocated space that must be available outside of the 'upgrade reserved'?  I could not find any info that says so.  Surely lvm_manager would warn me if so I think.  There would be about 4GB unallocatted space after the change.  Since it is a VM, Gaia snapshots are not used.

[Lesley]

You will not be able to create GAIA snapshots anymore since they use the unallocated space. I would recommend to keep 2.5 the size you need for one snapshot. If gaia for example says it needs 10 GB for a snapshot i could be that the actual size is a bit bigger for example 12GB. 

Just add a disk to vm, do NOT extend the current disk or make it bigger ONLY add a harddisk.

[PhoneBoy]

One important note about not having enough "unallocated space" for snapshots: Version upgrade take a snapshot. If there's no room for one, the upgrade will fail. 

I'm with @emmap here: do an Advanced Upgrade and import the R81.20 migrate_server export output to a newly installed R82(.x) VM with the desired space/partitioning.
Just make sure to leave enough "unallocated space" for 2-3 snapshots.

[Adam276]

It would appear that the intent of this setup (without snapshot space) was such that any major version upgrades are done using the migrate_export to a new system which is how I have always done any management major upgrade anyway.  All snapshots are done at the ESXi VMWare level instead of gaia.

The expansion of the lv_current is only needed for a minor JHFA update and snapshots are not a requirement for that update.  A VMWare ESXi snaphot is taken before any JHFA updates (with management VM off).  Any major upgrade would be to new new system with migrate_export in the future and it can be repartitioned of course at that time however we need.

It sounds like that article is the correct way to handle it if there is enough space in unallocated and no added partitions are needed.  There will be no loss of functionality of gaia snapshots because there was never enough for them to begin with as they required more than 16 GB of space for a snapshot with current management setup.  The system will be going from 16 GB unallocated to 6 GB unallocated.

Thanks for the input everyone.  I was mainly wanting to make sure unallocated wasn't used for something else that isn't usual stuff (snapshots, etc).  Major upgrades will to be to a new system/vm so that isn't a concern.

[emmap]

Given you're on R81.20 and you want to adjust partitions, I suggest that you're better off doing an upgrade and re-partition in one go by creating a new VM on R82/R82.10, building it with the partitioning you need and then migrating your database over to it. You'll end up with a cleaner install and the necessary upgrade already completed.

[Adam276]

Yea,  I like delaying as long as possible.  Every new JHFA on the new major version before I have to upgrade to it is potential problems that I don't have to lose sleep over :).  It does cause more activity near EOL time but the number of firewalls I have to deal with is workable to do that.  It is getting close to that time though of course.

[Adam276]

As a followup, Following sk95566 worked perfectly.  Expanding the partition using existing unallocated space.  Only problem was that VCenter web remote console doesnt update quickly enough so didn't see the menu on boot.  Once into lvm_manager in emergency mode, It gave me the option to expand lv_current to 42GB.  Several minutes later and a reboot I had another 5GB.