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Date: Fri, 7 Nov 1997 02:21:11 -0600 (CST)
From: "Matthew D. Fuller" <fullermd@futuresouth.com>
To: Richard Foulk <richard@pegasus.com>
cc: stable@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject: Re: Partitioning
In-Reply-To: <199711070625.UAA01625@pegasus.com>
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On Thu, 6 Nov 1997, Richard Foulk wrote:

> They call it their Journalled file system.  I don't think that has
> anything to do with it's ability to enlarge a partition on the fly.
> 
> Journalling, the keeping of an audit-trail of all disk writes, makes
> for a more secure filesystem that can be cleaned up more thoroughly and
> quickly after a crash.
> 
> Back to the main question;  I don't see any reason why the BSD file system
> couldn't be extended to allow for on-the-fly expansion of partitions.
> Toss in a pointer to the new space, when you feel like adding some,
> initialize it and continue on.
That's not the tough part.  It's essentially the same coding method as
ccd's.
The tough part is not just expanding, but SHRINKING partition on the fly.
On the AIX system I admin'ed, we once shrunk /usr by 80 megs to put 80
megs more in /home.  THAT takes a little more coding and failsafes.  It'd
still be a nice feature to have, tho.


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*    fullermd@futuresouth.com      :-}  MAtthew Fuller    *
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