On Sunday 17 June 2007 22:45, Mohammad Bhuyan wrote:

Hi,

...

I have the /home on its own partition, but I need to move it to the root partition without losing data,

I am not an expert but I was thinking if the following should work

1. To be on the safe side get out of x (ex: init 3) 2. Recursive copy /home to a new directory under root (ex: /to_be_home) 3. Get rid of the mount entry of /home from mtab/fstab (leave backup copy) 4. unmount /home (Possible?) 5. Rename /to_be_home to /home 6. Reboot (Ex: init 6)

This will leave your original /home partition unmounted but with all the data.

Lets see what the expert says.

Regards,

Mohammad

Thanks Mohammad, magic word Recursive made me to look again in my first post to find 2 errors in 5 lines of my version how to move home :-( -- Regards, Rajko. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Bob Kline escribió:

Mohammad Bhuyan wrote:

...

Hi,

...

I have the /home on its own partition, but I need to move it to the root partition without losing data,

You should first go to init 1 (single user), unmount /home, move the data to the new location, modify fstab with the new settings (in this case simply remove the settings for /home) and then go back to init 5. Thats all. Regards. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Monday 18 June 2007 09:42, Gabriel wrote:

Gabriel escribió:

...

Bob Kline escribió:

...

Mohammad Bhuyan wrote:

...

Hi,

...

I have the /home on its own partition, but I need to move it to the root partition without losing data,

You should first go to init 1 (single user), unmount /home, move the data to the new location, modify fstab with the new settings (in this case simply remove the settings for /home) and then go back to init 5.

Thats all.

Regards.

Sorry, remount /home with another name so you will be able to copy the data to a directory named /home on your root partition.

This is the safest way, I don't recommend doing it on a multi-user mode (init 3)

It is safe as long as you are not logged in as normal user, and with init 3, shutting down the GUI will log you out. Root has it's home in /root and it doesn't present problem to move /home. The single user mode should be used for instance to move /usr and Live CD to copy whole system to another partition. -- Regards, Rajko. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

--- Bob Kline wrote:

...

Hi,

...

I have the /home on its own partition, but I need

to move it to the root

...

partition without losing data,

I am not an expert but I was thinking if the following should work

1. To be on the safe side get out of x (ex: init

Mohammad Bhuyan wrote: 3) ....

Wouldn't it be even safer to boot from a live CD?

I had the opposite problem a few days ago: I had to move /home off the root partition and onto a new partition. Since I have two Linux systems installed, I can use the one to modify the other. I have 9.0 on a logical partition on hda and 10.2 on a logical partition on hdb. When I installed 10.2 last week, I inadvertantly ended up with /home on the root partition. Not knowing what to do, I proceeded one step at a time, checking each result. Using the 9.0 system: * I mounted the two 10.2 partitions, hdb5 and hdb6. * I copied the 10.2 /home subdirectories from hdb5 (root) to hdb6 (new home) * I renamed 10.2 /home to /home_hdb5, to preserve the the original subdirectories (for recovery) * I created a new 10.2 /home to serve as a mount-point for 10.2 fstab * I made sure that the 10.2 fstab entry used hdb6 Much to my surprise, 10.2 survived and is now working fine, with the new /home. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Get the free Yahoo! toolbar and rest assured with the added security of spyware protection. http://new.toolbar.yahoo.com/toolbar/features/norton/index.php -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Mon, 18 Jun 2007, James Knott wrote:-

Bob Kline wrote:

...

Mohammad Bhuyan wrote:

...

Hi,

...

I have the /home on its own partition, but I need to move it to the root partition without losing data,

I am not an expert but I was thinking if the following should work

1. To be on the safe side get out of x (ex: init 3) ....

Wouldn't it be even safer to boot from a live CD?

As long as only root is logged in, init 3 is fine.

You can't guarantee that other users won't log in while you're busy doing the changes while in runlevel 3 or 5. Dropping into runlevel 2 is safer as there is no networking enabled, in theory other users could still be logged in on the other consoles, but they'd need to have physical access to do so. Using runlevel 1 is the safest option, as only one user can log in at a time, and it's going to be hard for someone to try logging in while you're busy using the keyboard. Regards, David Bolt -- Member of Team Acorn checking nodes at 50 Mnodes/s: http://www.distributed.net/ RISCOS 3.11 | SUSE 10.0 32bit | SUSE 10.1 32bit | openSUSE 10.2 32bit RISCOS 3.6 | SUSE 10.0 64bit | SUSE 10.1 64bit | openSUSE 10.2 64bit TOS 4.02 | SUSE 9.3 32bit | | openSUSE 10.3a5 32bit -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Kenneth Schneider wrote:

On Mon, 2007-06-18 at 23:46 +0100, David Bolt wrote:

...

You can't guarantee that other users won't log in while you're busy doing the changes while in runlevel 3 or 5.

You can when it's your home PC and you are the only one that uses it.

Well, you can't be too sure with my cat! ;-) -- Use OpenOffice.org http://www.openoffice.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Monday 18 June 2007 17:03, Patrick Shanahan wrote:

* James Knott [06-18-07 19:57]:

...

Well, you can't be too sure with my cat! ;-)

I'll lend you my Jack Russell and you won't have to worry about the cat :^)

Ah... Very funny. Half the cats in America are bigger than a Jack Russell terrier. 98% of them are fiercer. And cats have claws... Oh, wait. I was confusing a Corgi with a Jack Russell (no real reason, just my ignorance). One third of the cats in America are bigger than a Jack Russell and 95% are fiercer. It hardly seems worthwhile to sacrifice your pet... After all, they make software to detect cat "typing" and disable your keyboard. Better that than than a dog funeral or hospital bill.

-- Patrick Shanahan

RRS -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Patrick Shanahan wrote:

* James Knott [06-18-07 19:57]:

...

Well, you can't be too sure with my cat! ;-)

I'll lend you my Jack Russell and you won't have to worry about the cat :^)

Compared to my cat, your dog's a wimp! ;-) -- Use OpenOffice.org http://www.openoffice.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Sunday 17 June 2007 23:01, Rajko M. wrote:

  init 3   mkdir home1   cp home home1 cp -R /home/* home1   umount /home   mv home1 home mv /home1/* /home

It is too late to make no mistakes :-( -- Regards, Rajko. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Monday 2007-06-18 at 07:13 +0200, Jon Clausen wrote:

cp -a /mnt/* /home/

I prefer rsync: rsync -av /mnt/ /home/ It maintains stamps. It can be halted and restarted without copying what already exists. - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQFGdlgNtTMYHG2NR9URAvFdAJ9YeghSadLtZX1RXdQDxyQicrnBrgCfVRpk 4b+bsYkO3yoxYnJqagXQSac= =1cs3 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Monday 2007-06-18 at 07:23 -0400, James Knott wrote:

...

I prefer rsync:

rsync -av /mnt/ /home/

It maintains stamps. It can be halted and restarted without copying what already exists.

I thought "cp -a" preserved time stamps. Take a look at the -p option, which -a includes.

Perhaps. But I still prefer rsync :-) - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQFGdnfatTMYHG2NR9URAqX+AJsF8GmZzkDSJg6i9gCx4QxZ4MweJwCfWHZn bA4JUCUVifx27Z8zAFWAD/Y= =8hZI -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Thank you all for your answers, i'm learning a lot with all guys and I appreciate a lot. I used the method suggested by Ed and let me say it works just great!!! With guys like you even a newbie like me can do anything in linux... For those who want to know, I'm installing different distros in my laptop and as I can't share the same home for every distro I prefer each distro has its own home within its own partition and add a soft link to other partition where my data is stored... just that.... Thanks again, Ed Harrison wrote:

James Knott wrote:

...

Carlos E. R. wrote:

...

The Monday 2007-06-18 at 07:13 +0200, Jon Clausen wrote:

...

cp -a /mnt/* /home/

I prefer rsync:

rsync -av /mnt/ /home/

It maintains stamps. It can be halted and restarted without copying what already exists.

I thought "cp -a" preserved time stamps. Take a look at the -p option, which -a includes.

Try this. I have used it for years.

Log out of X Change to a tty CTL-ALT-F2 Log In as root init 3 cd / mkdir home1 cd home find ./* -xdev | cpio -pdmv /home1/ umount /home cd / rmdir /home (it is now an empty directory) mv /home1 /home edit /etc/fstab to remove mounting of /dev/xxx to /home. init 5

You should be up and running.

Ed Harrison

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On Monday 18 June 2007 21:01, Carlos E. R. wrote:

The Tuesday 2007-06-19 at 03:00 +0200, Fernando Costa wrote:

...

Thank you all for your answers, i'm learning a lot with all guys and I appreciate a lot. I used the method suggested by Ed and let me say it works just great!!!

Hey, did you know that there is a whole howto dedicated to this very subject? ;-)

...

With guys like you even a newbie like me can do anything in linux... For those who want to know, I'm installing different distros in my laptop and as I can't share the same home for every distro

Actually, you can... sort of. Some people do so, but I don't like it.

-- Cheers, Carlos E. R.

I use the same /home, but users are different ;-) -- Regards, Rajko. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Hi Ken, On Monday 18 June 2007 07:30, Kenneth Schneider wrote:

On Mon, 2007-06-18 at 00:01 -0500, Rajko M. wrote:

...

On Sunday 17 June 2007 23:01, Rajko M. wrote:

...

init 3 mkdir home1 cp home home1

cp -R /home/* home1

ops cp -a /home/* /home1 ^^^ One slash was missing and -a as suggested in another post.

...

...

umount /home mv home1 home

mv /home1/* /home

mv /home1 /home is correct. This is the rename incarnation of mv.

It would be after: rm -R /home with present /home it will make /home/home1 This was tested as I didn't want to repeat a mistake. So I made another one :-D ... -- Regards, Rajko. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Mon, 2007-06-18 at 15:56 +0100, Dave Howorth wrote:

Fernando Costa wrote:

...

I have the /home on its own partition, but I need to move it to the root partition without losing data, which is the safest way to do that? My root partition is about 20G and the /home partition is about 8G and less than 1G is used because I store my data in a different partition.

openSUSE 10.2

Lots of advice about how to do this from various people, so let me be contrarian :)

Don't do it.

I believe it's much better to have too many filesystems rather than too few. You don't say what your real problem is - I guess you're trying to recover the 8 GB? So copy the contents of /home into the root partition temporarily, reformat the 8 GB as LVM space and then recreate /home as a logical volume.

BTW, your root partition is way too big, IMHO. I'd have about 2 GB for root and put the other 18 GB into LVM with /usr, /var, /opt in their own logical filesystems. If you're using ext3 or reiserfs (don't know about others), you can then grow them as needed.

I'd make all changes while running some other system (e.g. a live disk like Bob Kline suggested). I always keep my previous system in another 2 GB partition for this sort of work.

Cheers, Dave

Hi Dave, Fernando, I agree with keeping as many seperate file systems as possible If something "boils over" it can only fill one partition (being it /home, /tmp, /var/tmp, /var/spool, /var/log or what ever) Gives you also the freedom to tune it differently (many small files, a buch of large iso's) Using it and LVM (with reiser, ext2, ext3) for quite a while. You can grow them online and shrink them offline. Only exception personally, is for temporary test installations, (just /) Keep important files (data, config, xml-descriptions) somewhere else, like on a mounted smb- or nfs-share. Hans -- pgp-id: 926EBB12 pgp-fingerprint: BE97 1CBF FAC4 236C 4A73 F76E EDFC D032 926E BB12 Registered linux user: 75761 (http://counter.li.org) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org