parted is a command line program to partition hard disks.
Viewing Partition
To view partition on a hard disk, use
parted /dev/DEV_NAME print
Example
I will use /dev/sdc as device name.
root@hon-pc-01:~# parted /dev/sdc print Model: ATA ST31000528AS (scsi) Disk /dev/sdc: 1000GB Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B Partition Table: msdos Disk Flags: Number Start End Size Type File system Flags root@hon-pc-01:~#
From the result, we identify model of the hard disk as ST31000528AS and Disk size 1000 GB.
Partition table type is msdos. Disk have no partition.
Creating Partition
Before creating partition, you need to know how much free disk space you have, this can be found with command
parted /dev/DEV_NAME print free
Example
root@hon-pc-01:~# parted /dev/sdc print free
Model: ATA ST31000528AS (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdc: 1000GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos
Disk Flags:
Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
32.3kB 1000GB 1000GB Free Space
root@hon-pc-01:~#
Lets create a partition with
parted /dev/DEV_NAME mkpart
Example
root@hon-pc-01:~# parted /dev/sdc mkpart Partition type? primary/extended? primary File system type? [ext2]? ext4 Start? 1M End? 100% Information: You may need to update /etc/fstab. root@hon-pc-01:~#
Now view the partition table with command
parted /dev/DEV_NAME print
Example
root@hon-pc-01:~# parted /dev/sdc print Model: ATA ST31000528AS (scsi) Disk /dev/sdc: 1000GB Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B Partition Table: msdos Disk Flags: Number Start End Size Type File system Flags 1 1049kB 1000GB 1000GB primary ext4 root@hon-pc-01:~#
We have one partition, it will be refereed as /dev/sdc1
Formatting Partition
Before you can use a partition, you need to format it. This can be done with command
mkfs.ext4 /dev/DEV_NAME
Example
root@hon-pc-01:~# mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdc1 mke2fs 1.42.13 (17-May-2015) /dev/sdc1 contains a ext4 file system last mounted on Tue Aug 9 22:21:57 2016 Proceed anyway? (y,n) y Creating filesystem with 244190208 4k blocks and 61054976 inodes Filesystem UUID: 159684b2-2788-47c2-bc05-2aaf6866ff1c Superblock backups stored on blocks: 32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912, 819200, 884736, 1605632, 2654208, 4096000, 7962624, 11239424, 20480000, 23887872, 71663616, 78675968, 102400000, 214990848 Allocating group tables: done Writing inode tables: done Creating journal (32768 blocks): done Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done root@hon-pc-01:~#
Mounting a partition
You need to mount a filesystem to use it. First create a mount point, here we will create /backup
mkdir /backup
Now we can mount /dev/sdc1 to /backup folder using command
mount /dev/sdc1 /backup
Lets verify with df -h
root@hon-pc-01:~# df -h | grep sdc /dev/sdc1 917G 72M 871G 1% /backup root@hon-pc-01:~#
Using /etc/fstab
Running mount command every time you want to use a filesystem is not practical. Linux provide /etc/fstab to auto mount filesystems.
To mount this disk, we need to edit /etc/fstab
vi /etc/fstab
Add
/dev/sdc1 /backup auto nosuid,nodev,nofail 0 0
The problem with this is if you change Hard disk cable, the name of device changes. So best way is to use Device UUID instead of Device name. To find UUID of a device, use command
blkid
Example
root@hon-pc-01:~# blkid | grep sdc /dev/sdc1: UUID="159684b2-2788-47c2-bc05-2aaf6866ff1c" TYPE="ext4" PARTUUID="1bd91bd8-01" root@hon-pc-01:~#
In this case, UUID is 159684b2-2788-47c2-bc05-2aaf6866ff1c
To mount a disk by UUID, add following line to /etc/fstab
/dev/disk/by-uuid/159684b2-2788-47c2-bc05-2aaf6866ff1c /backup auto nosuid,nodev,nofail 0 0
To verify Disk can mount from /etc/fstab, first unmount the disk with
umount /dev/sdc1
Now run
mount -a
This will mount all disks specified in /etc/fstab file. Verify /dev/sdc1 is mounted
root@hon-pc-01:~# df -h | grep sdc1 /dev/sdc1 917G 72M 871G 1% /backup root@hon-pc-01:~#
