{"id":351,"date":"2015-12-24T20:30:11","date_gmt":"2015-12-25T04:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cloudinsidr.com\/content\/?p=351"},"modified":"2022-03-21T09:07:05","modified_gmt":"2022-03-21T16:07:05","slug":"how-to-expand-an-xfs-ebs-volume-on-aws-ec2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cloudinsidr.com\/content\/how-to-expand-an-xfs-ebs-volume-on-aws-ec2\/","title":{"rendered":"How to expand an (xfs) EBS volume on AWS EC2"},"content":{"rendered":"

Expanding an EBS volume is not quite as easy as recreating\u00a0it from a snapshot with\u00a0a larger volume size. It involves a few more steps.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

“Elastic” Block Store is not so elastic after all.<\/p>\n

Expanding an EBS volume involves quite a few steps. You may have already tried to:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. unmount the EBS volume you want to expand (or freeze write access to it);<\/li>\n
  2. write a snapshot;<\/li>\n
  3. create a new, larger EBS volume based on the snapshot of the old, smaller volume;<\/li>\n
  4. attach the new, larger EBS volume\u00a0to your EC2 instance;<\/li>\n
  5. mount the new volume on the instance;<\/li>\n
  6. hit a wall: no amount of\u00a0xfs_growfs’ing seems to get the job done and expand it even a tiny bit.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Here is how to fix it (fast-forward to step 5 below).<\/p>\n

    Step 1. Unmount your xfs\u00a0volume (or freeze write access to it)<\/h3>\n

    On EC2, you\u00a0can usually get away with just creating the snapshot without much ado.\u00a0If you are paranoid about data loss, you probably want to unmount the volume (since you may need to do this anyway), or at least lock write access to it.<\/p>\n

    Unmounting the volume involves the following\u00a0command:<\/p>\n

    umount\u00a0\/mount\/point<\/pre>\n
    If you prefer to freeze write access to it, use this command instead:<\/p>\n
    xfs_freeze -f \/mount\/point<\/pre>\n
    Once you get to the point of being ready to\u00a0unfreeze it,<\/p>\n
    xfs_freeze -u\u00a0\/mount\/point<\/pre>\n
    will do the trick.<\/p>\n
    Step 2. Write a snapshot of the EBS volume<\/h3>\n
    Create a snapshot of your\u00a0EBS volume on AWS EC2. When using the AWS Management Console, navigate to the section Volumes, find your volume, select it, and use the command Create Snapshot from the Actions menu to initiate the process.<\/p>\n
    \"Create<\/a>
    Create a snapshot from an EBS volume on AWS EC2 in the AWS Management Console<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
    The snapshot will be placed in the Snapshots section of the Console and display the size of the original EBS volume from which it was created.<\/p>\n
    \"Creating<\/a>
    Creating a snapshot from an EBS volume on AWS EC2 in the AWS Management Console<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
    Step 2. Create a new, larger EBS volume based on\u00a0the snapshot of the original, smaller EBS volume<\/h3>\n
    Navigate to the section Snapshots of the AWS Management Console for EC2, find your snapshot, select it, and use the command Create Volume from the Actions menu.<\/p>\n
    \"Create<\/a>
    Create an EBS volume from snapshot<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
    In next dialog that appears, set the new size you want to expand to and select an availability zone (AZ) for the new volume so you can attach it to your instance (the new volume must be located in the same AZ as the instance it will attach to).<\/p>\n
    The new volume appears, quite predictably, in the Volumes section of the ECS Management Console, and has the new, larger size. Hurraaah! (Not so fast… Son’t celebrate just yet.)<\/p>\n
    Step 3. Attach the new, larger EBS volume\u00a0to your EC2 instance<\/h3>\n
    Select your shiny new,\u00a0larger\u00a0volume in the Volumes section of the AWS Managment Console and use the command Attach Volume to hook it up to a running instance in the same availability zone.<\/p>\n
    \"Attaching<\/a>
    Attach an EBS volume to a running EC2 instance<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
    Select your instance, confirm the device ID and hit Attach.<\/p>\n
    \"Attach<\/a>
    Attach an EBS volume to a running EC2 instance: size and az selection<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
    Verify that the volume has attached by taking a cursory glance at\u00a0the Description\u00a0tab in the Instances section of the AWS Management Console\u00a0for your EC2 instance. (You may need to\u00a0hit the Reload button at the upper right-hand corner of the Console; don’t hit\u00a0the browser button–that one would reload the entire page and deactivate your current selection of your EC2 instance as well as any view filters.)<\/p>\n
    \"An<\/a>
    An EBS volume attached to an EC2 instance<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
    Step 4. Connect to your EC2 instance and mount the volume<\/h3>\n
    Connect using an ssh\u00a0client such as\u00a0PuTTY<\/a>, then switch to root (sudo su).<\/p>\n
    View block devices<\/h4>\n
    For NVMe, see: How to attach and mount an NVMe EBS volume on EC2<\/a>.<\/p>\n
    For legacy SATA drives, the command:<\/p>\n
    ls \/dev\/x*<\/pre>\n
    should show something to this effect:<\/p>\n
    \/dev\/xvda \/dev\/xvda1 \/dev\/xvdf \/dev\/xvdf1<\/pre>\n
    Your boot volume in the above example is\u00a0\/dev\/xvda; the boot partition is\u00a0\/dev\/xvda1, the newly attached volume is\u00a0\/dev\/xvdf with the data partition being\u00a0\/dev\/xvdf1.<\/p>\n
    Repair the xfs file system on the newly mounted volume (optional, but recommended)<\/h4>\n
    If you need to\u00a0repair the\u00a0XFS file system on the volume, use xfs_repair:<\/p>\n
    xfs_repair \/dev\/xvdf1<\/pre>\n
    Mount the\u00a0xfs\u00a0file system partition<\/h4>\n
    In order to mount the file system you need a directory that will serve as the mount point. Create a new directory (sudo su makes you root):<\/p>\n
    sudo su\u00a0\r\n\r\nmkdir \/mnt\/www<\/pre>\n
    Mount the file system (example mountpoint):<\/p>\n
    mount \/dev\/xvdf1 \/mnt\/www<\/pre>\n
    Verify the capacity of the xfs partition<\/h4>\n
    The volume will show up at its original capacity stored in the AWS snapshot:<\/p>\n
    df -h<\/pre>\n
    Now what?<\/p>\n
    Step 5. [OPTION 1] Grow the xfs partition: adjust the partition size using growpart and xfs_growfs<\/h3>\n
    First, use growpart to extend the first partition on the volume:<\/p>\n
    growpart \/dev\/xvdf 1<\/pre>\n
    Now, you can extend the XFS file system (while still mounted) using the xfs_growfs command (see manpage for options):<\/p>\n
    xfs_growfs \/mount\/point<\/pre>\n
    (Without the -D size option, xfs_growfs will expand the file system to the maximum size supported by the device).<\/p>\n
    Step 5. [OPTION 2] Grow the xfs partition: adjust the partition size using fdisk<\/h3>\n
    You can also grow the partition using fdisk.<\/p>\n
    Call\u00a0fdisk on the newly mounted block device<\/h4>\n
    Call fdisk on the block device that represents the new EBS volume that needs resizing:<\/p>\n
    # fdisk \/dev\/xvdf\r\n\r\nWelcome to fdisk (util-linux 2.23.2).\r\n\r\nChanges will remain in memory only, until you decide to write them.\r\nBe careful before using the write command.<\/pre>\n
    Print the partition table of the disk you selected above using the command p:<\/p>\n
    Command (m for help):\u00a0p\r\n\r\nDisk \/dev\/xvdf: 53.7 GB, 53687091200 bytes, 104857600 sectors\r\nUnits = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes\r\nSector size (logical\/physical): 512 bytes \/ 512 bytes\r\nI\/O size (minimum\/optimal): 512 bytes \/ 512 bytes\r\nDisk label type: dos\r\nDisk identifier: 0x9e5f5b78\r\n\r\nDevice Boot Start End Blocks Id System\r\n\/dev\/xvdf1 2048 41943039 20970496 83 Linux<\/pre>\n
    All of a sudden, fdisk has just confirmed your desired new volume size.<\/p>\n
    Delete the data partition in fdisk (but\u00a0don’t write the changes yet!)<\/h4>\n
    Delete the data partition on your volume (don’t worry, your data\u00a0will be preserved, just make sure you select the right partition, which is partition 1 in the example):<\/p>\n
    Command (m for help): d\r\nSelected partition 1\r\nPartition 1 is deleted<\/pre>\n
    How does it feel now?<\/p>\n
    Still worried? Why don’t you create a new partition (see below).<\/p>\n
    Create a new partition on the newly mounted block device in fdisk<\/h4>\n
    Create a new partition in fdisk by using the n command\u00a0with option p for primary and all other options confirmed at their default values. This is how it\u00a0looks in\u00a0our example:<\/p>\n
    Command (m for help): n\r\nPartition type:\r\np primary (0 primary, 0 extended, 4 free)\r\ne extended\r\nSelect (default p): p\r\nPartition number (1-4, default 1):\r\nFirst sector (2048-104857599, default 2048):\r\nUsing default value 2048\r\nLast sector, +sectors or +size{K,M,G} (2048-104857599, default 104857599):\r\nUsing default value 104857599\r\nPartition 1 of type Linux and of size 50 GiB is set<\/pre>\n
    Here you have your partition back.<\/p>\n
    Write changes to the\u00a0device in fdisk<\/h4>\n
    So far, no changes have been written to the disk as of yet. To do this, use the w command (for write):<\/span><\/p>\n
    Command (m for help): w\r\nThe partition table has been altered!\r\n\r\nCalling ioctl() to re-read partition table.\r\nSyncing disks.<\/pre>\n
    Mount the newly expanded data partition<\/h4>\n
    Now is the time to mount the newly expanded data partition:<\/p>\n
    mount \/dev\/xvdf1 \u00a0\/mnt\/www\/<\/pre>\n
    Verify that your data is still on it:<\/p>\n
    ls -l \/mnt\/www\/<\/pre>\n
    The volume size remained unchanged:<\/p>\n
    # df -h\r\nFilesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on\r\n\/dev\/xvda1 10G 2.5G 7.6G 25% \/\r\n(...)\r\n\/dev\/xvdf1 20G 246M 20G 2% \/mnt\/www<\/pre>\n
    Expand the xfs\u00a0file system on the newly expanded partition<\/h4>\n
    To expand the xfs data partition to the maximum size supported by the device, use this command:<\/p>\n
    # xfs_growfs -d \/mnt\/www<\/pre>\n
    You should see roughly this output as a result:<\/p>\n
    meta-data=\/dev\/xvdf1 isize=256 agcount=4, agsize=1310656 blks\r\n= sectsz=512 attr=2, projid32bit=0\r\n= crc=0 finobt=0\r\ndata = bsize=4096 blocks=5242624, imaxpct=25\r\n= sunit=0 swidth=0 blks\r\nnaming =version 2 bsize=4096 ascii-ci=0 ftype=0\r\nlog =internal bsize=4096 blocks=2560, version=2\r\n= sectsz=512 sunit=0 blks, lazy-count=1\r\nrealtime =none extsz=4096 blocks=0, rtextents=0\r\ndata blocks changed from 5242624 to 13106944<\/pre>\n
    \"Expanding<\/a>
    Expanding the xfs-formatted EBS volume with xfs_growfs and the result after expansion<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
    Now you can finally get to admire the new, larger volume size:<\/p>\n
    # df -h\r\nFilesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on\r\n(...)\r\n\/dev\/xvdf1 50G 247M 50G 1% \/mnt\/www<\/pre>\n
    How’s that for\u00a0a reason to celebrate!<\/p>\n
    Adjust \/etc\/fstab<\/h4>\n
    If you would like the volume to mount automatically after each reboot, enter this line into\u00a0\/etc\/fstab (add spaces as you see fit):<\/p>\n
    \/dev\/xvdf1 \/your\/mountpoint xfs  defaults  0 0<\/pre>\n
    Reboot your system to verify that the volumes mount correctly, and you are done.<\/p>\n
    Why don’t you subscribe to our newsletter to receive solutions to your problems, tips, and special offers,\u00a0straight to your email box, for free :<\/p>\n
    [wysija_form id=”1″]<\/p>\n
    Alert:<\/strong> With the Elastic File System (Amazon EFS)<\/a>,\u00a0AWS has created what EBS should have been from the get go: network-attached EC2 volumes-as-a-service that grow as your data grows. They can be accessed from more than one EC2 instance at a time, but they are a bit more expensive than EBS.<\/p>\n
    Related:<\/strong> How to Restore Your Instance Data from a Backup using Snapshots on AWS EC2\/EBS – Cloud Insidr.<\/a><\/p>\n
    Cyber security showdown: AWS versus Microsoft Azure<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
    Expanding an EBS volume is not quite as easy as recreating\u00a0it from a snapshot with\u00a0a larger volume size. It involves a few more steps.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":101011,"featured_media":355,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16,17],"tags":[58,78,63,77,79,280,80],"yoast_head":"\nHow to expand an (xfs) EBS volume on AWS EC2 - CloudInsidr<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow\" \/>\n<meta name=\"googlebot\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta name=\"bingbot\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cloudinsidr.com\/content\/how-to-expand-an-xfs-ebs-volume-on-aws-ec2\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How to expand an (xfs) EBS volume on AWS EC2 - CloudInsidr\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Expanding an EBS volume is not quite as easy as recreating\u00a0it from a snapshot with\u00a0a larger volume size. 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