To-do: Explain the situation with resizing block devices.

1 files changed, 22 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/TODO b/TODO
index 71c9d59e..323dc0b4 100644
--- a/TODO
+++ b/TODO
@@ -27,3 +27,25 @@ Implement febootstrap command.
 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
 
 Complete the Haskell bindings (see discussion on haskell-cafe).
+
+----------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+Practically, resizing the partitions when a block device is resized
+isn't possible.  So for example it's not possible to resize a Fedora
+block device.  If you try to use sfdisk-N to change the boundaries of
+the existing partition to fill up the new space, you get an error that
+the partition is in use.
+
+The reason, I now think, is because LVM is using the partition as a
+PV, and this locks it as far as the kernel is concerned.
+
+Removing the PV [which is what we do in the test suite] isn't
+desirable if the PV contains data you care about.  Rebooting the qemu
+subprocess after the partition table change works, but isn't very
+cool.  I believe what we need to do is to temporarily reconfigure LVM
+(using /etc/lvm/lvm.conf) to ignore the PV, vgscan (which will then
+ignore the PV), make the changes to the partition table, then set the
+LVM configuration back and do a final vgscan.
+
+Need to test the above, and find a nice way to present it through
+the API.