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Expand Linux Virtual Machine Disk Partition using GParted

Wednesday, 30 November 2022

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How to increase the size of a Linux Virtual Machine hard disk using GParted

In this example, we are increasing the size of a hard disk for a Debian Linux virtual machine running on Proxmox

Running the df command shows that the primary partition /dev/sda1 is 100% used and has run out of space

Make sure you take a backup of the Virtual Machine before resizing the disk partitions!!

Expand the Virtual Hard Disk in Proxmox

Hardware - select Hard Disk - Resize disk

Increase the size of the disk, e.g. add 10GB

Download GParted

https://gparted.org/download.php

gparted-live-1.4.0-6-amd64.iso

Attach GParted ISO to Virtual Machine

Hardware - select CD/DVD drive - Edit

Attach the GParted ISO

Boot VM into GParted

Start the VM and connect to the console

Press ESC for the Boot Menu

Enter 2. to boot from DVD/CD

GParted Live (Default settings)

Dont touch keymap

Select language e.g. 02 British English

Enter 0 to continue and start GParted

Resize Linux disk partition

The 10GB free space has been allocated at the end of the disk after the swap partition.
Because we can't move or resize the swap partition, we will need to delete and re-create it.

The Linux swap partition only contains temporary data, so there is minimal risk in removing it.

Delete the swap partition

Make a note of the file system type and size of the swap partition before deleting it

Select the swap partition - Partition - Delete

Select the /dev/sda2 extended partition and delete it as well

Apply all operations

Apply

Resize the primary partition

Select the primary partition /dev/sda1
Partition - Resize/Move

Change the new size and free space following to leave 1GB for the swap partition that we need to re-create

Apply all operations

Create new extended partition

Select the free space at the end of the drive
Partition - New

New size 1024
Create as extended partition

Apply all operations

Create swap partition

Select the free space in the newly created extended partition /dev/sda2

Partition - New

New size 1023
File system: linux-swap

Apply all operations

Swap partition has been re-created at the end of the disk, and the primary partition /dev/sda1 has been expanded

Exit GParted and shutdown VM

Click Exit

Shutdown

Detach the GParted ISO from the VM

Update the swap partition UUID (Unique ID)

After changing the disk partitions, you might get these errors when you boot the VM, and the swap partition will fail to mount.

This also causes a boot delay of one and a half minutes

Error: A start job is running for /dev/disk/by-uuid

Error: Timed out waiting for device /dev/disk/by-uuid.
Dependency failed for swap

To fix this, we will need to find the UUID (Unique ID) of the swap partition and update /etc/fstab

Check if the swap partition is mounted by running the swapon --show command

In this example, the swap partition isn't mounted