Department of Computer Science and Engineering
13 – Storage Management
Basic Commands for Storage Partitions
fdisk
fdisk is used to check the partitions on a disk.
The fdisk command can display the partitions and details like file system type.
cbkpc@Ubuntu22:~$ sudo fdisk -l
[sudo] password for cbkpc:
Disk /dev/loop0: 61.89 MiB, 64901120 bytes, 126760 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk /dev/loop1: 4 KiB, 4096 bytes, 8 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk /dev/loop2: 63.45 MiB, 66535424 bytes, 129952 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
sfdisk utility purpose similar to fdisk, but with more features.
sfdisk
cbkpc@Ubuntu22:~$ sudo sfdisk -l
Disk /dev/loop0: 61.89 MiB, 64901120 bytes, 126760 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk /dev/loop1: 4 KiB, 4096 bytes, 8 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
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cfdisk
cfdisk is a linux partition editor with an interactive user interface based on ncurses.
It can be used to list out the existing partitions as well as create or modify them.
cbkpc@Ubuntu22:~$ sudo cfdisk /dev/sda3
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parted
partedutility is to list out partitions and modify them if needed.
cbkpc@Ubuntu22:~$ sudo parted –l
Model: ATA VBOX HARDDISK (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 26.8GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: gpt
Disk Flags:
Number Start End Size File system Name Flags
1 1049kB 2097kB 1049kB bios_grub
2 2097kB 540MB 538MB fat32 EFI System Partition boot, esp
3 540MB 26.8GB 26.3GB ext4
df
df is not a partitioning utility, but prints out details about only mounted file systems.
The list generated by df even includes file systems that are not real disk partitions.
o df -h
cbkpc@Ubuntu22:~$ df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
tmpfs 233M 1.6M 231M 1% /run
/dev/sda3 24G 11G 12G 48% /
tmpfs 1.2G 0 1.2G 0% /dev/shm
tmpfs 5.0M 4.0K 5.0M 1% /run/lock
/dev/sda2 512M 5.3M 507M 2% /boot/efi
tmpfs 233M 152K 232M 1% /run/user/1000
Note:df shows only the mounted file systems or partitions and not all.
pydf
pydf is an improved version of df, written in python.
Prints out all the hard disk partitions in a easy to read manner.
lsblk
Lists out all the storage blocks, which includes disk partitions and optical drives.
Details include the total size of the partition/block and the mount point if any.
cbkpc@Ubuntu22:~$ lsblk
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
loop0 7:0 0 61.9M 1 loop /snap/core20/1405
loop1 7:1 0 4K 1 loop /snap/bare/5
loop2 7:2 0 63.5M 1 loop /snap/core20/1891
loop3 7:3 0 155.6M 1 loop /snap/firefox/1232
loop4 7:4 0 73.8M 1 loop /snap/core22/750
loop5 7:5 0 248.8M 1 loop /snap/gnome-3-38-2004/99
loop6 7:6 0 349.7M 1 loop /snap/gnome-3-38-2004/140
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loop7 7:7 0 460.6M 1 loop /snap/gnome-42-2204/102
loop8 7:8 0 460.7M 1 loop /snap/gnome-42-2204/105
loop9 7:9 0 81.3M 1 loop /snap/gtk-common-themes/1534
loop10 7:10 0 45.9M 1 loop /snap/snap-store/575
loop11 7:11 0 12.3M 1 loop /snap/snap-store/959
loop12 7:12 0 91.7M 1 loop /snap/gtk-common-themes/1535
loop13 7:13 0 53.3M 1 loop /snap/snapd/19361
loop14 7:14 0 284K 1 loop /snap/snapd-desktop-integration/10
loop15 7:15 0 452K 1 loop /snap/snapd-desktop-integration/83
sda 8:0 0 25G 0 disk
├─sda1 8:1 0 1M 0 part
├─sda2 8:2 0 513M 0 part /boot/efi
└─sda3 8:3 0 24.5G 0 part /
sr0 11:0 1 1024M 0 rom
blkid
Prints the block device (partitions and storage media) attributes like uuid and file system
type. Does not report the space on the partitions.
cbkpc@Ubuntu22:~$ blkid
/dev/sda3: UUID="ea4ba3fc-f651-4ffa-a84c-fec055d923f3" BLOCK_SIZE="4096"
TYPE="ext4" PARTUUID="6f6e0051-4b82-438c-8975-6fde7db81de3"
/dev/loop1: TYPE="squashfs"
/dev/loop8: TYPE="squashfs"
/dev/loop15: TYPE="squashfs"
/dev/loop6: TYPE="squashfs"
/dev/loop13: TYPE="squashfs"
/dev/loop4: TYPE="squashfs"
/dev/loop11: TYPE="squashfs"
/dev/loop2: TYPE="squashfs"
/dev/loop0: TYPE="squashfs"
/dev/loop9: TYPE="squashfs"
/dev/loop7: TYPE="squashfs"
/dev/sda2: UUID="B82A-5E06" BLOCK_SIZE="512" TYPE="vfat" PARTLABEL="EFI
System Partition" PARTUUID="7fda5595-7569-452d-9c38-b404173541f7"
/dev/loop14: TYPE="squashfs"
/dev/loop5: TYPE="squashfs"
/dev/loop12: TYPE="squashfs"
/dev/loop3: TYPE="squashfs"
/dev/loop10: TYPE="squashfs"
Operating System and Administration - 20CS42P
Department of Computer Science and Engineering
hwinfo
The hwinfo is a general purpose hardware information tool and can be used to print out
the disk and partition list.
The output however does not print details about each partition like the above commands.
o hwinfo --block --short
inxi
inxi command display information about various hardware components present on the
system.
To display information about the disk drives and storage devices use the "-D" option with
inxi.
o inxi -D -xx
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Logical Volume Management (LVM)
LVM, or Logical Volume Management, is a storage device management technology that
gives users the power to pool and abstract the physical layout of component storage
devices for easier and flexible administration.
The main advantages of LVM are increased abstraction, flexibility, and control.
Logical volumes can have meaningful names like “databases” or “root-backup”.
Volumes can be resized dynamically as space requirements change and migrated between
physical devices within the pool on a running system or exported easily.
LVM also offers advanced features like snapshotting, striping, and mirroring.
LVM Storage Management Structures
LVM functions by layering abstractions on top of physical storage devices. The basic layers that
LVM uses, starting with the most primitive, are.
Physical Volumes:
o LVM utility prefix: pv...
o Description: Physical block devices or other disk-like devices (for example, other
devices created by device mapper, like RAID arrays) are used by LVM as the raw
building material for higher levels of abstraction. Physical volumes are regular
storage devices. LVM writes a header to the device to allocate it for management.
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Volume Groups:
o LVM utility prefix: vg...
o Description: LVM combines physical volumes into storage pools known as
volume groups. Volume groups abstract the characteristics of the underlying
devices and function as a unified logical device with combined storage capacity of
the component physical volumes.
Logical Volumes:
o LVM utility prefix: lv... (generic LVM utilities might begin with lvm...)
o Description: A volume group can be sliced up into any number of logical
volumes. Logical volumes are functionally equivalent to partitions on a physical
disk, but with much more flexibility. Logical volumes are the primary component
that users and applications will interact with.
Each volume within a volume group is segmented into small, fixed-size chunks called
extents. The size of the extents is determined by the volume group (all volumes within the group
conform to the same extent size).
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