Storage & LVM Administration in Ubuntu Linux

Table of Contents

1. Challenge

   Partition Disks and Create Filesystems

   To start things off, you will inventory the attached storage using lsblk, fdisk -l, and blkid, then partition the first disk with the interactive gdisk editor to create an ext4 partition and a swap partition. You will format the new partitions with mkfs.ext4 and mkswap, then verify filesystem integrity on the unmounted ext4 partition with fsck.ext4 before placing it into service.

2. Challenge

   Mount, Unmount, and Persist Filesystems

   Next, you will bring the new storage online by mounting the archive filesystem manually with mount, inspecting it with df -h and findmnt, and persisting the mount in /etc/fstab using a UUID so it survives reboots. You will also activate and persist swap with swapon, verify it with swapon --show and free -h, and stand up an on-demand tmpfs scratch area through a systemd .mount unit as a more flexible alternative to static /etc/fstab entries.

3. Challenge

   Manage Logical Volumes with LVM

   To finish things off, you will take a quick detour through the XFS toolset with mkfs.xfs, xfs_info, and wipefs, then build a complete LVM storage stack from the ground up. You will initialize physical volumes with pvcreate, group them with vgcreate, provision a logical volume with lvcreate, and inspect the stack with tools such as pvdisplay, vgdisplay, lvdisplay, pvs, and vgs. Finally, you will validate the design through online expansion and live data migration by extending the logical volume with lvextend and resize2fs, expanding the volume group across a second disk with vgextend, and migrating data live between disks with pvmove.