How to move /usr to a new partition?

Question

My /usr folder needs to get moved to a new partition. How can I do this without erasing the contents?

Can this be done while Ubuntu is running, or do I need to use the LiveCD for this?

Answer 1

It would be safest to use a Live CD, but you could do:

• copy all the files to a new partition, making sure that the contents of /usr do not change while you are doing this.
• edit /etc/fstab so that /usr will be mounted on the next reboot
• reboot
• delete the old files

See below for details on each step.

Note that you can't mount the new partition on /usr while running as there will be lots of files in /usr that will be open.

Copying the files

I would use cp -a. -a is the archive option. From the man page:

-a, --archive
          same as -dR --preserve=all
...
-d     same as --no-dereference --preserve=links
...
-P, --no-dereference
          never follow symbolic links in SOURCE
...
--preserve[=ATTR_LIST]
          preserve      the      specified      attributes       (default:
          mode,ownership,timestamps),  if  possible additional attributes:
          context, links, xattr, all
...
-R, -r, --recursive
          copy directories recursively

Editing /etc/fstab

You need to know the UUID of your new partition. You can see the mapping by doing:

$ ls -l /dev/disk/by-uuid/

or

$ sudo blkid

And then add this line to /etc/fstab:

UUID=634c31a5-e27c-4e33-ac67-2e22491a30c2 /usr           ext4    defaults        0       2

Change the UUID to your UUID, and change ext4 to be the file system type you are using - you should know this if you have set up the partition.

Delete the old files

After the reboot, the old files in /usr on the root partition will be hidden by the new partition mounted on /usr. But we can use some mount bind trickery to get to the old files and then delete them.

$ sudo mount --bind / /mnt
$ sudo rm -rf /mnt/usr/*
$ sudo umount /mnt

But some slight mistyping (say, hitting Enter when you'd only typed sudo rm -rf /mnt ) could cause disaster, so I would only use this method if you were very confident in what you were doing, really couldn't deal with any downtime, or had no physical access to the machine and hence were unable to boot off a live CD or live USB stick.

Answer 2

Since most libraries that are used are in /usr, I would not recommend to move this directory while running Ubuntu. In fact, you probably get error messages when you try to do this. Hence, the best is to use the LiveCD.

You can use several possibilities to move/copy the files cp, rsync etc. you want to make sure that any symlinks are created and not just copied. cp and rsync both have options for this.

After moving the files to the other partition you need to add another mount in /etc/fstab to mount the new partition to /usr.

Answer 3

This is how I've done it (following the Hamish's answer and the comments):

1. Copy all the files the newly created partition (replace with the location of your partition, it should look similar to mine):

    rsync -avz /usr/* /media/aleksandar/750b84e2-e65f-4309-ade5-5af0033a937c 
   

2. Edit /etc/fstab (same as in Hamish's answer, of course, replace xxxxxx with your UUID)

    UUID=xxxxxx/usr           ext4    defaults        0       2
   

3. Reboot the system

4. After rebooting, open System Monitor or similar application to see whether your new /usr partition is mounted, and to safety-check whether everything went as planned.

5. After checking that everything is alright, you can delete your old /usr partition. I will keep mine just in case something goes wrong.

Answer 4

I performed a migration of the /usr partition but I had some issues which I will be detailing in the following lines:

• issues on /etc/fstab at the moment to mount by UUID (specially when u restart the OS), getting the error UUID specified does not exist.

Installation

Linux Distribution: Ubuntu 18 (x86_64)

The steps I performed were the following (/dev/vda will be my new disk):

• Start the system in Recovery Mode or single user.
• Validate that non of the files of /usr are being used:

lsof /usr

• Create the new directory:

mkdir -p /usr_new

• Create a pvs, vgs and lvs partitions:

pvcreate /dev/vda
vgcreate data_vg /dev/vda
lvcreate -l 100%FREE -n usr data_vg

• Make a filesystem of the lv partition ( to identify the full path of the lv, execute lvdisplay) and mount the partition to the new directory /usr_new:

mkfs.ext4 /dev/data_vg/usr
mount -t ext4 /dev/data_vg/usr /usr_new

• Move the content of the usr partition to the new one:

cd /usr
find . -depth -print0 | cpio --null -pvdm /usr_new/

• Rename the old one and mount to the new one:

mv -v /usr /usr_old
umount /usr_new
mkdir /usr
mount -t ext4 /dev/data_vg/usr /usr

• Make permanent changes on /etc/fstab file ( add the following line to the end of the file):

/dev/mapper/data_vg-usr /usr    ext4    defaults    0   0

• Confirm that mounts are working as expected:

mount -a

• Reboot the system:

init 6

Troubleshooting

In case you face incidents during the boot for mount incidents, take into consideration the following steps to fix / debug the issue:

• From the grub options, type e and add the following text after the vmlinuz arguments:

• Press control + x, and boot from the edited option (the first one most probably)

• If you are addressed to the initramfs terminal, type the following:

initramfs > chroot /root

• You will be moved on to your root system partition, from there try to check the content of the /etc/fstab and made the required changes, or return the system like it was before.

$ exit
initramfs > reboot

Answer 5

I needed to move /usr folder from the root partition to a new one, because the disk was full. It was a sort of "temporary" system, so it was ok for me to use an available 16 gig stick, the only thing I could spare at the moment. I recall here the steps I followed, if they are of any help for anyone.

make a new GPT, new ext4 (g, n & w options) on the stick. For me it was on sdd, please be carefull, find which is yours

sudo fdisk -l /dev/sdd

make filesystem

sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdd1

mount somewhere the stick

sudo mkdir /mnt/16G
sudo mount /dev/sdd1 /mnt/16G

copy everything to the stick (-a=keep permissions, -h=human readable) (instead of "cp -r /usr /mnt/16G" use rsync)

rsync -ah --progress /usr /mnt/16G

find the UUID of the stick

sudo blkid

put it in fstab

sudo nano /etc/fstab
    UUID=40xxxx3f-exx8-4xx3-9xxx-xx055xx34xx5 /usr          ext4    defaults        0       2

poweroff

sudo poweroff

boot with a LiveUsb ubuntu and rename original /usr to something else, like /usr1

create a new empty folder on the root partition and name it "usr", for the stick to be mounted on, as stated in fstab. Otherwise you will get a nice initramfs on next boot (sorry, I haven't tested Hamish Downer's advise for [$ sudo mount --bind / /mnt] [$ sudo rm -rf /mnt/usr/*] [$ sudo umount /mnt])

reboot to the normal installation

Hope I didn't forget or messed up anything!

Edit: You can now remove /mnt/16G and IF everything is nice 'n' smooth, delete the /usr1 to regain the space!