Extending HP SmartArray RAID array and expanding root file system using LVM

Not too ancient Linux distrubutions use LVM even when installed on RAID array (I used to mistake LVM for RAID some time ago). The multitiered construction becomes a bit overcomplicated: you use RAID to merge hard drives into one logical drive, which is split into partitions, which are then merged into logical volumes. What should we do to grow our root file system onto new hard drives when the RAID size is not enough anymore?

Firstly, insert the new drives into the slots and then use hpacucli utility to check that they are recognized now:

hpacucli ctrl all config show

New drives should appear in the 'unassigned' section. Now, merge them into the existing array:

hpacucli ctrl slot=1 array A add drives=allunassigned

Now, wait till RAID finishes the work. It may take some hours. When it's over, attach these drives to an existing logical drive:

hpacucli ctrl slot=1 ld 1 modify size=max

If you try to run fdisk/gdisk now, you will not see the free space, because it was not available to the operating system during the boot time. You'll have to reboot. After reboot, use fdisk or gdisk to create a new partition on the free disk space. The partition must be assigned type 8E00 (Linux LVM). The operating system will not recognize the new partition immediately. You may try using partprobe command, but I preferred to reboot once again.

Next, you have, in sequence, to create LVM physical volume, extend LVM volume group onto the new volume and extend LVM logical volume to use the free space:

pvcreate /dev/cciss/c0d0p3 vgextend VolGroup00 /dev/cciss/c0d0p3 lvextend -l+429214 /dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol01

To determine the sector number you will use in lvextend command, find the information about free physical extents in the output of vgdisplay:

vgdisplay |grep Free Free PE / Size 429214 / 1.64 TiB

And, finally, grow the file system. If you are conservative enough to use the default ext4 system, you can do this using:

resize2fs -p /dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol01