VirtualBox: extend partition

Question

I have virtualbox-4.1.0 with centos-5.6 installed in. Now I would like to extend the VM image, which I previously allocated for virtual machine installation, it was 8Gb, that's not enough now. Is there a way to extend the partition without loosing information?

Actually in centos I have one root fs with my home dir etc. so this partition eventually would need to be resized.

Thanks in advance for suggestions!

Onur Turhan · Answer 1 · 2018-07-31T23:00:27.477

It can be done in 4 steps :

Clone your VMDK to VDI format with VBoxManage Tool.
Resize the disk to create free space with VBoxManage Tool.
Modify the filesystem to allocate free space for your drive with GParted.
Add created disk space to Linux FileSystem.

The detailed steps are below (tested with "Virtual Machine CentOS 6.4" and "VirtualBox 4.2.18");

Observe disk format of the virtualbox file, if it is not *.vdi, convert disk format from *.wmdk to *.vdi. Open windows terminal:
$ VBoxManage clonehd --format VDI "path_of_wmdk_file" "path_of_vdi_file"
Resize disk size of vdi file. Open windows terminal. For example to do disk size ~500 GB => 512000;
$ VBoxManage modifymedium "path_of_vdi_file" --resize 512000
Choose *.vdi file instead of *.wmdk file as disk
Virtual Machine -> Settings -> Storage -> Controller : SATA (Right Click on *.wmdk file) -> Remove Attachment -> Add HardDisk and choose newly created *.vdi file
Download "gparted-live-x.xx.x-x-ixxx.iso" file from http://gparted.sourceforge.net/download.php. Mount this iso file as CD.
Virtual Machine -> Settings -> Storage -> Controller IDE (Right Click) -> Add CD/DVD -> Select gparted-live-x.xx.x-x-ixxx.iso file
Run virtual machine, Virtual Machine will boot from this CD. Choose default values with pressing "Enter", "Enter" ... until Gpart ISO GUI starts. Select tool gpart program and start.
Extend disk size as below;
- Right click on partitions and if "possible" click on "Disable Active Partion".
- Extend Partition as much as possible from GUI (for this case 500GB).
- Right click the partition which is disabled and select "Enable Active Partion".
- Apply and wait until the operations finished.
- Shut down virtual machine.
- Unmount gparted-live-x.xx.x-x-ixxx.iso.
  Virtual Machine -> Settings -> Storage-> Controller IDE (Right Click on gparted-live-x.xx.x-x-ixxx.iso) -> Remove Attachement
- Start the virtual machine.
Open linux terminal and login as root. Run commands below;

 lvm vgdisplay
       => Free  PE / Size       122880 / 480.00 GiB

 lvm lvdisplay /dev/VolGroup/lv_root
       => Current LE             3978

Calculate the sum of the values above. In this case : 122880 + 3978 = 126858 <- will be used in the next command

 lvm lvresize -l 126858 /dev/VolGroup/lv_root

 resize2fs  /dev/VolGroup/lv_root

 lsblk
    ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
    NAME                        MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
    sr0                          11:0    1  1024M  0 rom  
    sda                           8:0    0   500G  0 disk 
        +¦sda1                        8:1    0   500M  0 part /boot
        L¦sda2                        8:2    0 499.5G  0 part 
            +¦VolGroup-lv_root (dm-0) 253:0    0   480G  0 lvm  /
            L¦VolGroup-lv_swap (dm-1) 253:1    0     4G  0 lvm  [SWAP]
    ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Check whether the filesystem extended or not with creating a huge file:

 fallocate -l 480G /test_file

Remove the test file of course:

 rm -rif /test_file

Thanks, it worked well for me with CentOS 6.6 on a Kubuntu 14.04 host. Three notes: VBoxManage was lowercase for me; --resize is the total size, not the increase (in your case ~500 GB is the total); I didn't see any "Disable Active Partion" menu, so I did not disable or activate partitions with gparted, and it seemed to work fine. — Damien, Nov 10 '14 at 18:19
Thanks. Works for me, but I need replace resize2fs by xfs_growfs because my partition uses xfs file system. — Silvio Lucena Junior, Apr 06 '16 at 14:03
gparted won't work for CentOS7 and above. Here is a full solution here: https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/659099/352647 — G Huxley, Jul 20 '21 at 02:32

score 13 · Answer 2 · edited Aug 02 '18 at 17:53

I'm using a CentOS7 virtualbox, and I finally enlarged my partition /dev/mapper/centos-root - gparted doesn't work for me because I do not have a desktop on CentOS7 virtualbox.

Power off your CentOS virtual machine
Go into the directory of your *.vdi image. If you don't know where it is, look at your Virtualbox Manager GUI virtualbox -> settings -> storage -> *.vdi -> location e.g. mine is located under ~/VirtualBox VMs/CentOS7/CentOS.vdi
Back up your image just in case anything goes wrong

$ cp CentOS7.vdi CentOS7.backup.vdi
Resize your virtual storage size, e.g. 200 GB

$ VBoxManage modifyhd CentOS7.vdi --resize 204800
Power on your CentOS virtual machine, issue

$ sudo fdisk -l

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
    /dev/sda1   *        2048     1026047      512000   83  Linux
    /dev/sda2         1026048   209715199   104344576   8e  Linux LVM

Use fdisk utility to delete/create partitions

$ sudo fdisk /dev/sda
You are in the fdisk utility interactive mode, issue following commands: (mostly just follow the default recommendation)

d - delete a partition

2 - select a partition to delete (/dev/sda2 here)

n - create a new partition

p - make it a primary partition

2 - make it on the same partition number as we deleted

<return> - set the starting block (by default)

<return> - set end ending block (by default)

w - write the partition and leave the fdisk interactive mode
Reboot your CentOS machine

$ sudo reboot
Resize the physical volume and verify the new size

$ sudo pvresize /dev/sda2

$ sudo pvscan
Take a look at your logical mapping volume to see what volume you want to enlarge, in my case, /dev/mapper/centos-root
Resize the file system by adding -r option, it will take care of resizing for you

$lvextend -r -l +100%FREE /dev/mapper/centos-root
Resize the file system:

$resize2fs /dev/mapper/fedora-root

For CentOS 7: $xfs_growfs /dev/mapper/fedora-root
Last check:

$df -h.

Reference:https://blog.jyore.com/2013/06/virtualbox-increase-size-of-rhelfedoracentosscientificos-guest-file-system/#comment-2879

This works like charm. One nit: VM with snapshot trees can not do resize, but you can clone a VM from your snapshots and then follow this guide! — harryz, Sep 20 '16 at 06:16
This totally works! The part that confused me was deleting the partition -- apparently this does not delete the data on the partition. Live and learn. — deadprogrammer, Nov 17 '16 at 01:14

score 6 · Answer 3 · edited Mar 20 '17 at 10:18

6

I found this nugget at the link following. I worked perfect for me and only took 5 seconds.

As of VirtualBox 4 they added support for expansion.

VBoxManage modifyhd filename.vdi --resize 46080

That will resize a virtual disk image to 45GB.

https://superuser.com/questions/172651/increasing-disk-space-on-virtualbox

edited Mar 20 '17 at 10:18

Community

1
1

answered Nov 30 '11 at 15:37

gadildafissh

2,243
1
21
26

what about resizing if you are using snapshosts? Now I have a snapshot attached to my hard disk. I don't think is done in the same way. – Kreker Jun 10 '13 at 09:34

tvial · Answer 4 · 2015-08-21T16:37:32.163

4

It can be done with 3 steps :

cloning your VMDK to VDI format using VBoxManage
resize the disk to create free space using VBoxManage
modify the filesystem to allocate free space to your drive, using GParted

Don't forget the last part, otherwise, you will have unallocated free space and your disk will still appear as full.

I wrote a tutorial here to resize your VM Disk

edited Aug 21 '15 at 16:37

answered Feb 07 '13 at 13:26

tvial

612
5
9

It is very important to **stress** that in order to extend *.vdi disk, **one also needs to modify the partition** internally (3rd step). Your tutorial is very useful, although sometimes it's less troublesome to just make a shared folder and have simlink pointed to it :) – soshial Jun 02 '13 at 17:32
Yep, but it's probably not the same need. Let's imagine that you need to install some packages via apt (or whatever), they will be installed on "/" and not a shared folder where you will put your data / websites / applications. – tvial Jul 25 '13 at 09:42
I found [how to do the first two steps](http://stackoverflow.com/a/12456219/457268), yet there is no clear documentation on how to do the last one – k0pernikus Jul 08 '15 at 12:34

Baer · Answer 5 · 2012-11-27T16:53:39.433

1

At some point the VBoxManage utility changed the syntax a little bit. It's worth noting that this doesn't work on all vm types so beware if you have a *.vmdk. An example command to change your HD to 40GB is:

$ VBoxManage modifyhd MyVirtualImage --resize 40960

For reference I am on VirtualBox 4.2.1, Mac 10.8.2

edited Nov 27 '12 at 16:53

answered Nov 27 '12 at 15:51

Baer

3,690
25
24

score 0 · Answer 6 · answered Mar 27 '17 at 16:47

Search for CloneVDI tool on the Oracle VirtualBox forums. It worked for me and is a much easier GUI based program for anyone nervous at the command line. Also allows conversion from fixed to dynamic mode which VBoxManage.exe doesn't support (yet).

https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=22422

score 0 · Answer 7 · answered Nov 17 '11 at 06:50

From the VirtualBox FAQ:

You have to clone the data from the VDI you already have to a new, larger VDI and expand the partition(s). You can use tools like CloneZilla to clone the virtual hard drive to the bigger one and Gparted to increase the partition size. Another method is to use CloneVDI by mpack and clone the VDI with a larger size, then resize the partition(s) with Gparted.

Since 4.0.0, you can use VBoxManage modifyhd --resize to resize the max size of the VDI. You can only make it bigger. After that, use Gparted to increase the partition size inside the VDI.

Alternatively you could attach another VDI and mount your /home there.

score -1 · Answer 8 · edited Jun 20 '20 at 09:12

I spent a long time googling and finally got it working for me. ( before I found this ) And I wanted a place to save my work

use vboxmanage to add space to the disk image

use gparted to resize so all space is used

use blivet-gui to create a new volume :

Below is commands I copied from terminal in fedora :

dnf install blivet-gui  
blivet-gui  
lvremove /dev/mapper/fedora00-00  
lvextend -l +100%FREE /dev/mapper/fedora00-root

VirtualBox: extend partition

8 Answers8

Linked