Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Administration Unleashed

CHAPTER 7Managing StorageManaging storage is an important responsibility. Theright solution works seamlessly with little gratitude. Thewrong solution can lead to many headaches and late nightsof trying to recover from failed file systems or inadequatestorage allocation.IN THIS CHAPTER. Understanding Partitioning. Understanding LVM. Understanding RAID. Understanding Clustering andGFS. Using Access Control Lists. Using Disk QuotasDuring installation, you are asked which partitioningmethod to use. You must choose to remove Linux partitionson selected drives and create the default layout,remove all partitions on selected drives and create thedefault layout, use free space on selected drives and createthe default layout, or create a custom layout. If you chooseto create the default layout, the Logical Volume Manager(LVM) is used to divide the hard drive, and then the necessaryLinux mount points are created. Alternatively, if youchoose custom layout, you can instead use software RAIDor create partitions directly on the hard drives. Global FileSystems (GFS) and clustering are two more storage solutionsavailable with Red Hat Enterprise Linux.This chapter explains these partitioning options so you candetermine which is best for you and you can learn how tomanage them. It also discusses how to use access controllists to limit access to filesystems as well as how to enforcedisk usage limits known as quotas. Analyze how yourcompany uses storage and decide which options are bestfor you.Understanding PartitioningLVM and RAID offer benefits such as resizing, striping, andcombining multiple hard drives into logical physicaldevices. Sometimes it is necessary to just create partitionson the hard drives. Even when using RAID, partitions arecreated before the LVM or RAID layer is implemented.