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CT320 Partitioning Lab                

Introduction                

For this lab, you will create a new disk partition and use it in various ways.                 

Create a document that will hold your numbered results. Show it to the TA for credit when you’re done.                 

Many commands in this lab will have to be done as the super-user, root. Do this by putting sudo in front of the necessary commands. I won’t clutter the writeup with all the sudos.                 

Note that the opposite of the mount command is umount, not unmount.                 

Part 1 — Boot from DVD                

• Boot from DVD, as shown in the Installation lab.
  • Select “Try Xubuntu”.
  • Do not install Xubuntu again.
• After some time, desktop screen will appear. You’re now booted from the DVD with a RAM volume as your root disk.
• Run gparted, the Gnome Partition Editor.

Part 2 – Create a new partition                

• There should be two large partitions, / (on the left) and /home (on the right).
• If you’re doing this lab in the morning, then the size of your new partition will be 30MB. Otherwise, it will be 60MB.
• Shrink the /home partition, to free space for your new partition.
  • Right-click on /home
  • Select Resize/Move
  • Set Free space following to the size of the new partition (30MB or 60MB).
  • Click the Resize/move button
• Create a new partition in the unused space:
  • Right-click on the unused space.
  • Make it as big as you can (roughly 30MB or 60MB).
  • Change the Label to your name.
  • Click “Add”.
  • Click the green check mark.
  • Let it do its job.
• Close gparted.
• Reboot to Linux from the hard disk, as usual (remove the DVD).

Part 3 — Verify                

• Look at /proc/partitions, figure out which one is the new partition, based on its size.
  • /proc/partitions sizes are in kilobytes.
  • It’ll have a name like sd letter digit, for example, sda2.
  • In commands, put /dev/ in front of the name.
• Record the device name in your document.

Part 4 — Manually mount & unmount                

The mount point for this new partition will be /Spare.                 

• rm -rf /Spare
  • In case there’s one left over from a previous lab.
• mkdir /Spare
• chmod a+rwx /Spare
• uptime >/Spare/up
• mount device-name /Spare
• Is /Spare/up still there?
• Create a few files, named after dogs, in /Spare.
• ls /Spare
• umount /Spare
• What’s in /Spare, now?
• Record your results in your document.

Part 5 — /etc/fstab                

It’s tedious to have to manually mount filesystems. Think of /etc/fstab as setting up an association between directories (mount points) and partitions (file systems).                 

• Edit /etc/fstab, and add an entry to mount your new partition.
  • Find the entry for /home and imitate that.
  • Change the first field to the device name (/dev/sdawhatever) or you can use LABEL=your-name
• umount /Spare
• It should be no longer mounted. How can you tell?
• mount /Spare
  •  Note that no device name is given, just a directory.
• It should be mounted, now. How can you tell?
• Record your results.

Part 6 — Busy due to current directory                

• cd /Spare
• umount /Spare
• How did that go?
• cd /tmp
• umount /Spare
• Record your results.

Part 7 — Busy due to open file                

• mount /Spare
• cd /tmp
• sleep 10m >/Spare/output &
• umount /Spare
• How did that go?
• kill %%
• umount
• Record your results.

Part 8 — Dual Mount                

• mount /Spare
• rm -rf /Extra
• mkdir /Extra
• Manually mount your partition onto /Extra (mount /dev/sdawhatever /Extra), while leaving it also mounted onto /Spare.
• Create a file in /Extra. Did it show up in /Spare?
• Unmount both /Spare and /Extra.
• rm -rf /Extra
• Record your results.

Part 9 — Read-Only                

• Mount /Spare, but do it read-only.
  • man mount is your friend.
• Copy a file to /Spare using the cp command.
• Record the results. If there was an error message, copy it exactly.
• Unmount the /Spare partition

Part 10 — noexec                

Many systems allow non-super-user mounting of CDs and USB drives, but don’t want executables to be run off of those devices.                 

• mount -o noexec /Spare
• cp -a /bin/date /tmp
• /tmp/date
• cp -a /bin/date /Spare
• /Spare/date
• Record the results. If there was an error message, copy it exactly.

Part 11 — Cleanup                

• Unmount the /Spare partition
• rm -rf /Spare
• Run gparted from Linux (don’t use the DVD) and deallocate your new partition. You don’t have to merge it the free space back into /home; you can just leave it unallocated.

Part 12 — Credit                

Show your work to the TA.                 

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