How To Upgrade System with Separate /var Partition
About
There are several systems that use a separate /var partition for different reasons. The majority of computers still use the older IDE disks, sometimes with additional SATA disks. Since the IDE disk drivers were modified to use the same naming as SATA disks, the upgrade mechanism has to deal with device-name changes during the upgrade process.
For example
openSUSE 10.2 openSUSE 10.3 ------------------------------------------------------------------ /dev/sda5 --> /dev/sda5 /dev/hda6 --> /dev/sda6 (system doesn't have any SATA disk) /dev/hda6 --> /dev/sdb6 (system has one SATA disk -- /dev/sda) /dev/hdb2 --> /dev/sdb2 (system doesn't have any SATA disk) /dev/hdb2 --> /dev/sdc2 (system has one SATA disk -- /dev/sda)
The device names translation is disk-driver and Kernel-dependent and cannot be easily guessed up.
If a system uses Mount by device name, e.g., /dev/hdb5, the system to be upgraded is not listed in the overview of partitions. One has to click on Show All Partitions check-box to list it.
Moreover, if the system uses more than two hard disks, the upgrade fails because with the current code it is nearly impossible to guess the new disk name.
This article describes an easy workaround how to upgrade such system with several partitions on a several disks with a mixed environment of more than two IDE and SATA disks. Even if it describes the worst case, it applies, of course, to the other ones.
Making the Upgrade Possible
The workaround is simple and can be done by YaST. All we need to do is to use another method for mounting the /var partition than the Device name.
- Boot the old system (not the installation media).
- Start YaST Partitioner: YaST --> System --> Partitioner.
- Select the /var partition.
- Click on the [Edit] button to change the properties.
- Click on the [Fstab Options].
- For Mount in /etc/fstab select one of the listed options except the Device name option (Volume label, UUID, Device ID, 'Device Path).
- Accept the changes.
- In the base window with list of partitions, click on the [Apply] button and confirm the change.
- [Quit] the YaST Partitioner.
- Reboot to the installation media to proceed with the upgrade.
Example
This is an example of system spread over three different disks:
/dev/hda6 / ext3 acl,user_xattr 1 1 /dev/hda3 /srv xfs defaults 1 2 /dev/hdb1 swap swap defaults 0 0 /dev/hdb2 /opt reiserfs acl,user_xattr 1 2 /dev/hdb3 /var reiserfs acl,user_xattr 1 2 /dev/sda2 /usr reiserfs acl,user_xattr 1 2
After changing the mounting-method:
/dev/hda6 / ext3 acl,user_xattr 1 1 /dev/hda3 /srv xfs defaults 1 2 /dev/hdb1 swap swap defaults 0 0 /dev/hdb2 /opt reiserfs acl,user_xattr 1 2 LABEL=102_4U_var /var reiserfs acl,user_xattr 1 2 /dev/sda2 /usr reiserfs acl,user_xattr 1 2
Screen-shots
YaST Disk - Overview of partitions
