Moving Volumes
| Chapter 5. Managing Volumes |

## Moving Volumes

There are three main reasons to move volumes:

- To place volumes on other partitions or machines temporarily while repairing or replacing a disk or file server machine.

- To free space on a partition that is becoming overcrowded. One symptom of overcrowding is that users cannot to save files even though the relevant volume is below its quota. The following error message confirms the problem:

         afs: failed to store file (partition full)

  You can track available space on AFS server partitions by using the scout or afsmonitor programs described in Monitoring and Auditing AFS Performance.

- A file server machine is becoming overloaded because it houses many more volumes than other machines of the same size, or has volumes with more popular files in them.

To move a read/write volume, use the vos move command as described in the following instructions. Before attempting to move the volume, the vos command interpreter verifies that there is enough free space for it on the destination partition. If not, it does not attempt the move operation and prints the following message.

       vos: no space on target partition destination_part to move volume volume

To move a read-only volume, you actually remove the volume from the current site by issuing the vos remove command as described in To remove a volume and unmount it. Then define a new site and release the volume to it by issuing the vos addsite and vos release commands as described in To replicate a read/write volume (create a read-only volume).

A backup volume always resides at the same site as its read/write source volume, so you cannot move a backup volume except as part of moving the read/write source. The vos move command automatically deletes the backup version when you move a read/write volume. To create a new backup volume at the new site as soon as the move operation completes, issue the vos backup command as described in To create and mount a backup volume.

### To move a read/write volume

1. Verify that you are listed in the /usr/afs/etc/UserList file. If necessary, issue the bos listusers command, which is fully described in To display the users in the UserList file.

          % bos listusers <machine name>

2. Issue the vos move command to move the volume. Type it on a single line; it appears on multiple lines here only for legibility.

          % vos move <volume name or ID> \ <machine name on source>
                 <partition name on source > \ <machine name on destination> <partition name on
                 destination>

   where

   m

     Is the shortest acceptable abbreviation of move.

   volume name or ID

     Specifies the name or volume ID number of the read/write volume to move.

   machine name on source

     Names the file server machine currently housing the volume.

   partition name on source

     Names the partition currently housing the volume.

   machine name on destination

     Names the file server machine to which to move the volume.

   partition name on destination

     Names the partition to which to move the volume.

   ### Note

   It is best not to halt a vos move operation before it completes, because parts of the volume can be left on both the source and destination machines. For more information, see the command's reference page in the OpenAFS Administration Reference.

3. (Optional) Issue the vos listvldb command to confirm the success of the move. Complete instructions appear in To display VLDB entries.

          % vos listvldb <volume name or ID>

4. If a backup version existed at the read/write volume's previous site, create a new backup at the new site by issuing the vos backup command, which is fully described in To create and mount a backup volume.

          % vos backup <volume name or ID>

Displaying Information About Volumes |  | Synchronizing the VLDB and Volume Headers