I have to partition again my disk, too little space for root partition,
so i must save my /home partition in a temporary external disk (all the
files, of course the hidden too), shrink the /home partition and enlarge
the root one.
a cp command is enough for the migration of the /home files?
and which parameters add to the command?
And could I verify the correct migration then, mounting the /home on the external disc?
Tanks in advance.

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On Sun, 05 Apr 2026 04:24:43 -0400, kyuzo <kyuzo@tenno.com> wrote:

I have to partition again my disk, too little space for root partition,
so i must save my /home partition in a temporary external disk (all the files, of course the hidden too), shrink the /home partition and enlarge
the root one.
a cp command is enough for the migration of the /home files?
and which parameters add to the command?
And could I verify the correct migration then, mounting the /home on the external disc?
Tanks in advance.

I"ve used the following.

Make sure the external disk is is a linux file system that will support ownership,
permissions, hardlinks and soft links, and that it has enough space.

Reboot, switch to a console login, and login as root. This makes sure all files normally
in use when logged in as the regular user are closed.

Mount the external disk

# mkdir -p /BKUP

Replace sda11 in the following command with the correct partition

# mount /dev/sda11 /BKUP

Replace /home/dave in the following command with the correct username.
Don't forget the trailing / on the paths
Double check the paths to make sure there are no typos

# rsync -auvxSP --specials --delete --exclude="lost+found" /home/dave/ /BKUP/home/dave/

To recover the files if needed, repeat the process, reversing the order of the directories.

Regards, Dave Hodgins

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You o know that you can link to another partition. For example I have
/home on a directory called /local. So /home is linked to /local/home.
It is silly to have /home on /, since / gets replaced on upgrade, making
/home be on a partition with major changes is dangerous.
Or you could put /usr/share onto /local say and link /usr/share to that directory.
rsync -av /usr/share /local/usrshare
rm -rf /usr/share
ln -sf /local/usrshare /usr/share


Use rsync not cp to copy files. rsync goes to great pains to make sure
that what is transfered is the same as what was in the original. cp
does not.

On 2026-04-05, kyuzo <kyuzo@tenno.com> wrote:

I have to partition again my disk, too little space for root partition,
so i must save my /home partition in a temporary external disk (all the files, of course the hidden too), shrink the /home partition and enlarge
the root one.
a cp command is enough for the migration of the /home files?
and which parameters add to the command?
And could I verify the correct migration then, mounting the /home on the external disc?
Tanks in advance.

--- MBSE BBS v1.1.7 (Linux-x86_64)
* Origin: A noiseless patient Spider (2:250/1@fidonet)

Il 06/04/26 03:54, William Unruh ha scritto:

You o know that you can link to another partition. For example I have
/home on a directory called /local. So /home is linked to /local/home.
It is silly to have /home on /, since / gets replaced on upgrade, making /home be on a partition with major changes is dangerous.
Or you could put /usr/share onto /local say and link /usr/share to that directory.
rsync -av /usr/share /local/usrshare
rm -rf /usr/share
ln -sf /local/usrshare /usr/share

Thanks a lot, all of you!
My problem was a stupid partition of a 1GB disc, where I dedicated only
15GB for / partition and the rest for /home one.
It was good 10 years ago (my pc is older than that) but now it is not
enough.


--- MBSE BBS v1.1.7 (Linux-x86_64)
* Origin: A noiseless patient Spider (2:250/1@fidonet)

On 2026-04-06, kyuzo <kyuzo@tenno.com> wrote:

Il 06/04/26 03:54, William Unruh ha scritto:

You o know that you can link to another partition. For example I have
/home on a directory called /local. So /home is linked to /local/home.
It is silly to have /home on /, since / gets replaced on upgrade, making
/home be on a partition with major changes is dangerous.
Or you could put /usr/share onto /local say and link /usr/share to that
directory.
rsync -av /usr/share /local/usrshare
rm -rf /usr/share
ln -sf /local/usrshare /usr/share

Thanks a lot, all of you!
My problem was a stupid partition of a 1GB disc, where I dedicated only
15GB for / partition and the rest for /home one.
It was good 10 years ago (my pc is older than that) but now it is not enough.

Nope it is not, especially not with /var also in /, with all of the log
files. (my /usr is over 15GB-- near 20GB) and on another server 36GB


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