4.19. Partitioning Your System
Note
Note
/boot/efi/
partition of approximately 100 MB and of type FAT (VFAT), a swap partition of at least 512 MB, and an appropriately-sized root (/
) partition.

Figure 4.16. Partitioning with Disk Druid on x86, AMD64, and Intel® 64 Systems
4.19.1. Graphical Display of Hard Drive(s)
4.19.2. Disk Druid's Buttons
- Partitions section. Selecting opens a dialog box. Some or all of the fields can be edited, depending on whether the partition information has already been written to disk.: Used to modify attributes of the partition currently selected in theYou can also edit free space as represented in the graphical display to create a new partition within that space. Either highlight the free space and then select thebutton, or double-click on the free space to edit it.
- To make a RAID device, you must first create (or reuse existing) software RAID partitions. Once you have created two or more software RAID partitions, selectto join the software RAID partitions into a RAID device.
- Current Disk Partitions section. You will be asked to confirm the deletion of any partition.: Used to remove the partition currently highlighted in the
- Disk Druid to its original state. All changes made will be lost if you the partitions.: Used to restore
- It should only be used if you have experience using RAID. To read more about RAID, see the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Deployment Guide.: Used to provide redundancy to any or all disk partitions.To make a RAID device, you must first create software RAID partitions. Once you have created two or more software RAID partitions, selectto join the software RAID partitions into a RAID device.
- It should only be used if you have experience using LVM. To read more about LVM, see the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Deployment Guide. Note, LVM is only available in the graphical installation program.: Allows you to create an LVM logical volume. The role of LVM (Logical Volume Manager) is to present a simple logical view of underlying physical storage space, such as a hard drive(s). LVM manages individual physical disks — or to be more precise, the individual partitions present on them.To create an LVM logical volume, you must first create partitions of type physical volume (LVM). Once you have created one or more physical volume (LVM) partitions, selectto create an LVM logical volume.
4.19.3. Partition Fields
- Device: This field displays the partition's device name.
- Mount Point/RAID/Volume: A mount point is the location within the directory hierarchy at which a volume exists; the volume is "mounted" at this location. This field indicates where the partition is mounted. If a partition exists, but is not set, then you need to define its mount point. Double-click on the partition or click the button.
- Type: This field shows the partition's file system type (for example, ext2, ext3, or vfat).
- Format: This field shows if the partition being created will be formatted.
- Size (MB): This field shows the partition's size (in MB).
- Start: This field shows the cylinder on your hard drive where the partition begins.
- End: This field shows the cylinder on your hard drive where the partition ends.
4.19.4. Recommended Partitioning Scheme
4.19.4.1. Itanium systems
- A
/boot/efi/
partition (100 MB minimum) — the partition mounted on/boot/efi/
contains all the installed kernels, the initrd images, and ELILO configuration files.Warning
You must create a/boot/efi/
partition of type VFAT and at least 100 MB in size as the first primary partition. - A swap partition (at least 256 MB) — swap partitions are used to support virtual memory. In other words, data is written to a swap partition when there is not enough RAM to store the data your system is processing.In years past, the recommended amount of swap space increased linearly with the amount of RAM in the system. But because the amount of memory in modern systems has increased into the hundreds of gigabytes, it is now recognized that the amount of swap space that a system needs is a function of the memory workload running on that system. However, given that swap space is usually designated at install time, and that it can be difficult to determine beforehand the memory workload of a system, we recommend determining system swap using the following table.
Table 4.2. Recommended System Swap Space
Amount of RAM in the System Recommended Amount of Swap Space 4GB of RAM or less a minimum of 2GB of swap space 4GB to 16GB of RAM a minimum of 4GB of swap space 16GB to 64GB of RAM a minimum of 8GB of swap space 64GB to 256GB of RAM a minimum of 16GB of swap space 256GB to 512GB of RAM a minimum of 32GB of swap space Note that you can obtain better performance by distributing swap space over multiple storage devices, particularly on systems with fast drives, controllers, and interfaces. - A root partition (3.0 GB - 5.0 GB) — this is where "
/
" (the root directory) is located. In this setup, all files (except those stored in/boot/efi
) are on the root partition.A 3.0 GB partition allows you to install a minimal installation, while a 5.0 GB root partition lets you perform a full installation, choosing all package groups.
4.19.4.2. x86, AMD64, and Intel® 64 systems
- A swap partition (at least 256 MB) — swap partitions are used to support virtual memory. In other words, data is written to a swap partition when there is not enough RAM to store the data your system is processing.In years past, the recommended amount of swap space increased linearly with the amount of RAM in the system. But because the amount of memory in modern systems has increased into the hundreds of gigabytes, it is now recognized that the amount of swap space that a system needs is a function of the memory workload running on that system. However, given that swap space is usually designated at install time, and that it can be difficult to determine beforehand the memory workload of a system, we recommend determining system swap using the following table.
Table 4.3. Recommended System Swap Space
Amount of RAM in the System Recommended Amount of Swap Space 4GB of RAM or less a minimum of 2GB of swap space 4GB to 16GB of RAM a minimum of 4GB of swap space 16GB to 64GB of RAM a minimum of 8GB of swap space 64GB to 256GB of RAM a minimum of 16GB of swap space 256GB to 512GB of RAM a minimum of 32GB of swap space Note that you can obtain better performance by distributing swap space over multiple storage devices, particularly on systems with fast drives, controllers, and interfaces. - A
/boot/
partition (250 MB) — the partition mounted on/boot/
contains the operating system kernel (which allows your system to boot Red Hat Enterprise Linux), along with files used during the bootstrap process. Due to limitations, creating a native ext3 partition to hold these files is required. For most users, a 250 MB boot partition is sufficient.Note
If your hard drive is more than 1024 cylinders (and your system was manufactured more than two years ago), you may need to create a/boot/
partition if you want the/
(root) partition to use all of the remaining space on your hard drive.Note
If you have a RAID card, be aware that some BIOSes do not support booting from the RAID card. In cases such as these, the/boot/
partition must be created on a partition outside of the RAID array, such as on a separate hard drive. - A
root
partition (3.0 GB - 5.0 GB) — this is where "/
" (the root directory) is located. In this setup, all files (except those stored in/boot
) are on the root partition.A 3.0 GB partition allows you to install a minimal installation, while a 5.0 GB root partition lets you perform a full installation, choosing all package groups. - A
home
partition (at least 100 MB) — for storing user data separately from system data. This will be a dedicated partition within a volume group for the/home
directory. This will enable you to upgrade or reinstall Red Hat Enterprise Linux without erasing user data files.
Warning
/var
on a network filesystem (for example, NFS, iSCSI, or NBD) The /var
directory contains critical data that must be read from or written to during the boot process before establishing network services.
/var/spool
, /var/www
or other subdirectories on a separate network disk, just not the complete /var
filesystem.
4.19.5. Adding Partitions
Note

Figure 4.17. Creating a New Partition
- Mount Point: Enter the partition's mount point. For example, if this partition should be the root partition, enter
/
; enter/boot
for the/boot
partition, and so on. You can also use the pull-down menu to choose the correct mount point for your partition. For a swap partition the mount point should not be set - setting the filesystem type to swap is sufficient. - File System Type: Using the pull-down menu, select the appropriate file system type for this partition. For more information on file system types, refer to Section 4.19.5.1, “File System Types”.
- Allowable Drives: This field contains a list of the hard disks installed on your system. If a hard disk's box is highlighted, then a desired partition can be created on that hard disk. If the box is not checked, then the partition will never be created on that hard disk. By using different checkbox settings, you can have Disk Druid place partitions where you need them, or let Disk Druid decide where partitions should go.
- Size (MB): Enter the size (in megabytes) of the partition. Note, this field starts with 100 MB; unless changed, only a 100 MB partition will be created.
- Additional Size Options: Choose whether to keep this partition at a fixed size, to allow it to "grow" (fill up the available hard drive space) to a certain point, or to allow it to grow to fill any remaining hard drive space available.If you choose Fill all space up to (MB), you must give size constraints in the field to the right of this option. This allows you to keep a certain amount of space free on your hard drive for future use.
- Force to be a primary partition: Select whether the partition you are creating should be one of the first four partitions on the hard drive. If unselected, the partition is created as a logical partition. Refer to Section 26.1.3, “Partitions within Partitions — An Overview of Extended Partitions”, for more information.
- Encrypt: Choose whether to encrypt the partition so that the data stored on it cannot be accessed without a passphrase, even if the storage device is connected to another system. Refer to Chapter 29, Disk Encryption Guide for information on encryption of storage devices. If you select this option, the installer prompts you to provide a passphrase before it writes the partition to the disk.
4.19.5.1. File System Types
- ext3 — The ext3 file system is based on the ext2 file system and has one main advantage — journaling. Using a journaling file system reduces time spent recovering a file system after a crash as there is no need to
fsck
[2] the file system. A maximum file system size of 16TB is supported for ext3. The ext3 file system is selected by default and is highly recommended. - ext2 — An ext2 file system supports standard Unix file types (regular files, directories, symbolic links, etc). It provides the ability to assign long file names, up to 255 characters.
- physical volume (LVM) — Creating one or more physical volume (LVM) partitions allows you to create an LVM logical volume. LVM can improve performance when using physical disks. For more information regarding LVM, see the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Deployment Guide.
- software RAID — Creating two or more software RAID partitions allows you to create a RAID device. For more information regarding RAID, see chapter RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) in the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Deployment Guide.
- swap — Swap partitions are used to support virtual memory. In other words, data is written to a swap partition when there is not enough RAM to store the data your system is processing. See the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Deployment Guide for additional information.
- vfat — The VFAT file system is a Linux file system that is compatible with Microsoft Windows long filenames on the FAT file system. This file system must be used for the
/boot/efi/
partition on Itanium systems.
4.19.6. Editing Partitions
Note
4.19.7. Deleting a Partition
fsck
application is used to check the file system for metadata consistency and optionally repair one or more Linux file systems.