420-N23-LA

Operating Systems &

Scripting Using Linux
PHYSICAL STORAGE

©2020 Brendan Wood

Topics
◦ Partitions
◦ How to create partitions
◦ How to format a hard drive (build file system)
◦ Mounting a partition
◦ Permanently mounting a partition or drive
◦ Boot Sector
◦ Disk Utilities
Logical Partitions
DISKS
What is a partition
A partition can be thought of as a division or
"part" of a real hard disk drive.
A partition is really only a logical separation
from the whole drive, but it appears as though
the division creates multiple physical drives.
Example: C: D: E: (on the same drive).
Partitions are also sometimes called disk
partitions and when someone uses the word
drive, they usually mean a partition with a
drive letter assigned.
"A partition is a contiguous space of storage on
a physical or logical disk that functions as if it
were a physically separate disk." Microsoft
Why partition?
One Partition: Define a place to install the operating system. This is the default.
Multiple Partitions: Install a different operating system per partition (Linux, Windows, etc.)
System Partitions: To keep data invisible – like a recovery partition, or to hide information.
Partitioning + Security Pros and Cons
Security Considerations
PROS
◦ Partitions look like different drives to the computer.
◦ If one partition gets corrupted, the other partition may not be affected.
◦ A partition can be invisible or inaccessible, makes it harder for a user or virus to modify it.

CONS
◦ If the whole drive dies for any reason, all partitions are lost.
The Boot Record
Boot Process
As a review from the computer Hardware:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFvkrhAC
caw
The computer boot process is orchestrated by
the BIOS.
The BIOS finds all partitions using a MASTER
BOOT RECORD, and then runs the code from
that partition.
Usually you can choose which partition to boot
from, in the BIOS yourself.
Bios reads the PARTITION TABLE.
A Master Boot Record
The master boot record is read by your BIOS,
by bootstrapping into it.
It is a sector located at the beginning of the
drive.
This sector contains a boot loader for the
installed operating system and information
about the drive’s logical partitions.
Traditional boot records (MBR) vs. GPT
boot recs.
MBR – MASTER BOOT RECORD GPT – GUID PARTITION TABLE

Older legacy partition style = Compatibility Modern disk partition style

Boot data stored at the BEGINNING Boot data is scattered @ different locations on
the disk
Allows up to 4 primary partitions
Allows up to 128 primary partitions
Supports drives (volumes) up to 2TB capacity.
Supports disks more than 2TB (9ZB*)
Supports partitions up to 2TB capacity.
Resistant to corruption due to redundancy of
Sensitive to corruption – Only one place for boot data
boot data – no redundancy
Note: GUID –> Global Unique Identifier
MBR Partitions
4 Primary partitions
1 can be an extended partition
Extended can host 1-n partitions in it.
GPT Boot record
Contains a “MBR” also so that it can be seen by older disk
utilities.
Contains unlimited partitions. (Microsoft limited to 128
for Windows). (Linux can use more)
Every partition on your drive has a “globally unique
identifier,” or GUID
GPT also stores cyclic redundancy check (CRC) values to
check that its data is intact. MBR does not.
Hard Drive Setup – Using a Virtual
Machine
1. Go to the "settings" of the virtual machine.
2. Click the Storage tab
Add a New Drive
Click on the new hard drive icon.
Click on "Create" to create a logical drive.
Choose "VDI" image
Choose dynamic or fixed.
At the end, select "Choose" to add it.
New Hard Drive Attached!
How to format a hard drive
(Simplified)
1. Physically attach a drive or Logically attach a drive file (virtual machines)
2. Create the partition on it (in the lab we will use parted).
3. Make the file system on the partition(s)
4. Mount the partitions
5. Add to FSTAB to mount every time you boot automatically
What drive did we just Add?
In the "dev" directory, we can see a clue about what drives are available to the system.

$ ls /dev/sd* -l
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 0 Mar 20 21:33 /dev/sda
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 1 Mar 20 21:33 /dev/sda1
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 16 Mar 20 21:33 /dev/sdb

Note:
◦ sda = The hard drive #1
◦ sda1 = Partition #1 on hard drive #1.
◦ sdb = Hard drive #2 (with no partitions on it).
List Drives with a Disk Utility
Using "parted" (use SUDO to run)
(parted) print devices
/dev/sda (21.5GB)
/dev/sdb (10.7GB)

Using lsblk (list block devices)

$ lsblk
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda 8:0 0 20G 0 disk
└─sda1 8:1 0 20G 0 part /
sdb 8:16 0 10G 0 disk
Step 2 – Create the Partition(s)
Make note of the drive name using lsblk or parted (eg: sdb or sdc).
Be sure the drive is correct, you can lose all information if you format the wrong drive.
Determine what type of filesystem the partition(s) should handle.
If this is Linux, usually "EXT4" is the best choice.
Linux File system types
Ext2 is not a journaling file system. When introduced, it was the first file system to support
extended file attributes and 2 terabyte drives. Ext2’s lack of a journal means it writes to disk less,
which makes it useful for flash memory like USB drives. However, file systems like exFAT and
FAT32 also don’t use journaling and are more compatible with different operating systems, so
we recommend you avoid Ext2 unless you know you need it for some reason.
Ext3 is basically just Ext2 with journaling. Ext3 was designed to be backwards compatible with
Ext2, allowing partitions to be converted between Ext2 and Ext3 without any formatting
required. It’s been around longer than Ext4, but Ext4 has been around since 2008 and is widely
tested. At this point, you’re better off using Ext4.
Ext4 was also designed to be backwards compatible. You can mount an Ext4 file system as Ext3,
or mount an Ext2 or Ext3 file system as Ext4. It includes newer features that reduce file
fragmentation, allows for larger volumes and files, and uses delayed allocation to improve
flash memory life. This is the most modern version of the Ext file system and is the default on
most Linux distributions.
Write performance for EXT3 / EXT4
Example Partitioning Scenario #1
Start PARTED
◦ sudo parted /dev/sdb

Tell it to use a GPT type table

◦ (parted) mklabel gpt
◦ (parted) quit

Make a partition
◦ Start parted with the "-a optimal" to choose optimal alignment automatically.
◦ $ parted --align optimal /dev/sdb
◦ (parted) mkpart primary 0% 100%
◦ (parted) quit
◦ Information: You may need to update /etc/fstab.
Example 2 – parted mkpart
Create 2 primary ext4 partitions and use MBR, taking exactly half the drive each.

sudo parted –align optimal /dev/sdb

mklabel msdos
mkpart primary ext4 0% 50%
mkpart primary ext4 50% 100%
Example Scenario
We need the following:
Using an MBR boot record:
◦ 3 Primary partitions of 2GB each (ext4)
◦ 1 Extended from 6GB to end
◦ 2 Logical of 2GB each – but make the last one take ALL remaining space.
Commands
sudo parted –align optimal /dev/sdb
mklabel msdos
mkpart primary ext4 0% 2GB
mkpart primary ext4 2GB 4GB
mkpart primary ext4 4GB 6GB
mkpart extended 6GB 100%
mkpart logical ext4 6GB 8GB
mkpart logical ext4 6GB 100%
Important utility: mkfs
Make file system.
mkfs is the utility that writes the file system itself on the drive. A partition does nothing without a file system in
place.
In Windows, this is the equivalent of "FORMAT".

mkfs [options] [-t type fs-options] device [size]

-t specify ext2, ext3, ext4
Can also specify types for windows like msdos or ntfs

Can be rewritten as “mkfs.type /dev/partition”

Example:
◦ mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdb1
Example mkfs
Make the file systems on the previous drives you created.
sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdb1
Etc…
Example - mount
Once the drive has been partitioned and formatted, you can "mount" the drive on a mountpoint to
save files to it.
The –o option, means "options" – and here we just accept the default options.
The first mount here means, "Mount sdb1 into the mountpoint called /mnt/data_drive_1".
Note: The mount disappears once you reboot, to make it permanent you need to create an "fstab"
entry for it (See next slides)

mkdir /mnt/data_drive_1
mount -o defaults /dev/sdb1 /mnt/data_drive_1
mkdir /mnt/data_drive_2
mount -o defaults /dev/sdb2 /mnt/data_drive_2
FSTAB
FSTAB Means "File System Table"
This table automatically mounts drives at boot up time.

To ensure that the drives are mounted you must do two things:
1. Create a directory as a mountpoint
2. Put an entry in fstab to map the physical drive to the mountpoint.
/etc/fstab Contents
sudo vi /etc/fstab
/dev/sdb1 /mnt/drive1 ext4 defaults 0 0
/dev/sdb2 /mnt/drive2 ext4 defaults 0 0

The entry structure for each mapping is:

◦ The drive or partition : /dev/sdb1
◦ The mountpoint on Linux FS: /mnt/drive1 (must exist, create it!)
◦ The filesystem expected: ext4 (Linux usually is ext4)
◦ Defaults (leave as is)
◦ 0 0 : 0 = Backup, 0 = Skip Check
Useful commands for disk management
df
◦ Checks the disk space usage
◦ Gives device name, free space, used space, total space.
du
◦ Shows usage by directory.
fdisk
◦ Manage partitions for MBR
gdisk
◦ Manage partitions for GPT
parted
◦ Manage partitions for both GPT and MBR
Useful commands for disk management
lsblk
◦ Lists out all the storage blocks, which includes disk partitions and optical drives. Details include the total
size of the partition/block and the mount point if any.
◦ Does not report the used/free disk space on the partitions.du
◦ Shows usage by directory.

blkid
◦ Prints the block device (partitions and storage media) attributes like uuid and file system type. Does not
report the space on the partitions.gdisk
◦ Manage partitions for GPT

hwinfo
◦ The hwinfo is a general purpose hardware information tool and can be used to print out the disk and
partition list.
End
LINUX STORAGE