Live Resize of Logical Volume in RHEL/CentOS

The default installation of RHEL 6 and CentOS 6 will create separate LVM volumes for /home. This means much of your disk is allocated to /home when it could be used for something else. Keeping /home on a separate partition is a good idea for multi-user systems, but for machines that act as a service box, it may be wasted disk space. For example, here’s a system that has 50G partitioned for /home when it’s really not needed.

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$ df -h

2	Filesystem                  Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on

3	/dev/mapper/vg_repo-lv_root 148G  113G   29G  80% /

4	tmpfs                       499M     0  499M   0% /dev/shm

5	/dev/sda1                   485M  156M  304M  34% /boot

6	/dev/mapper/vg_repo-lv_home 47G  181M   45G   1%  /home

To remove the logical volume that stores /home and add the free space to the root partition, follow these steps:

Note: Make sure you’re logged into the system at the console as a user whose homedir isn’t in /home. Logging in as root usually works.

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cd /

2	cp -Ra /home /home.bak  # Make a backup of home

3	umount /home

4	lvm lvremove /dev/vg_<hostname>/lv_home  # Remove the logical volume for home

5	lvm lvresize -l+100%FREE /dev/vg_<hostname>/lv_root  # Resize the root logical volume so it uses 100% of the now free space

6	resize2fs /dev/vg_<hostname>/lv_root  # Resize the filesystem to use the whole logical volume

7	mv /home.bak /home  # Restore the backup.

More Notes:

• This can be done on a live system as long as /home is not in use when you try to unmount it.
• You can also follow these steps to resize another logical volume if it has another name and isn’t in use.
• This may work with some adjustments on a RHEL/CentOS 5 system, I haven’t tried it though.
• you should definitly remove auto-mount information from /etc/fstab before rebooting the server.
• You’ll have to remove /home from /etc/fstab afterwards.

Live Partitioning in Windows 7 and 8

First of all go to ‘Start’ and then on the window that appears search for ‘Computer’ and then once you right-click on it another window opens and then you should navigate to the option ‘Manage’.

At once a new window will open entitled  ‘Computer Management’. In this new window click on ‘Storage’ and then go to ‘Disk Management’.

The completion of the second step will give you a view of all the drives present in your computer.

Among these select the one you want to partition. Then right-click on the selected drive and navigate to the option ‘Shrink Volume..’.

A new window should open in which the size of the drive before shrink will be mentioned and the available space to shrink will be mentioned , and in the next line you will be asked to enter the amount of space you want to shrink and this will be the size of the new partition.

Caution :The space you enter must be within the limit of the available space displayed above.

After entering the values click on the option ‘Shrink ” and wait for the process to complete. The time taken for the operation may be long depending upon the size of the disk and the space to be shrunk. Once the operation is completed a window appears showing unallocated space and the value is exactly the one you entered earlier. Select this unallocated space and on right clicking on it click on the option ‘New Simple Volume’.

A wizard will open up. Go through the wizard and fill in the values required. Usually the value needed to enter is the same one that you entered as the volume to be shrunk.

The drive newly created needs a letter to be assigned to it. Assign any letter of your choice as it does not make any difference.

A Format page will appear and in it carefully notice that the File System selected is ‘NTFS’ . After this is done enter a name for your drive and then click on ‘Next’ and then ‘Finish’.

You have reached your goal. You have partitioned your Hard Drive in Windows 7 without formatting your computer and without the use of any software.

**While the procedure works fine in Windows 7 Ultimate version, it does not work in Windows 7 home, starter or other versions properly if the number of partitions exceeds 4. That means if you try to create a new partition that is no. 5 in your hard disk, this process will not work otherwise it will work fine. So if you are in Windows 7 Home or starter edition, make sure that your total no of partition is three before you go for a new partition.**

AnonymoX: Start Anonymous Browsing using Firefox Add-On

Anonymous browsing is very popular between internet users because we can use it to hide themselves behind someone. Using anonymous browsing we can access internet without worry about tracking and hacking our information on internet. Anonymous browsing is most popular in offices and colleges because only these area always protected with firewalls and firewall ban us to access most of websites. So it is quite frustrating for internet user because they have internet but can’t access websites. One best way to access restricted websites are use online anonymous browsing service and you can find dozens of popular websites that is providing this service free and paid also. Along with online tools we can use some popular software to access internet anonymously. But today I will review about a Firefox Add-on which will help you to access and browsing internet anonymously. It is anonymoX and it is quit easy to use Add-on for Firefox. With anonymoX your are able to bypass many sorts of blocks by jelling a virtual Identity in another Country with only a few mouse clicks. Once you install this Add-on, it will show one quick access icon on Firefox tool. You can set settings using this icon and start browsing anonymously.

In AnonymoX preferences allow us some more options like you can enable/disable show IP and country flag. You can also use Reset all notification setting option to reset this Add-on with default settings.

AnonymoX feature;

-browse the www anonymously
-change your IP-Adresse (to one provided by us)
-visit blocked/censored websites
-appear to originate from another country
-delete cookies, show your public ip, change browser id, ….
-visit websites via Tor. Also access hidden sites (.onion)

[Install AnonymoX Firefor Add-on]

How to Play PlayStation (PSX) games on PC

A lot of people had fun with the first PlayStation, including me, and we can’t seem to get rid of it (in a good way). All of the original PlayStation games were playable on the PlayStation 2, andmost of them on the PLAYSTATION 3. These days you can even play them on your PSP, so why not on our PC as well?

To play Playstation 1 games on your PC, you need to download a program called ePSXe.

Step 1 – Download and install ePSXe

The latest version can always be found here.

As there’s no installer, you just have to unzip it in the folder of your choice. You’ll also want some shortcuts, so right-click on the “˜ePSXe.exe’, “˜send to’ and choose “˜desktop’.

Step 2 – Getting the PSX’s BIOS

The installation is far from complete though, as this is only the base of the emulator. Among the other things we’re going to need are the PSX’s BIOS files. These are essential for the emulation, but there is a catch.

You are only allowed to own these files if you also own a PSX. Make Use Of does NOT encourage piracy!

You can obtain the BIOS in two ways. You can dump it from your PSX, but that is the long route. You can also download it somewhere (direct link here), but again, only if you actually own a PSX.

We’ll extract these files in the \bios directory (you can also delete the “˜erase.me’ file)

Step 3 – Getting image

Again, we are not ready yet. Next we need the video plug-in.

There’s a wide variety of video plug-ins available, and (depending on your graphics card) some might work better for you than others, so I can’t tell you which one to use. I can point you in the right direction though, as Pete’s and P.E.Op.S. plug-ins have made a good name for themselves. If these do not work (well), try out a few and see which works best (all Linux plug-ins are at the bottom of the page).

We’re going to extract the downloaded package(s) into the \plugins directory. You might need to overwrite the “˜gpu.dat’ file.

Step 4 – Make some noise (optional)

The ePSXe core has built in sound plug-ins, but in case they didn’t work for you, check here for alternatives (scroll down a bit). You can put these plug-ins in the \plugins directory.

Step 5 – Disk driver plug-ins (optional)

The ePSXe core also has built in plug-ins for your disk drive, but in case they didn’t work for you, check here for alternatives (about halfway down the page). You can put these plug-ins in the \plugins directory.

Step 6 – adding zlib1.dll

In their haste to please us, the developers of ePSXe forgot to add zlib.dll to the latest release (v 1.70). You can get it here (just drop it in the same directory as ePSXe.exe).

Step 7 – configuring ePSXe

You’ve got all the files you need now and are just a few steps away from playing your games. Upon opening ePSXe.exe, or the shortcut you made to it on your desktop, you will encounter a configuration wizard.

First you select the correct BIOS for your region (PAL being Europe, Australia and a part of Asia). You’ll notice that there are different alternatives for your region, but all should work.

Next, select your video driver. When you press “˜Config’, you can change the video settings (like screen resolution, FPS limit, and so on. Apart from the resolution, only change these settings if you know what you’re doing.

Press next and select your sound plug-in and CD-ROM plug-in.

Last but not (at all!) least, you can configure your controller settings. First press on the controller you want to configure. In my opinion, the two best options here are either using a gamepad (USB, or an original one with a converter), or your keyboard (“˜Digital’ in the menu).

Step 8 – Boot and play

Finally, in the “˜file’ menu, either choose “˜run CDROM’ or “˜run ISO’ to start playing!

You can make ISO’s of your PSX games without special procedures. Just use Nero, or another CD burning suite.

Be sure to look out for the next articles in this series, where we’ll take a closer look at PlayStation 2 and Xbox emulation.