More var woes: MySQL won't start; audits logged

[david-8uUts6sDVDvs2Lz0fTdYFQ at public.gmane.org (david-8uUts6sDVDvs2Lz0fTdYFQ at public.gmane.org)]

> david-8uUts6sDVDvs2Lz0fTdYFQ at public.gmane.org wrote:
>> So last night I shrunk my ext4 / by 20GB and set up an ext3 partition
>> for
>> /var.  gparted took many hours to do it, so I had to try to finish it up
>> before I left for work this morning.  I tried to mount the new partition
>> under /var, and that didn't work, and I had no time to research it.
>
> What do you mean 'it didn't work'?  You couldn't mount the new partition,
> or
> your system mounted it but didn't work right?

Sorry, typing this from work and trying to be quick.  Afer creating the
new /dev/sda6 partition for /var, I

- Booted from LiveCD
- Formated the new partition as ext3
- Used e2label to label it /var
- Mounted the root partition /dev/sda2 to /mnt/root
- Modified /mnt/root/etc/fstab to mount the label /var as /var
- Rebooted
That all should have worked

The system sorta came up (I got the GDM) but could not log in, and could
not ssh in from my laptop.  I then
- Booted off of LiveCD again
- Commented out the new line in fstab
- Symlinked /oldvar to /var
- Rebooted

That worked, but that just gets me back to where I started.  Which is
better than a hung box, I guess.

Lastly, I
- Mounted the new partition /dev/sda6 to /mnt/newvar
- cp -a /var/mail /mnt/newvar
- mv /var/mail /var/oldmail
- ln -s /mnt/newvar/mail /var/mail

So now at least my mail queues (but not IMAP folders) are on ext3.

All of this except for the repartitioning took place in about 45 minutes
this morning  ;)

> I'm confused as to what you're trying to do, but here's what I think you

My ultimate goal would be to somehow move my entire system off of ext4,
but that sounds unlikely.  MY short-term goal would be to move /var to
this new ext3 partition.

> want to do:
>  Boot the live cd, and mount the original / and the new /var partitions.
>  mv /oldroot/var/* /newvar/
>  edit /oldroot/etc/fstab to add entry for newvar
>  touch /oldroot/.autorelabel

That's pretty much what I did, except for the .autorelabel part.  What is
that?  Maybe that's why it didn't work.

PS: I also set upstart to telinit 3 so I'll go into text mode first so I
have a fighting chance of figuring out where I am.

> You really don't want to try to migrate /var over while the system is
> on-line.
>  You might be able to get away with migrating while in single user mode.

Agreed.  I didn't.


> The last step should fix selinux before anything could fail because of it.
> There's a way you could do it while booted in the liveCD (involving chroot
> and
> restorecon), but it's easier (but more time-consuming w.r.t. system
> downtime)
> to just relabel everything.

Ah. I forgot about selinux.  I despise it.  It's caused me nothing but
pain.  Is that what the audit messages were from?

I'll look into ripping it out.  This looks promising:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/fedora-35/disable-selinux-478123/


Thanks, Matt