On Thu, 10 Mar 2011, Robert P. J. Day wrote:

> On Thu, 10 Mar 2011, Troy Dawson wrote:
>
>> If these are beginning linux admins who don't know about partitions,
>> or haven't done linux partitioning, then you shouldn't do LVM first.
>> You should teach them about partitions, and the general layout of
>> Linux partitions. Your general windows admin isn't going to know
>> about /boot or swap partitions. Your general unix admin will know
>> about how his version of unix partitioning, and will appreciate
>> knowing what partitions linux should have.  And if they aren't an
>> admin, then they aren't going to know about partitions at all.
>>
>> If this is a bunch of Debian admins wanting to know RedHat, then go
>> straight to LVM.
>
>  i've decided i can combine the best of both worlds.  given that
> /boot is still allocated as a regular primary partition, i can use
> that to talk about partitions, while still using LVM for the remainder
> of the disk layout.  i think that will solve the problem.

I've not checked if it is still the case in EL6 but the default installer 
for EL4/5 strongly encourages people to always use the same 'VG' name when 
setting up LVM.

IMHO this is a pain because if people follow that pattern then if/when a 
disk is moved to another machine (e.g. temporarily for diagnostics) the VG 
names on the disks clash.

While there are ways round that problem it (seems to me) best to avoid it 
by allocating unique names for the VGs (we base them on the hostname and 
purpose e.g. system VG in 'fox' might be FoxSys0 - the mixed case is on 
purpose so they can't clash with other dev entries...)

Also the LV names that the installer suggests are just plain stupid.  I 
much prefer to name them after the purpose - they don't need to be unique 
so I usually use the name of the mountpoint (or root for / and swap for 
swap).

Apart from /boot we prety much use LVM for everything (sometimes with md 
sometimes with hardware-raid).  I've not noticed a significant performance 
hit.  A few weeks ago one of the people here (not me) ran some tests with 
sl5 on some Dell R510 boxes with H700 controllers each driving 12x2TB SAS 
disks and any difference were lost in the noise between runs.

  -- Jon (yet another control freak)