Create a Softlink to Move some Library Folder
 

Dear all,
I'm running out of disk space in root, so I decide to move /usr/lib64 directory to other partition by creating moving the whole directory to new location and create a softlink in the old location. What I'm planning to do is:
1. Copy the whole directory to new location
2. Make sure if there's no problem in the copy process
3. Create a softlink in the old location pointing to the new location.

However, when I'm comparing the old location and the new location using du command, there's some discrepancies between those two where the new location contain bigger size than the old one. How is this possible?

Is this the proper way to save disk space by creating a softlink?

Regards,
ethereal1m

Wouldn't it make more sense just to resize partitions? Or are you worried about data loss?

Your approach sounds mostly OK, but:

1. What fs are you using on the destination? You need to make sure that the destination fs is compatible with the posix permissions scheme (i.e. not vfat, ntfs or something like that)
2. How are you copying the file? Make sure you preserve permissions and ownerships. If you use "mv" there shouldn't be any problem, though I advise you to use "cp -a" instead. Don't delete the original copy until you make sure everything is working ok.

I don't know how "du" measures the space. But if it relies on the fs then that could be the cause. The block size can differ from one volume to another depending on the fs-type, the size and the options you used to format (and even to mount) them.

You could also mount the partition directly at /usr/lib64, or if it's a subdirectory in an already mounted volume, you could use "mount -o bind". To automate that you can use /etc/fstab, of course.

@snark, hmm I'm considering the option...

@i92guboj,
1. I move files from ext4 to xfs file system not sure if this a problem
2. I'm using "cp -R". Is this ok?

hmm,the discrepancy df output is probably because the different file system types (ext4 and XFS) maybe?

Let me take a look at mount and fstab option...

xfs is ok.

Nope. -R copies recursively, but it doesn't preserve permissions nor ownerships, that can seriously screw up everything. You should use "cp -dR --preserve=all" or just "cp -a", which is equivalent.

I can't be sure, but it's a possibility. If you want to copy with error checking use "rsync -a" instead.

Thanks for all, you guys are awesome!
This works great!

sorry for the late reply...

regards,
ethereal1m