mkfs blkid fstab

mkfs: This command stands for make file system and it is used to format the partition by using file system.

Syntax: mkfs.
       Ex: mkfs.ext3 /dev/hdb
             mkfs.ext4 /dev/hda
blkid: This command is used to check file-system type of partion.

Ex: blkid /dev/hda

fstab: This is one of the inbuilt file of linux which is used to mount partition permanently across the reboot.

partprobe(partitionpro)

Syntax: partprobe (device name) ### It will update partition table without reboot
Ex: partprobe /dev/sda

partition tools in linux

We can create linux partition in 2 ways. i.e. Pre-Installation and Post-Installation
Pre-Installation partition is Disk Druid
Post-Installation  partition tools are
fdisk
cfdisk
sfdisk
parted

minumum and maximum partitions in linux

fdisk can create maximum 15 partitions in RHEL5
fdisk can create maximum 63 partitions in RHEL6
parted can create maximum 63 partitions in RHEL6

add loopback adapter in windows xp

1.Open control Panel
2.Double Click on Add Hardware
3.Click Next
4.Select on Yes I have already connected the hardware and Click on Next
5.Click on Select a New hardware device and Click on Next
6.Select Install the hardware that I manually select a list(Advanced)
7.Select Network Adapter and Click on Next
8.Choose Manufacturer "Microsoft" from list and "Microsoft Loopback Adapter" form Network adapter list, then Click on Next
9.Click Next, this process will install Loopback adapter driver
10.Click on Finish to finish Loopback adapter installation.

Expand/Increase ext3 root partition

Please follow the steps to Expand/Increase ext3 root Partition of a VMware Server disk (.vmdk)

Step-1 Shutdown the VM which you want to Expand/Increase ext3 root partition.
Step-2 Backup your original VMDK file to a different location
Step-3 Now we can Expand/Increase the disk
Syntax:vmware-vdiskmanager -x (Which you want to expand)
EX:vmware-vdiskmanager -x 50GB yyy.vmdk
If the command ran successful then you will get below message.
=================================================================
Disk expansion completed successfully.
WARNING: If the virtual disk is partitioned, you must use a third-party
utility in the virtual machine to expand the size of the
partitions. For more information, see:
http://www.vmware.com/support/kb/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=1647
==================================================================
Now disk size is increased but operating system will only show old size.To add new disk we will need to use a third-party utility such as GParted to resize the expanded partitions. The GParted application is the GNOME partition editor for creating, reorganizing, and deleting disk partitions. GParted is a live Linux based CD.
Step-4 Download latest version here or use wget command
http://nchc.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/gparted/gparted-live-0.4.5-2.iso
or
cd /tmp
wget http://nchc.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/gparted/gparted-live-0.4.5-2.iso
Step-5 Boot the VM with GParted ISO.
Once the vm boots up, Press enter to go to next screen. Press enter till you get the GParted Screen.
Step-6 Right click on the partition which you want to expand and select "Resize/Move"
Step-7 Set a new size to maximum size (it is displayed on the screen itself) and Finally, Click on Resize/Move button to start the process.
Step-8 Click "Apply" to run the resize task. Depending on the amount (disk size and storage type) and type (resize or move) operation resize may tae a long time. After sometime Gparted will give out the final confirmation about disk resize operation (you must not get any error on screen)
Step-9 Click on Close and then exit to shutdown Gparted.
Step-10 Remove the GParted ISO and boot the vm with HDD
Step-11 Login into vm and verify the new disk size.

LVM disk backup in to image file

vmname-002 is running on LVM partition so I am taking vmname-002 LVM disk backup in to image file.

dd if=/dev/VG_Guests/vmname-002 of=newimage.img bs=1M