moving /usr to bigger partition

[Nicholas Leippe]

On Thursday 26 April 2007, Dr. Scott S. Jones wrote:
> I need advice on moving a directory, /usr, which now occupies its own
> partition, but which I'd like to have on a bigger partition.
>
> /etc/fstab includes this:
>
> /dev/hde5       /usr            ext3    defaults        0       2
>
> df -h shows:
>
> /dev/hde5             4.6G  4.3G  106M  98% /usr
>
> and
> /dev/hde9              65G   12G   51G  19% /home
>
> while root is:
>
> /dev/hde1             250M  219M   18M  93% /
>
> Don't ask why it's set up this way. It just is. I just want to change it
> around by moving /usr to /dev/hde9 so that it has room.
>
> How do I do this safely so that nothing gets hosed?
>
> Scott


Try this:

cp -a /usr /home/ && mount -o bind /home/usr /usr

if that works, then update your /etc/fstab:

/home/usr /usr none rw,bind 0 0



Playing with /usr on a live box shouldn't be dangerous--all necessary file and 
system utilities should be in /bin and /sbin. (It could disrupt services 
though.)