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wolfsden3
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ESXi - 6.7 - thin provision Ubuntu Guest

I don't know if this is an ESXi (free version) problem or an Ubuntu guest problem.

I've now installed Ubuntu twice resulting in the same stupid idiotic problem.

1 - Create the guest first with 1 TB disk then the second time 1000 GB disk.

2 - Install Ubuntu 18.04 LTC

3 - Update the guest

I then run this command on the guest as root:

df -h --total

The result in size on "/" which is essentially like the "c:\" in Windows:

Size:  3.9G

Used: 1.9G

Avail:  1.8G

Used%:  51%

Who's fault is this?  Seriously?  DURING THE INSTALL the Ubuntu installer asks if I want to install this on the 1 TB or 1000 GB volume.  Of course...the caveate here is that I used LVM twice.  I haven't had this problem in prior VMWare ESXi 5 and 5.5 servers and older version of Ubuntu (10, 12, 14, 16).

Any insight into this would be helpful.  Is there some kind of a bug using LVM on ESXi 6.7?

I'm going to try a few more things to see what happens:

1 - Not use LVM + think provision

2 - Use LVM + thick provision

3 - Not use LVM + thin provision

...to see if I can get a different outcome.

So far this seems like a VMWare 6.7 problem since again, I haven't had this problem on any prior versions of VMWare in the 5.x line.  I have not tried this before on 6.x's like 6.5, etc.

I also have the Dell EMC version of ESXi if that matters since I have a Dell server (PE 420).

Anyone else run into these problems?  On a side note I ran into this ISP who ONLY THICK PROVISIONS all their space.  I thought it was a gimmick to sell more "storage" but perhaps the above is the reason why!?  They are less than forthcoming as to why but perhaps I found out why accidentally LOL.  Because they couldn't figure it out, they're too lazy to deal with it or they in fact want to juice up their storage numbers and not use thin provisioning.

Thanks.

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wolfsden3
Contributor
Contributor

I figured this out.  It's NOT a VMWare ESXi problem.

Instead it's a guest OS problem and Ubuntu 18.04.  In other Ubuntu versions the installer walks you through and asks two questions.  Do you want to use LVM or not and do you want to use the entire disk or not?

Well...in 18.04 same thing BUT when it sets up the LVM by default it makes the "/" only 4GB.  How stupid is that?  Idiots.

You have to go into it and give it a different size!  NOW...once you do that, you have your 1 TB.  I've seen people playing "just the tip" on this question with no real answers but here you go folks.  Enjoy 😉

See attached pic.

vnaseri
Contributor
Contributor

wolfsden3 is right about it, is the ubuntu 18.04 and 18.10 issue.

I've had an exact same issue and found the solution here:

Ubuntu Server 18.04 LVM out of space with improper default partitioning - Ask Ubuntu

Enjoy!

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