In summary, this can be achieved by doing the following:
1) Replace all disks in the RAID (one by one)
2) Grow the RAID
3) Expand the filesystem

In this guide i will be working on /dev/md1

Now, let`s get to work!

Part one: Replace the disks

PS: If your system does not support hot swap, you have to turn of/restart your machine for each disk you are replacing.

Remove a disk in the RAID, then insert a new (bigger) drive.
Check dmesg (or similiar) to get the name of the last drive.

[14522870.380610] scsi 15:0:0:0: Direct-Access ATA WDC WD15EARS-00Z 80.0 PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
[14522870.381589] sd 15:0:0:0: [sdm] 2930277168 512-byte hardware sectors: (1.50 TB/1.36 TiB)
[14522870.381622] sd 15:0:0:0: [sdm] Write Protect is off
[14522870.381626] sd 15:0:0:0: [sdm] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
[14522870.381673] sd 15:0:0:0: [sdm] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn’t support DPO or FUA
[14522870.381845] sd 15:0:0:0: [sdm] 2930277168 512-byte hardware sectors: (1.50 TB/1.36 TiB)
[14522870.381870] sd 15:0:0:0: [sdm] Write Protect is off
[14522870.381875] sd 15:0:0:0: [sdm] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
[14522870.381918] sd 15:0:0:0: [sdm] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn’t support DPO or FUA
[14522870.381926] sdm: unknown partition table
[14522870.397752] sd 15:0:0:0: [sdm] Attached SCSI disk
[14522870.397878] sd 15:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg9 type 0

Now, tell mdadm to add your new drive to the RAID you removed a drive from by doing:

mdadm –manage /dev/md1 –add /dev/sdm

Mdadm will then start syncing data to your new drive, to get a ETA of when it`s done (and when you can replace the next drive) check the mdadm status.

root@bais:/home/samba/raid1/test# cat /proc/mdstat
Personalities : [linear] [multipath] [raid0] [raid1] [raid6] [raid5] [raid4] [raid10]
md0 : active raid5 sdl[2] sdi[4] sdf[3] sde[1] sdd[0]
5860553728 blocks level 5, 128k chunk, algorithm 2 [5/5] [UUUUU]

md1 : active raid5 sdm[6] sdg[1] sdk[5] sdj[7](F) sdh[2] sdc[3] sda[0]
2441932480 blocks level 5, 64k chunk, algorithm 2 [6/5] [UUUU_U]
[==>..................] recovery = 14.2% (69439012/488386496) finish=155.8min speed=44805K/sec

unused devices:

So after around 155 minutes  the drive is active. (And the next one can be replaced)

Repeat this process for each disk in the RAID.

When you have changed all disks, run the command “mdadm –manage /dev/mdX –remove failed” to remove any devices listes as failed for the given RAID.

Part two: Increase the space available for the RAID

This is done by simply issuing the command:

mdadm –grow /dev/md1 –size=max

And the RAID size is increased, note that this has caused the RAID to start a resync (again):

root@bais:~# cat /proc/mdstat
Personalities : [linear] [multipath] [raid0] [raid1] [raid6] [raid5] [raid4] [raid10]
md0 : active raid5 sdl[2] sdi[4] sdf[3] sde[1] sdd[0]
5860553728 blocks level 5, 128k chunk, algorithm 2 [5/5] [UUUUU]

md1 : active raid5 sdc[0] sdj[3] sdh[5] sdg[2] sdn[1] sdm[4]
7325692480 blocks level 5, 64k chunk, algorithm 2 [6/6] [UUUUUU]
[======>..............]  resync = 34.6% (508002752/1465138496) finish=247.0min speed=64561K/sec

PS: note that the resync speed has increased by around 20MB/s after all the drives was replaced

You will now also notice that the RAID reports it`s new size:

root@bais:~# mdadm –detail /dev/md1
/dev/md1:
Version : 00.90
Creation Time : Sat Jun 13 01:55:27 2009
Raid Level : raid5
Array Size : 7325692480 (6986.32 GiB 7501.51 GB)
Used Dev Size : 1465138496 (1397.26 GiB 1500.30 GB)
Raid Devices : 6
Total Devices : 6
Preferred Minor : 1
Persistence : Superblock is persistent

Update Time : Fri Mar  5 08:03:47 2010
State : active, resyncing
Active Devices : 6
Working Devices : 6
Failed Devices : 0
Spare Devices : 0

Layout : left-symmetric
Chunk Size : 64K

Rebuild Status : 35% complete

UUID : ed415534:2925f54a:352a6ad4:582f9bd3 (local to host bais)
Events : 0.247

Number   Major   Minor   RaidDevice State
0       8       32        0      active sync   /dev/sdc
1       8      208        1      active sync   /dev/sdn
2       8       96        2      active sync   /dev/sdg
3       8      144        3      active sync   /dev/sdj
4       8      192        4      active sync   /dev/sdm
5       8      112        5      active sync   /dev/sdh

Part three: resize file system

Start off by unounting the file system in question and perform a file system check to make shure everything is a-ok

root@bais:/home/torhenning# umount /home/samba/raid1
root@bais:/home/torhenning# fsck /dev/md1
fsck 1.41.4 (27-Jan-2009)
e2fsck 1.41.4 (27-Jan-2009)
/dev/md1 has gone 188 days without being checked, check forced.
Pass 1: Checking inodes, blocks, and sizes

Be warned: The fsck CAN take quite a time to finish.

When it`s complete, you are ready for the last step, which is to resize the filesystem:

root@bais:/home/torhenning# resize2fs /dev/md1 6986G
resize2fs 1.41.4 (27-Jan-2009)
Resizing the filesystem on /dev/md1 to 1831337984 (4k) blocks.

And voila! Mount up the filesystem again and you are finished!

Twitter accounts updated within the last hour:
viav7 (retweeting distress messages amongst other)
jacinperez (Tweets in Spanish)
LisaTw (Tweeting about Chile)
kamla (Tweets about it)
ontobelli (Tweets in Spanish)
globovision (Tweets in Spanish)
ageofbrillig (Tweets about the possible tsunami)
crisiscamp (Tweets about it)
earcos (Tweets in Spanish)
marc_cooper (Tweets about it)
geographile (retweet geography-related news)
Dhaisy (Tweets about it)
CarlosFoxTV (A “news guy” tweeting about it)
marc_cooper (Tweets about)
W7VOA (Tweets about it)
BreakingNews (Breaking news about it)
AlBoeNEWS (Tweets about it)
1Vzlano (Writes from Venezuela)

Twitter accounts updated within the last three hours:
CNN (Tweets some news about Chile)
marcoie (Are in Chile)
Ciencia_y_Tecno (Tweets in Spanish)
progone (Focuses on the tsunami)

Twitter accounts updated later
RodrigoBNO (Journalist in Mexico)
CNNChile (CNN Chile)
CarolinaMillan (Are in Chile, tweets in Spanish)
quincy12 (Are in Chile, tweets in Spanish)
KiLotr (Are in Chile, tweets in Spanish)
kurenaiteam (Are in Chile, tweets in Spanish)
azadehCNN (CNN reporter tweeting about Chile)
elliottyamin (Are be in Chile, also interviewed on CNN now)
baywatchboy (Tweets about it)
Sipote87 (Tweets about it)

Other resources:
Live TV from Chile (In Spanish)
Tsunami warnings
Images and info from Chile

If you want to get out of it again (and then get page up/down + arrow keys working again), simply press F7

2: defining post_max_size (etc) with MB instead of M causes PHP to only read the last character, in other words 10MB becomes 10 bytes . How hard can it be to either use the first character or even better, both?

(note 1: this can be avoided by actually reading the manual, but this should have been handled better from PHP`s side IMO)

(Note 2: This experience come from the latest stable PHP version in SLES 10SP2, hopefully this has been fixed in later releases.)

So if you want an invite, you can get one here: http://h3x.no/spotify.php

(New invites will be added when needed, still got a small bunch left)

Btw: Got any problems, then please comment about it in this entry

Twitter accounts updated within the last hour:
troylivesay – Troy Livesay, is in Port Au Prince, Haiti
Wyclef – Wyclef Jean
InternetHaiti – Multilink Haiti, Twitters from Haiti
marvinady – Marvin Rady Twittering about Haiti
redcrossmom - Appears to be twittering from Haiti
LisandroSuero – Lisandro Suero, publishes pictures from Haiti
andersoncooper – Anderson Cooper, CNN Reporter in Haiti
Leecohen – Lee Cohen Twitters from Haiti
Alyssa_Milano – Alyssa Milano, twitters about Haiti

Twitter accounts updated within the last two hours:

n/a

Twitter accounts updated within the last 12 hours:

fredodupoux – Frederic Dupoux, active from Haiti
RAMhaiti – Richard Morse, CNN Reporter in Haiti

Twitter accounts updated > 12 hours:

IvanCNN – Ivan Watson, CNN Reporter in Haiti
DanielleCNN – Danielle Dellorto, CNN Reporter in Haiti
jason_carroll – Jason Carroll, CNN Reporter in Haiti

You can also get live updates regarind Haiti on Twitter.

Want to donate to help Haiti? Then visit Redcross.org!

Have any Twitterers that miss in the list? Please post a comment with a link here.

Looking for a program to find dublicate files? Then fdupe saves the day!

root@bais:/home/samba/raid0# apt-cache search fdupe
fdupes – identifies duplicate files within given directories

By the way, how come the apt search gives to random results?

torhenning@bais:~$ sudo apt-cache search duplicate
….
mirror – keeps FTP archives up-to-date
vlc – multimedia player and streamer
(and a lot of other irrelevant crap)

Can`t exactly say that having to grep in a search results is a good “feature”..

mdadm –assemble –scan

This should find and activate all your RAID systems

php5 test.php
20:40
20:50
21:00
21:10
21:20
21:30
21:40

Etc.

<?php

$j = 0;
for($i=0;$i<10;$i+=1) {
        $j += (10*60);
        $hour = date("H", (time()+$j));
        $min  = ceil((date("i", (time()+$j))/10))*10;
        if($min > 50) {
                $min = "00";
                $hour++;
        }
        echo $hour.":".$min."\n";
}

?>