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Resizing VBox disks

The VMDK format cannot be resized currently (2017-03-05), but it is possible to clone the drive to the VDI format, and increase the max size of the disk. The VM must be off in order for this process to execute.

In this example a new 60GB disk will be created.

NOTE: The disk name and storagectl values may differ depending on the box in use.

  1. Start downloading the gparted live cd. The version specified is current as of 2017-05, and the correct variant of the live CD for a 64bit MacBook Pro.

    wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/gparted/gparted-live-0.28.1-1-amd64.iso
# OR
curl -L -O http://downloads.sourceforge.net/gparted/gparted-live-0.28.1-1-amd64.iso

  2. If the download is continuing, open a new terminal. Stop the vagrant guest, clone the existing disk to a new format, resize the disk, and then swap the VM's disk in place.

    # Halt the system if it is running
vagrant halt

# clone the drive to a new format:
VBoxManage clonemedium disk \
  ~/VirtualBox\ VMs/dev-on-ub/generic-ubuntu1804-virtualbox-disk001.vmdk \
  ~/VirtualBox\ VMs/dev-on-ub/generic-ubuntu1804-virtualbox-disk001.vdi --format vdi

# Resize it to desired size (e.g., 80GB here):
VBoxManage modifymedium ~/VirtualBox\ VMs/dev-on-ub/generic-ubuntu1804-virtualbox-disk001.vdi \
  --resize $(expr 80 \* 1024)

# Replace the original drive:
VBoxManage storageattach dev-on-ub --storagectl "IDE Controller" --port 0 \
  --device 0 --type hdd  --medium ~/VirtualBox\ VMs/dev-on-ub/generic-ubuntu1804-virtualbox-disk001.vdi

    NOTE: The storagectl value is displayed in the VirtualBox UI. It might be "SATA Controller".

  3. Configure the boot order (1: optical drive; 2: disk):

    VBoxManage modifyvm dev-on-ub --boot1 dvd --boot2 disk

  4. After running this it may be necessary to restart the box a few times in order to get the VM to fully boot up cleanly. It isn't clean but, I found that "powercycling" it when it got stuck or issuing a vagrant halt command would lead to a clean boot after the VM gets stuck.

    Once you have a clean boot up with the new disk attached, and you can proceed to modify the partition table so that the new disk space can be used.

  5. Attach optical drive w/ cd:

    VBoxManage storageattach dev-on-ub --storagectl "IDE Controller" --port 1 \
  --device 0 --type dvddrive --medium ./gparted-live-0.28.1-1-amd64.iso

    Note that the disk will be ejected after rebooting. Repeat this step if needed.

  6. Now everything is ready to boot.

    VBoxManage startvm dev-on-ub --type gui

  7. Follow the prompts in GParted until a GUI appears.

    Choose not to modify the keymap, then select a language you want, then continue through the remaining prompts. If GParted does not start automatically, start it.

    Note the partition device and mount point for the next step. In this example, these are /dev/sda5 and vagrant--vg-root.

    You may need to "deactivate" the existing partitions (right click to open menu), this will remove the locks, then right click the partition you want to resize and modify the partition size as desired. Apply the changes.

    This process must be done twice if the disk is managed by LVM. Once to resize the extended partition so that it can use all the space on the physical disk, and again to resize the child of the extended partition, /dev/sda5, so that it can use all the space in the parent partition.

    If the disk is not managed by LVM, then simply resizing the partition should be sufficient.

  8. Close the GParted application.

  9. IF the disk is setup with LVM then open the terminal (do not reboot) and run the following commands. Note the double dash in 'vagrant--vg-root'.

    sudo pvresize /dev/sda5
sudo lvresize -l +100%FREE /dev/mapper/vagrant-–vg-root
sudo e2fsck -f /dev/mapper/vagrant-–vg-root
sudo resize2fs /dev/mapper/vagrant-–vg-root

  10. Shutdown the machine.

  11. If the disk isn't automatically ejected, Eject the ISO in the optical drive:

    VBoxManage storageattach dev-on-ub --storagectl "IDE Controller" --port 1 \
  --device 0 --type dvddrive --forceunmount --medium emptydrive

Reboot the virtualbox. It may require a few reboots and/or powercycles as before.