File Systems & Storage Management Flashcards

Which command creates a new physical volume (PV) on /dev/sdd for use with LVM?

Answer: pvcreate /dev/sdd

pvcreate initializes a disk or partition with LVM metadata, making it usable as a physical volume.

What does the 'relatime' mount option do compared to 'atime'?

Answer: Updates atime only if the file was modified or accessed before its current atime

relatime only updates atime when the previous atime is older than the mtime or ctime, reducing unnecessary writes.

Which command adds an existing physical volume /dev/sde to volume group 'vg_data'?

Answer: vgextend vg_data /dev/sde

vgextend adds one or more initialized PVs to an existing volume group, increasing its total capacity.

What is the role of the 'journal' in ext3/ext4 filesystems?

Answer: Records metadata (and optionally data) changes before committing them to ensure consistency after a crash

The journal is a write-ahead log that records pending changes, allowing the filesystem to recover to a consistent state after an unclean shutdown.

Which command shows the inode usage of all mounted filesystems?

Answer: df -i

df -i reports inode usage (used, free, and percentage) for each mounted filesystem.

What does 'mkswap /dev/sdf1' followed by 'swapon /dev/sdf1' accomplish?

Answer: Formats and activates a swap partition for virtual memory use

mkswap writes the swap signature to the partition, and swapon enables it for immediate use as virtual memory.

Which /proc file shows the currently supported filesystem types in the running kernel?

Answer: /proc/filesystems

/proc/filesystems lists all filesystem types currently registered with the kernel, including those built-in and loaded as modules.