Jeff:

> Is there a simple way to move space from my /var partition to my / partition?

Moving space is more difficult than moving data.  Sort of like moving
holes instead of moving dirt.  To move a hole you have to dig a whole
(pun!) new hole.

Lynn's suggestion of moving data around is the easiest, and you wind 
up with a new hole (more space) where the data you moved used to be.

If you have ext2 or ext3 filesystems you *may* be able to resize them.
If you partitioned the entire disk this could be more problematic than
if you left some space available.

I have used the 'resize2fs' utility on a Linux 2.4 system (RH72) to
increase the size of a partition.

I don't know if it will work to decrease the size of a partition - 
I rather doubt it.  I don't think I would trust anything that 
purports to let you decrease the size of a partition without losing
data.

So, the /var partition will need to stay the same size that it is now, 
unless you back everything up to a tape, repartition, and restore from
the tape to your resized partitions.

Here were the steps to increasing the size of the partition:

0. There needs to be some unallocated blocks on the block device (disk)
at the end of the partition you've set, that are not currently par-
titioned.  [We have a XIOTECH Magnitude SAN, and it allows you to
increase the number of blocks in a block device.  Hard drives gener-
ally have a fixed finite number of blocks, so you have to specifically
leave some blocks unallocated at the end of the disk.]

Incidentally the XIOTECH software does not support shrinking the
size of existing disks.  They say it is impossible for the SAN to
know where the data is on the disks.  I don't disagree.

1. Make sure the filesystem is unmounted and inactive.  If you are
working on the root filesystem, you should be running from a bootable
rescue CD.

1.1 Run e2fsck on the partition.

2. Run "fdisk" and MAKE A NOTE of the partitions you have set up.
The last partition is the only one that can be increased.  Hopefully
this is the root filesystem, since you want to increase the size of
the root filesystem.

Delete the last partition.  Re-create it using the same start cylinder
but with a more distant ending cylinder (so that there are more blocks
in the partition now).  Write the new partition table to the disk.

3. Run "resize2fs" on the (larger) partition.

4. Run e2fsck on the (newly resized) partition.

5. The partition should be ready to mount and all your data should
be there, and it will be bigger.

I know this probably is irrelevant to you but it's interesting that
the resize2fs utility does work if you have the right kind of storage
infrastructure underneath your system.

Hope this helps.

--
Jim Ockers (ockers@ockers.net)
Contact info: please see http://www.ockers.net/

Fight Spam! Join CAUCE (Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email)
at http://www.cauce.org/ .