Extend linux filesystem space on Amazon EC2 instance

Question

I created an Amazon EC2 instance using an AWS Community RightImage CentOS 7 (x64) image. The default image occupies 7GB space. I'm eligible for AWS free-tier and I've created a base disk accordingly of 30GB. I want the filesystem to expand and occupy this entire volume. I'm following this guide: enter link description here from Amazon.

When I execute file to get the filesystem, here's what I get: [root@ip-xxx ~]# file -s /dev/xvd*

/dev/xvda:  x86 boot sector; partition 1: ID=0x83, active, starthead 31, startsector 2000, 20969520 sectors, code offset 0x63
/dev/xvda1: Linux rev 1.0 ext3 filesystem data, UUID=7f80f47c-521a-4280-99dc-d00273f53fe6, volume name "ROOT" (needs journal recovery) (large files)

lsblk clearly shows that there's remaining space on the disk...

[root@ip-xxx ~]# lsblk
NAME    MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
xvda    202:0    0  30G  0 disk 
`-xvda1 202:1    0  10G  0 part /

But when I run resize2fs, it says nothing to do...

[root@ip-xxx ~]# resize2fs -p /dev/xvda1
resize2fs 1.42.9 (28-Dec-2013)
The filesystem is already 2621190 blocks long.  Nothing to do!

What am I missing here? How do I extend the filesystem to the full size of the disk?

Thank you,
m^e

Answer 1

You need to extend your partition first. "resize2fs" is a filesytem tool, not a partitioning tool. Use a tool like fdisk or parted on your base disk (xvda) to first extend your partition to the end of the disk.

To do this using parted: https://www.gnu.org/software/parted/manual/html_node/parted_31.html

To do this using fdisk: https://access.redhat.com/articles/1190213

After doing this, you may then resize your filesystem.

While it is technically possible to do this to an online root partition, I would not recommend it. This is best done while the native system is offline (using a live system to operate on it instead).

Always back up your data before doing anything like this.