I started with a fresh install of RHEL 6, and it created a default swap as a logical volume (/dev/vg_hostname/lv_swap), along with the root (/dev/vg_hostname/lv_root) mounted as /
I then created a separate swap partition on it's own disk (/dev/sdb), deactivating the old swap and then enabling the new swap. Modified the fstab to accomidate, rebooted and verified that the new swap was active, and the old swap was no longer in effect.
# cat /proc/swaps
Filename Type Size Used Priority
/dev/dm-2 partition 8384508 0 -1
So, what's giving me trouble is removing the logical volume (/dev/vg_hostname/lv_swap), and return that now unused space in the volume group to the root logical volume (/dev/vg_hostname/lv_root)
I used these steps, which I thought should be fairly strait forward.
make the volume no longer active...
# lvremove /dev/vg_sierrastaging/lv_swap
Logical volume "lv_swap" successfully removed
At this point, I reboot the system. I don't see any messages behind the splash screen (alt + d) and then the boot hangs (flashing caps lock and the scroll locks buttons on the keyboard)
Am I just totally missing something here with removing this logical volume, or is there a deeper issue here?
I have contacted Red Hat support, and they haven't been very helpful with providing any type of answer... one suggestion from the engineer was to re-build the intramfs, which I did according to their instructions, but that didn't seem to solve this issue either.
Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
Update
Looks like with Red Hat 6, there's a kernel option in the /boot/grub/grub.conf
file that specifically references the swap space that was created when they system was installed ... here's the option :
rd_LVM_LV=vg_sierrastaging/lv_root rd_LVM_LV=vg_sierrastaging/lv_swap
So, I removed that option, and was then able to restart the server without that swap partition being active.
Maybe someone can explain why that's a kernel option, or if I should need to put the different swap partition into the grub.conf file as a separate kernel option.