5.4 Creating Custom Partitions

Linux allows you to have four primary partitions per hard disk. The Access Gateway Appliance requires a swap partition, a var partition, and a root partition. For a machine with a large hard disk (100 GB or larger), we recommend creating the following partitions:

Table 5-1 Access Gateway Appliance Partitions

Partition Type

Requirements

root

This partition contains the boot files, the system files, and the log files. You should assign 40% of available disk space to this partition. We recommend that the space should be more than 40 GB.

swap

We recommend that you create a swap partition that is twice the size of the RAM installed on the machine.

var

This partition is used for log files and caching objects of Access Gateway. Allocate the remaining space for this partition which should be more than 50 GB. Assign the remaining disk space to var.

To create your custom partitions:

  1. From the Installation Settings page, click Change, then select Partitioning. (See Step 11.)

    This page lists the partition settings as currently proposed.

  2. Select Custom partitioning, then click Next.

  3. (Conditional) If the installation program discovers any existing partitions, select the hard disk, click Delete, then confirm the deletion of the partitions.

  4. Create a root partition as follows:

    1. Click Add, select the primary or extended partition, then click OK.

    2. Fill in the following fields:

      Format: Make sure that Format is selected.

      You must format the partition after you have modified the partition size during installation.

      File system: Select Ext3 for the type.

      Custom Size: Specify a value.

      Mount Point: Select /.

    3. Click Finish.

  5. Create a swap partition as follows:

    1. Select the hard drive, click Create, select the primary or extended partition, then click OK.

    2. Fill in the following fields:

      Format: Make sure that Format is selected.

      File system: Select Swap for the type.

      Custom Size: Specify a value.

      Mount Point: Leave the default value of swap.

    3. Click Finish.

  6. Create a var partition as follows:

    1. Select the hard drive, click Add, select the primary or extended partition, then click OK.

    2. Fill in the following fields:

      Format: Make sure that Format is selected.

      File system: Select Ext3 for the type.

      Custom Size: Specify a value.

      Mount Point: Select /var.

    3. Click Finish.

  7. Click Accept to create partitions with the specified values.

  8. In the installation Summary page, verify that the partitions you specified are listed, then continue with Step 12.