If you use Red Hat variants with kickstart profiles, or any of the other technologies for initial system configuration, and you also use LVM, I really need to get you to understand something important.

DO NOT allocate all leftover space to an LV called /tmp. It’s tempting, because the whole idea of the /tmp filesystem is that it isn’t necessary for the OS and applications to run. Except, that, well, it is. Try unmounting /tmp while you’re logged into the system. No, go ahead, beat your head against the wall, feel free to do so.

I had a bunch of systems I recently had to correct this mistake on. Don’t make it. Either leave the space as truly unallocated, or allocate to /opt or something that should still be non critical, or even a nonsensical LV that you’ll destroy afterwards. Just don’t let it get dumped in /tmp (or root, or /usr, or even /var) where you really CAN’T reallocate from without bringing down the system. Otherwise, you lose the flexibility you thought you gained by using LVM.

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