Fedora server Disk space woes

I have a 500 GB ssd, and a 10 G HD

I installed Fedora server on the 500 GB ssd, but somehow, it created a 16GB Block device and discarded all the rest of the space.
So in that SSD I only have:
1- /boot/Efi at device /dev/sdb1 as EFI System
2- XFS as /boot/ at device /dev/sdb2 as Extended boot partition
3- LVM2 Physical volume at /dev/sdb3 that does not even appear on df -h. (498 GB)

What is the best way of putting the 498 free space at work as part of Root or /home ?

I am not the only one with this issue, so it is something stupid that some stupid people lije donā€™t know how to solve: Reddit - Dive into anything

Please point me to documentation so I can learn how to fish.

Computer is a 2011 IMAC that I rpurposed to install fedora server.

You should be able to do this with ā€˜gpartedā€™ or other Fedora partition manager, disk manager.
You say you are on ā€˜serverā€™? There are command line or graphical options depending on how you access the system.

Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/fedora_unknownc82a1421cb95-root 15G 14G 1.5G 90% /
devtmpfs 4.0M 0 4.0M 0% /dev
tmpfs 7.8G 100K 7.8G 1% /dev/shm
tmpfs 3.2G 2.0M 3.2G 1% /run
tmpfs 1.0M 0 1.0M 0% /run/credentials/systemd-journald.service
tmpfs 1.0M 0 1.0M 0% /run/credentials/systemd-udev-load-credentials.service
tmpfs 1.0M 0 1.0M 0% /run/credentials/systemd-network-generator.service
tmpfs 1.0M 0 1.0M 0% /run/credentials/systemd-tmpfiles-setup-dev-early.service
tmpfs 1.0M 0 1.0M 0% /run/credentials/systemd-sysctl.service
tmpfs 1.0M 0 1.0M 0% /run/credentials/systemd-tmpfiles-setup-dev.service
tmpfs 7.8G 20K 7.8G 1% /tmp
/dev/sdb2 960M 470M 491M 49% /boot
/dev/sdb1 599M 7.6M 592M 2% /boot/efi
/dev/sda1 9.1T 3.2T 6.0T 35% /media/hd1
tmpfs 1.0M 0 1.0M 0% /run/credentials/systemd-vconsole-setup.service
tmpfs 1.0M 0 1.0M 0% /run/credentials/systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service
tmpfs 1.0M 0 1.0M 0% /run/credentials/systemd-resolved.service
tmpfs 1.6G 176K 1.6G 1% /run/user/1000

Yes on server, but I installed Gnome just to have some graphical interface.
I tried to format that 498 GB as ext4 but it says it is busy.
The thing isā€¦ I donā€™t even know where it is picking up those 16GBā€¦ it looks lijke an external driveā€¦ but there isnā€™t any

Hmm yes a bit strange, upload a screenshot of disks with that 16GB partition selected.

And run

lsblk -f

and post the results

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Server always installs only a 15GiB root.

You can customise this during the install process.
My usual practice is to create a separate /var partition that is sized for my serverā€™s use case. Say 100GiB, where logs temp files and caches will be stored.

Isnā€™t all the unused disk space in LVM? You should be able to use LVM tools to allocate space for new partitions.

If you have only just created the server then maybe do the unstall again with what you know about your needs?

So the installer does not have th ā€œintelligenceā€ to use the complete space? I have to manually define the partition sizes during installā€¦ correct?

It must be on the 10TB HDD. As Barry suggested I would reinstall, but for the reason of putting your system files on the SSD.

ALso, may I ask if you really need ā€˜serverā€™ It may be easier to learn on Fedora Workstation (Gnome) or a minimal install. You can still bring in any server like functions you require. Server is great for remote deployments as it comes with a nice web-based console.

NAME                                FSTYPE      FSVER    LABEL  UUID                                   FSAVAIL FSUSE% MOUNTPOINTS
sda                                                                                                                   
ā””ā”€sda1                              xfs                  PYJHD1 e5d0d2ff-b898-4aa6-8878-3ceb1823b6b7        6T    35% /media/hd1
sdb                                                                                                                   
ā”œā”€sdb1                              vfat        FAT32           3F28-FF4D                               591.3M     1% /boot/efi
ā”œā”€sdb2                              xfs                         1a71ff21-a0a1-4756-82c2-ff242b3ed12a    490.1M    49% /boot
ā””ā”€sdb3                              LVM2_member LVM2 001        uSkuGC-v7YJ-Jspu-VEyd-ipS1-uaAq-g0NR1c                
  ā””ā”€fedora_unknownc82a1421cb95-root xfs                         8ba0c574-be13-4daa-8196-454d89a927b5      1.5G    90% /
sdc                                                                                                                   
sr0                                                                                                                   
zram0                                                                                                                 [SWAP]

Been using it for plex server and other server duties, and off course, to learn something about serversā€¦
About the web base console I am using cockpit for the most caseā€¦ I only installed gnome to have the screen sleep, and to have soem graphical clues when hitting web /terminal walls.
Will be performing a complete reinstall adding all the free space to /var/ and /home/

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For sure. Remember to put the /root on the SSD.

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The server install is targeted toward the ā€œAdminā€ folk who want to decide the disk layout for themselves. Nothing wrong with what you are doing, but the design of the ā€œspinā€ has a slightly more steep learning curve.

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For Server we expect that the user is smarter then the developers.
It is almost always an error to allocate all the storage for a Server application.
You need to know what the use case is. For example my main Server has 17 partitions.

As I said I think you will find that the ā€œcomplete spaceā€ has been put into a Volume Group so that you can create partitions of the size and file system that makes sense for your use case.

What does sudo pvscan and sudo lvscan report?

Assuming I have remembered that LVM is setup on Server then you will see from the pvscan that you have ā€œfreeā€ space to create partitions with.

The first clue to this is the mount:

Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/fedora_unknownc82a1421cb95-root 15G 14G 1.5G 90% /

LVM is in use here. The 489GB partition is indeed in use. Itā€™s a physical volume of the LVM volume group fedora_unknownc82a1421cb95. Your root file system is a logical volume ā€˜rootā€™ within that logical volume group.

You can decipher how this all gets put together with the following LVM commands

vgs
pvs
lvs

You can resize the root logical volume and the root file system to use some (or all) of the free space in the volume group by using LVM tools such as lvextend and fsadm. In most cases you should be able to do this on-line with no reboot.

Youā€™d also use LVM tools to create new file systems in that unused space. Youā€™d create new logical volumes from the volume group, create a new file system on that logical volume, and modify /etc/fstab to mount that file system on a mount point of your choice if thatā€™s the way you want to go.

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And Fedora isnā€™t the only server distro to leave it up to the admin to create the desired file system configuration. Ubuntu Serverā€™s installer behaves similarly, for example.

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Aaaaand I broke itā€¦ now it doensā€™t find ā€œfedora_unknownc82a1421cb95-rootā€ā€¦ my bad.

so, basicallyā€¦
It was already a pain to manage partitions, so we felt the need to add LVMs on top, that give more flexibility, by allowing to create logical volumesā€¦ but require different tools to manageā€¦
Also summing Partition space + Logical drives doesnā€™t add upā€¦ as you can see up top where I had 498 GB free of 500GB, but with an ā€œextraā€ 16 GB on the logical volume (but that were already occupined on the 498 GB).
Did I get it right?

Reinstalling.

Make sure that you are counting in GB (109) vs. GiB (230) when adding stuff up.

I think LVM is wonderful. It allows me to create app specific partions as I need them at the size I need them, and grow or shrink them as the suituation demands.

Server assumes that you have enough admin skills to use these tools.

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I understand @jpcarvalhinhoā€™s concern about another tool with another learning curve.

But I agree with @barryascott that once you take the time to learn LVM, itā€™s worth the investment. Especially on servers.

Partition management is a pain in the neck to deal with if you under-size them at initial creation or need to expand them in the future. Been there, done that, have the scars to prove it. LVM performs most of its operations on-line, with no or minimal disruption. Thatā€™s not something you can say about partition manipulation.