One of the reasons why I deploy Linux

I needed to shrink ext3 '/' partitions on couple of servers, couple of thousands kilometers away. The problem is that one can't shrink on line ext3 file system. Another problem is that I can't just tell someone to grab a LiveCD and shrink it. So, what did I do?

I've booted ubuntu installer from grub with kickstart and preseed files on one of my web servers. Also, I used network-console anna module to set up SSH connection. In the preseed file was a password for the network-console. Kickstart was 'only' needed to set up all the rest - mirror, IP address, language, etc... 2-3 minutes after reboot, there is an open ssh port on the IP! Yay! Connecting to that port with username and password that were preseeded, I got, guess what? Partman! In it's natural curses environment :)

But, oh no! It was 8PM, and I wanted to go to a concert. No problem ;) There's putty for symbian. While waiting for band to come to the stage, I've took my phone, connect to my servers (one by one) which are far far away, and had their partitions resized. I've also fixed grub menu, so it wouldn't boot into installer again and - bam! - back in production. And I didn't even miss a single song :)