====  Resize (expand) partitions on a qcow2 image using qemu-img and virt-resize ====

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In case you have **no space left on the virtual machine**, and you had **specified a low maximum allocation** for the qcow2 image... you can **dump the partitions** to a new qcow2 image with **higher maximum allocation**. Here is how to do it:

<code bash>
# create a new empty qcow2 image of maximum allocation space = 20GB
qemu-img create -f qcow2 your-vm-image.NEW.qcow2 20G

# imagine that on the virtual machine system partitions we have this:
/dev/sda1        # the root partition (/)
/dev/sda2        # boot or swap partition

# in this case we will want to expand the /dev/sda1 (internally on VM, not on the real host),
# we will use this command
virt-resize --expand /dev/sda1 your-vm-image.OLD.qcow2 your-vm-image.NEW.qcow2

</code>

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Now carefully **boot the VM with the new image** without deleting the old one to **make sure it boots**!

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Source: https://www.cyberithub.com/resize-qcow2-image-with-virt-resize-kvm-tools/