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LVM(8) System Manager's Manual LVM(8)

lvm - LVM2 tools

lvm [command | file]

lvm provides the command-line tools for LVM2. A separate manual page describes each command in detail.

If lvm is invoked with no arguments it presents a readline prompt (assuming it was compiled with readline support). LVM commands may be entered interactively at this prompt with readline facilities including history and command name and option completion. Refer to readline(3) for details.

If lvm is invoked with argv[0] set to the name of a specific LVM command (for example by using a hard or soft link) it acts as that command.

Where commands take VG or LV names as arguments, the full path name is optional. An LV called "lvol0" in a VG called "vg0" can be specified as "vg0/lvol0". Where a list of VGs is required but is left empty, a list of all VGs will be substituted. Where a list of LVs is required but a VG is given, a list of all the LVs in that VG will be substituted. So "lvdisplay vg0" will display all the LVs in "vg0". Tags can also be used - see addtag below.

One advantage of using the built-in shell is that configuration information gets cached internally between commands.

A file containing a simple script with one command per line can also be given on the command line. The script can also be executed directly if the first line is #! followed by the absolute path of lvm.

The following commands are built into lvm without links normally being created in the filesystem for them.

loading lvm.conf (5) and any other configuration files.

The following commands implement the core LVM functionality.

The following options are available for many of the commands. They are implemented generically and documented here rather than repeated on individual manual pages.

Repeat from 1 to 3 times to increase the detail of messages sent to stdout and stderr. Overrides config file setting.
Repeat from 1 to 6 times to increase the detail of messages sent to the log file and/or syslog (if configured). Overrides config file setting.
Overrides -d and -v.
Commands will not update metadata. This is implemented by disabling all metadata writing but nevertheless returning success to the calling function. This may lead to unusual error messages in multi-stage operations if a tool relies on reading back metadata it believes has changed but hasn't.
Whether or not the device-mapper kernel driver is loaded. If you set this to n, no attempt will be made to contact the driver.
Whether or not to metadata should be backed up automatically after a change. You are strongly advised not to disable this! See vgcfgbackup (8).
When set, the tools will do their best to provide access to volume groups that are only partially available. Where part of a logical volume is missing, /dev/ioerror will be substituted, and you could use dmsetup (8) to set this up to return I/O errors when accessed, or create it as a large block device of nulls. Metadata may not be changed with this option. To insert a replacement physical volume of the same or large size use pvcreate -u to set the uuid to match the original followed by vgcfgrestore (8).
Specifies which type of on-disk metadata to use, such as lvm1 or lvm2, which can be abbreviated to 1 or 2 respectively. The default (lvm2) can be changed by setting format in the global section of the config file.
This lets you proceed with read-only metadata operations such as lvchange -ay and vgchange -ay even if the locking module fails. One use for this is in a system init script if the lock directory is mounted read-only when the script runs.
Add the tag tag to a PV, VG or LV. A tag is a word that can be used to group LVM2 objects of the same type together. Tags can be given on the command line in place of PV, VG or LV arguments. Tags should be prefixed with @ to avoid ambiguity. Each tag is expanded by replacing it with all objects possessing that tag which are of the type expected by its position on the command line. PVs can only possess tags while they are part of a Volume Group: PV tags are discarded if the PV is removed from the VG. As an example, you could tag some LVs as database and others as userdata and then activate the database ones with lvchange -ay @database. Objects can possess multiple tags simultaneously. Only the new LVM2 metadata format supports tagging: objects using the LVM1 metadata format cannot be tagged because the on-disk format does not support it. Snapshots cannot be tagged. Characters allowed in tags are: A-Z a-z 0-9 _ + . -
Delete the tag tag from a PV, VG or LV, if it's present.
The allocation policy to use: contiguous, cling, normal, anywhere or inherit. When a command needs to allocate physical extents from the volume group, the allocation policy controls how they are chosen. Each volume group and logical volume has an allocation policy. The default for a volume group is normal which applies common-sense rules such as not placing parallel stripes on the same physical volume. The default for a logical volume is inherit which applies the same policy as for the volume group. These policies can be changed using lvchange (8) and vgchange (8) or over-ridden on the command line of any command that performs allocation. The contiguous policy requires that new extents be placed adjacent to existing extents. The cling policy places new extents on the same physical volume as existing extents in the same stripe of the Logical Volume. If there are sufficient free extents to satisfy an allocation request but normal doesn't use them, anywhere will - even if that reduces performance by placing two stripes on the same physical volume.
N.B. The policies described above are not implemented fully yet. In particular, contiguous free space cannot be broken up to satisfy allocation attempts.

Directory containing lvm.conf and other LVM system files. Defaults to "/etc/lvm".
Directory containing .lvm_history if the internal readline shell is invoked.
The volume group name that is assumed for any reference to a logical volume that doesn't specify a path. Not set by default.

The following characters are valid for VG and LV names: a-z A-Z 0-9 + _ . -

VG and LV names cannot begin with a hyphen. There are also various reserved names that are used internally by lvm that can not be used as LV or VG names. A VG cannot be called anything that exists in /dev/ at the time of creation, nor can it be called '.' or '..'. A LV cannot be called '.' '..' 'snapshot' or 'pvmove'. The LV name may also not contain the strings '_mlog' or '_mimage'

All tools return a status code of zero on success or non-zero on failure.

/etc/lvm/lvm.conf
$HOME/.lvm_history

clvmd(8), lvchange(8), lvcreate(8), lvdisplay(8), lvextend(8), lvmchange(8), lvmdiskscan(8), lvreduce(8), lvremove(8), lvrename(8), lvresize(8), lvs(8), lvscan(8), pvchange(8), pvck(8), pvcreate(8), pvdisplay(8), pvmove(8), pvremove(8), pvs(8), pvscan(8), vgcfgbackup(8), vgchange(8), vgck(8), vgconvert(8), vgcreate(8), vgdisplay(8), vgextend(8), vgimport(8), vgmerge(8), vgmknodes(8), vgreduce(8), vgremove(8), vgrename(8), vgs(8), vgscan(8), vgsplit(8), readline(3), lvm.conf(5)

LVM TOOLS 2.02.44-cvs (02-17-09) Sistina Software UK