LVM Volume Groups

A volume group is an abstraction layer between block devices and logical volumes.

The commands used to manage a volume group start with vg:

vgcfgbackup   vgcfgrestore   vgchange       vgck
vgconvert     vgcreate       vgdisplay      vgexport
vgextend      vgimport       vgimportclone  vgmerge
vgmknodes     vgreduce       vgremove       vgrename
vgs           vgscan         vgsplit

vgcreate

Use the vgcreate command to create a volume group. You can immediately name all the physical volumes that span the volume group

# vgcreate vg33 /dev/sde /dev/sdf
  Volume group "vg33" successfully created

vgextend

Use the vgextend command to extend an existing volume group with a physical volume:

# vgextend vg33 /dev/sdg
  Volume group "vg42" successfully extended

vgremove

Use the vgremove command to remove volume groups from lvm. The volume groups may not be in use:

# vgremove vg33
  Volume group "vg33" successfully removed

vgreduce

Use the vgreduce command to remove a Physical Volume from the Volume Group.

The following example adds Physical Volume /dev/sdg to the vg33 Volume Group using vgextend. And then removes it again using vgreduce.

# pvs | grep sdg
  /dev/sdg               lvm2 --   819.20M 819.20M
# vgextend vg33 /dev/sdg
  Volume group "vg33" successfully extended
# pvs | grep sdg
  /dev/sdg   vg1         lvm2 a-   816.00M 816.00M
# vgreduce vg33 /dev/sdg
  Removed "/dev/sdg" from volume group "vg33"
# pvs | grep sdg
  /dev/sdg               lvm2 --   819.20M 819.20M

vgchange

Use the vgchange command to change parameters of a Volume Group.

This example shows how to prevent Physical Volumes from being added or removed to the Volume Group vg33

.

# vgchange -xn vg33
  Volume group "vg33" successfully changed  
# vgextend vg33 /dev/sdg
  Volume group vg33 is not resizable.

You can also use vgchange to change most other properties of a Volume Group. This example changes the maximum number of Logical Volumes and maximum number of Physical Volumes that vg33 can serve:

# vgdisplay vg33 | grep -i max
  MAX LV                0
  Max PV                0
# vgchange -l16 vg33
  Volume group "vg33" successfully changed
# vgchange -p8 vg33
  Volume group "vg33" successfully changed
# vgdisplay vg33 | grep -i max
  MAX LV          16
  Max PV          8

vgmerge

Merging two Volume Groups into one is done with vgmerge. The following example merges vg33 into vg32, keeping all the properties of vg32:

# vgmerge vg32 vg33
  Volume group "vg33" successfully merged into "vg32"

vgs

Similar to pvs is the use of vgs to display a quick overview of all volume groups.

# vgs
  VG         #PV   #LV   #SN Attr   VSize  VFree
  vg30          1       2        0  wz--n-  15.88G    0

There is only one volume group in the screenshot below, it is named vg30 and is almost 16GB in size.

vgscan

The vgscan command will scan all disks for existing Volume Groups. It will also update the /etc/lvm/.cache file. This file contains a list of all current lvm devices.

# vgscan
  Reading all physical volumes. This may take a while...
  Found volume group "vg30" using metadata type lvm2

LVM will run the vgscan automatically at boot-up, so if you add hot swap devices, then you will need to run vgscan to update /etc/lvm/.cache with the new devices.

vgdisplay

The vgdisplay command will give you more detailed information about a volume group (or about all volume groups if you omit the argument).

# vgdisplay vg30
  --- Volume group ---
  VG Name                vg30
  System ID
  Format                 lvm2
  Metadata Areas         1
  Metadata Sequence No   3
  VG Access              read/write
  VG Status              resizable
  MAX LV                 0
  Cur LV                 2
  Open LV                2
  Max PV                 0
  Cur PV                 1
  Act PV                 1
  VG Size                15.88 GB
  PE Size                32.00 MB
  Total PE               508
  Alloc PE / Size        508 / 15.88 GB
  Free PE / Size         0 / 0
  VG UUID                2bb9351c-d23e-479d-9818-eb2771cc10ce