Logical Volume Manager (LVM) plays an important role in the Linux operating system by improving the availability, disk I/O, performance and capability of disk management.
LVM is a widely used technique that is extremely flexible for disk management.
This adds an extra layer between the physical disks and the file system, allowing you to create a logical volume instead of a physical disk.
LVM allows you to easily resize, extend and decrease the logical volume when you need it.
Please go through the below articles, if you want to know more about LVM:
- Part-1: How to Create/Configure LVM (Logical Volume Management) in Linux
- Part-2: How to Extend/Increase LVM’s (Logical Volume Resize) in Linux
- Part-3: How to Reduce/Shrink LVM’s (Logical Volume Resize) in Linux
- Part-4: How to Remove Physical Volume from a Volume Group in LVM
- Part-5: How to Remove LVM (Logical) Volume in Linux
- Part-6: How to recover deleted Logical volume (LV) in LVM
How to Create LVM Physical Volumes
You can use any disk, RAID array, SAN disk, or a partition as the LVM physical volume.
Let’s imagine, you have already added three disks, these disks are /dev/sdb, and /dev/sdc, /dev/sdd.
Run the following commands to discover newly added LUNs or disks in Linux.
# ls /sys/class/scsi_host host0
# echo "- - -" > /sys/class/scsi_host/host0/scan
# fdisk -l
General syntax for the creation of a physical volume (pvcreate).
pvcreate [Physical Volume Name]
Once the disk is detected in the OS, use the pvcreate command to initialize the LVM PV (Physical Volumes).
# pvcreate /dev/sdb /dev/sdc /dev/sdd Physical volume "/dev/sdb" successfully created Physical volume "/dev/sdc" successfully created Physical volume "/dev/sdd" successfully created
Make a note:
- The above command erases any data on the given disks /dev/sdb, /dev/sdc and /dev/sdd.
- Physical disk can be added directly into the LVM PV instead of the disk partition.
Use the pvdisplay and pvs commands to display the PVs you have created. The pvs command shows summarize output and the pvdisplay shows the detailed output of the PVs.
# pvs PV VG Fmt Attr PSize PFree /dev/sdb lvm2 a-- 15.00g 15.00g /dev/sdc lvm2 a-- 15.00g 15.00g /dev/sdd lvm2 a-- 15.00g 15.00g
# pvdisplay "/dev/sdb" is a new physical volume of "15.00 GiB" --- NEW Physical volume --- PV Name /dev/sdb VG Name PV Size 15.00 GiB Allocatable NO PE Size 0 Total PE 0 Free PE 0 Allocated PE 0 PV UUID 69d9dd18-36be-4631-9ebb-78f05fe3217f "/dev/sdc" is a new physical volume of "15.00 GiB" --- NEW Physical volume --- PV Name /dev/sdc VG Name PV Size 15.00 GiB Allocatable NO PE Size 0 Total PE 0 Free PE 0 Allocated PE 0 PV UUID a2092b92-af29-4760-8e68-7a201922573b "/dev/sdd" is a new physical volume of "15.00 GiB" --- NEW Physical volume --- PV Name /dev/sdd VG Name PV Size 15.00 GiB Allocatable NO PE Size 0 Total PE 0 Free PE 0 Allocated PE 0 PV UUID d92fa769-e00f-4fd7-b6ed-ecf7224af7faS
How to Create a Volume Group
Volume group is the another layer in LVM structure. Basically the volume group consists of the LVM physical volumes you created. You can add physical volume to an existing volume group or create a new volume group for physical volume as needed.
General syntax for Volume Group creation (vgcreate).
vgcreate [Volume Group Name] [Physical Volume Name]
Use the following command to add a new physical volume to the new volume group.
# vgcreate vg01 /dev/sdb /dev/sdc /dev/sdd Volume group "vg01" successfully created
Make a note: By default, it uses 4MB for physical extent, but you can change it based on your need. For instance, to create a volume group with a size of 32MB physical extent, run:
# vgcreate -s 32M vg01 /dev/sdb /dev/sdc /dev/sdd Volume group "vg01" successfully created
Use the vgs and vgdisplay commands to display information about the VG you created.
# vgs vg01 VG #PV #LV #SN Attr VSize VFree vg01 3 0 0 wz--n- 44.99g 44.99g
# vgdisplay vg01 --- Volume group --- VG Name vg01 System ID Format lvm2 Metadata Areas 3 Metadata Sequence No 1 VG Access read/write VG Status resizable MAX LV 0 Cur LV 0 Open LV 0 Max PV 0 Cur PV 3 Act PV 3 VG Size 44.99 GiB PE Size 4.00 MiB Total PE 11511 Alloc PE / Size 0 / 0 Free PE / Size 11511 / 44.99 GiB VG UUID d17e3c31-e2c9-4f11-809c-94a549bc43b7
How to Extent Volume Group
If you do not have space in the VG, Use the following command to add a new physical volume to the existing volume group.
Common syntax for Volume Group extension (vgextend).
vgextend [Existing Volume Group Name] [Physical Volume Name]
# vgextend vg01 /dev/sde
Volume group "vg01" successfully extended
How to Create Logical Volume Using GB Size’s
Logical Volume is the top layer in LVM structure. Logical volumes are block devices created from the volume group. It acts as a virtual disk partition and can be easily managed using LVM commands.
You can use the lvcreate command to create a logical volume.
General syntax for creating logical volume (lvcreate)
lvcreate –n [Logical Volume Name] –L [Logical Volume Size] [Name of the Volume Group where the LV to be created]
Run the below command to create a logical volume lv001 of size 10 GB.
# lvcreate -n lv001 -L 10G vg01 Logical volume "lv001" created
Use the lvs and lvdisplay commands to display information about the LVs you have created.
# lvs /dev/vg01/lvol01 LV VG Attr LSize Pool Origin Data% Move Log Cpy%Sync Convert lv001 vg01 mwi-a-m-- 10.00g lv001_mlog 100.00
# lvdisplay /dev/vg01/lv001 --- Logical volume --- LV Path /dev/vg01/lv001 LV Name lv001 VG Name vg01 LV UUID ca307aa4-0866-49b1-8184-004025789e63 LV Write Access read/write LV Creation host, time localhost.localdomain, 2020-09-10 11:43:05 -0700 LV Status available # open 0 LV Size 10.00 GiB Current LE 2560 Segments 1 Allocation inherit Read ahead sectors auto - currently set to 256 Block device 253:4
How to Create Logical Volume Using PE Size’s
Alternatively, you can create Logical Volumes Using Physical Extends (PE) size.
How to Calculate PE Value?
It’s very simple, for example, if you have a volume group of 10 GB, then what is the PE size?
By default, it uses 4MB for the physical extent, but check the correct PE size by running the vgdisplay command, as it may have been created with a different size.
10GB = 10240MB / 4MB (PE Size) = 2560 PEs
Common syntax for Logical Volume Creation with PE Size’s (lvcreate).
lvcreate –n [Logical Volume Name] –l [Physical Extends (PE) Size] [Name of the Volume Group where the LV to be created]
To create 10GB of logical volume using the PE size the command would be:
# lvcreate -n lv001 -l 2560 vg01
How to Create File system
You cannot use a logical volume until you create a valid file system.
General syntax to create a file system.
mkfs –t [File System Type] /dev/[Name of the Volume Group where LV resides]/[LV name]
Use the below command to format the logical volume lv001 with the ext4 file system.
# mkfs -t ext4 /dev/vg01/lv001
For xfs file system.
# mkfs -t xfs /dev/vg01/lv001
Mounting Logical Volume
Finally, you need to mount the logical volume to use it. Make sure to add an entry to /etc/fstab so that it loads automatically when the system boots.
Create a directory to mount the logical volume.
# mkdir /lvmtest
Use the mount command to mount the logical volume.
# mount /dev/vg01/lv001 /lvmtest
Add new logical volume details to the /etc/fstab file to mount automatically when the system starts.
# vi /etc/fstab /dev/vg01/lv001 /lvmtest xfs defaults 0 0
Check the newly mounted volume using the df command.
# df -h /lvmtest Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/mapper/vg01-lv001 15360M 34M 15326M 4% /lvmtest
Thank you so much, this helped a ton!!!
Welcome Greg
Dear Magesh,
Please mark the disks as /dev/sdb , /dev/sdc and /dev/sdd. Presently all the three are depicted, INCORRECTLY as /dev/sdb.
Best Wishes,
Prabhat
@Prabhat, Thanks, it’s update now.