1VGCHANGE(8) System Manager's Manual VGCHANGE(8)
2
6 vgchange - Change volume group attributes
7
9 vgchange option_args position_args
10 [ option_args ]
11 [ position_args ]
12 -a|--activate y|n|ay
14 --activationmode partial|degraded|complete
15 --addtag Tag
16 --alloc contiguous|cling|cling_by_tags|normal|anywhere|inherit
17 -A|--autobackup y|n
18 --commandprofile String
19 --config String
20 -d|--debug
21 --deltag Tag
22 --detachprofile
23 --driverloaded y|n
24 -f|--force
25 -h|--help
26 -K|--ignoreactivationskip
27 --ignorelockingfailure
28 --ignoremonitoring
29 --lockopt String
30 --lockstart
31 --lockstop
32 --locktype sanlock|dlm|none
33 -l|--logicalvolume Number
34 --longhelp
35 -p|--maxphysicalvolumes Number
36 --metadataprofile String
37 --monitor y|n
38 --nolocking
39 --noudevsync
40 -P|--partial
41 -s|--physicalextentsize Size[m|UNIT]
42 --poll y|n
43 --profile String
44 --pvmetadatacopies 0|1|2
45 -q|--quiet
46 --readonly
47 --refresh
48 --reportformat basic|json
49 -x|--resizeable y|n
50 -S|--select String
51 --sysinit
52 --systemid String
53 -t|--test
54 -u|--uuid
55 -v|--verbose
56 --version
57 --[vg]metadatacopies all|unmanaged|Number
58 -y|--yes
59
61 vgchange changes VG attributes, changes LV activation in the kernel,
62 and includes other utilities for VG maintenance.
63
65 Change a general VG attribute.
66 For options listed in parentheses, any one is
67 required, after which the others are optional.
68 vgchange
70 ( -l|--logicalvolume Number,
71 -p|--maxphysicalvolumes Number,
72 -u|--uuid,
73 -s|--physicalextentsize Size[m|UNIT],
74 -x|--resizeable y|n,
75 --addtag Tag,
76 --deltag Tag,
77 --alloc contiguous|cling|cling_by_tags|normal|anywhere|in‐
78 herit,
79 --pvmetadatacopies 0|1|2,
80 --[vg]metadatacopies all|unmanaged|Number,
81 --profile String,
82 --detachprofile,
83 --metadataprofile String )
84 [ -A|--autobackup y|n ]
85 [ -S|--select String ]
86 [ -f|--force ]
87 [ --poll y|n ]
88 [ --ignoremonitoring ]
89 [ --noudevsync ]
90 [ --reportformat basic|json ]
91 [ COMMON_OPTIONS ]
92 [ VG|Tag|Select ... ]
93 -
94 Start or stop monitoring LVs from dmeventd.
96 vgchange --monitor y|n
98 [ -A|--autobackup y|n ]
99 [ -S|--select String ]
100 [ -f|--force ]
101 [ --sysinit ]
102 [ --ignorelockingfailure ]
103 [ --poll y|n ]
104 [ --ignoremonitoring ]
105 [ --noudevsync ]
106 [ --reportformat basic|json ]
107 [ COMMON_OPTIONS ]
108 [ VG|Tag|Select ... ]
109 -
110 Start or stop processing LV conversions.
112 vgchange --poll y|n
114 [ -A|--autobackup y|n ]
115 [ -S|--select String ]
116 [ -f|--force ]
117 [ --ignorelockingfailure ]
118 [ --ignoremonitoring ]
119 [ --noudevsync ]
120 [ --reportformat basic|json ]
121 [ COMMON_OPTIONS ]
122 [ VG|Tag|Select ... ]
123 -
124 Activate or deactivate LVs.
126 vgchange -a|--activate y|n|ay
128 [ -K|--ignoreactivationskip ]
129 [ -P|--partial ]
130 [ -A|--autobackup y|n ]
131 [ -S|--select String ]
132 [ -f|--force ]
133 [ --activationmode partial|degraded|complete ]
134 [ --sysinit ]
135 [ --readonly ]
136 [ --ignorelockingfailure ]
137 [ --monitor y|n ]
138 [ --poll y|n ]
139 [ --ignoremonitoring ]
140 [ --noudevsync ]
141 [ --reportformat basic|json ]
142 [ COMMON_OPTIONS ]
143 [ VG|Tag|Select ... ]
144 -
145 Reactivate LVs using the latest metadata.
147 vgchange --refresh
149 [ -A|--autobackup y|n ]
150 [ -S|--select String ]
151 [ -f|--force ]
152 [ --sysinit ]
153 [ --ignorelockingfailure ]
154 [ --poll y|n ]
155 [ --ignoremonitoring ]
156 [ --noudevsync ]
157 [ --reportformat basic|json ]
158 [ COMMON_OPTIONS ]
159 [ VG|Tag|Select ... ]
160 -
161 Change the system ID of a VG.
163 vgchange --systemid String VG
165 [ COMMON_OPTIONS ]
166 -
167 Start the lockspace of a shared VG in lvmlockd.
169 vgchange --lockstart
171 [ -S|--select String ]
172 [ COMMON_OPTIONS ]
173 [ VG|Tag|Select ... ]
174 -
175 Stop the lockspace of a shared VG in lvmlockd.
177 vgchange --lockstop
179 [ -S|--select String ]
180 [ COMMON_OPTIONS ]
181 [ VG|Tag|Select ... ]
182 -
183 Change the lock type for a shared VG.
185 vgchange --locktype sanlock|dlm|none VG
187 [ COMMON_OPTIONS ]
188 -
189 Common options for command:
191 Common options for lvm:
193 [ -d|--debug ]
194 [ -h|--help ]
195 [ -q|--quiet ]
196 [ -t|--test ]
197 [ -v|--verbose ]
198 [ -y|--yes ]
199 [ --commandprofile String ]
200 [ --config String ]
201 [ --driverloaded y|n ]
202 [ --lockopt String ]
203 [ --longhelp ]
204 [ --nolocking ]
205 [ --profile String ]
206 [ --version ]
207
209 -a|--activate y|n|ay
210 Change the active state of LVs. An active LV can be used
211 through a block device, allowing data on the LV to be accessed.
212 y makes LVs active, or available. n makes LVs inactive, or un‐
213 available. The block device for the LV is added or removed from
214 the system using device-mapper in the kernel. A symbolic link
215 /dev/VGName/LVName pointing to the device node is also added/re‐
216 moved. All software and scripts should access the device
217 through the symbolic link and present this as the name of the
218 device. The location and name of the underlying device node may
219 depend on the distribution, configuration (e.g. udev), or re‐
220 lease version. ay specifies autoactivation, in which case an LV
221 is activated only if it matches an item in lvm.conf activa‐
222 tion/auto_activation_volume_list. If the list is not set, all
223 LVs are considered to match, and if if the list is set but
224 empty, no LVs match. Autoactivation should be used during sys‐
225 tem boot to make it possible to select which LVs should be auto‐
226 matically activated by the system. See lvmlockd(8) for more in‐
227 formation about activation options ey and sy for shared VGs.
228 --activationmode partial|degraded|complete
230 Determines if LV activation is allowed when PVs are missing,
231 e.g. because of a device failure. complete only allows LVs with
232 no missing PVs to be activated, and is the most restrictive
233 mode. degraded allows RAID LVs with missing PVs to be acti‐
234 vated. (This does not include the "mirror" type, see "raid1"
235 instead.) partial allows any LV with missing PVs to be acti‐
236 vated, and should only be used for recovery or repair. For de‐
237 fault, see lvm.conf/activation_mode. See lvmraid(7) for more
238 information.
239 --addtag Tag
241 Adds a tag to a PV, VG or LV. This option can be repeated to add
242 multiple tags at once. See lvm(8) for information about tags.
243 --alloc contiguous|cling|cling_by_tags|normal|anywhere|inherit
245 Determines the allocation policy when a command needs to allo‐
246 cate Physical Extents (PEs) from the VG. Each VG and LV has an
247 allocation policy which can be changed with vgchange/lvchange,
248 or overriden on the command line. normal applies common sense
249 rules such as not placing parallel stripes on the same PV. in‐
250 herit applies the VG policy to an LV. contiguous requires new
251 PEs be placed adjacent to existing PEs. cling places new PEs on
252 the same PV as existing PEs in the same stripe of the LV. If
253 there are sufficient PEs for an allocation, but normal does not
254 use them, anywhere will use them even if it reduces performance,
255 e.g. by placing two stripes on the same PV. Optional positional
256 PV args on the command line can also be used to limit which PVs
257 the command will use for allocation. See lvm(8) for more infor‐
258 mation about allocation.
259 -A|--autobackup y|n
261 Specifies if metadata should be backed up automatically after a
262 change. Enabling this is strongly advised! See vgcfgbackup(8)
263 for more information.
264 --commandprofile String
266 The command profile to use for command configuration. See
267 lvm.conf(5) for more information about profiles.
268 --config String
270 Config settings for the command. These override lvm.conf set‐
271 tings. The String arg uses the same format as lvm.conf, or may
272 use section/field syntax. See lvm.conf(5) for more information
273 about config.
274 -d|--debug ...
276 Set debug level. Repeat from 1 to 6 times to increase the detail
277 of messages sent to the log file and/or syslog (if configured).
278 --deltag Tag
280 Deletes a tag from a PV, VG or LV. This option can be repeated
281 to delete multiple tags at once. See lvm(8) for information
282 about tags.
283 --detachprofile
285 Detaches a metadata profile from a VG or LV. See lvm.conf(5)
286 for more information about profiles.
287 --driverloaded y|n
289 If set to no, the command will not attempt to use device-mapper.
290 For testing and debugging.
291 -f|--force ...
293 Override various checks, confirmations and protections. Use
294 with extreme caution.
295 -h|--help
297 Display help text.
298 -K|--ignoreactivationskip
300 Ignore the "activation skip" LV flag during activation to allow
301 LVs with the flag set to be activated.
302 --ignorelockingfailure
304 Allows a command to continue with read-only metadata operations
305 after locking failures.
306 --ignoremonitoring
308 Do not interact with dmeventd unless --monitor is specified. Do
309 not use this if dmeventd is already monitoring a device.
310 --lockopt String
312 Used to pass options for special cases to lvmlockd. See lvm‐
313 lockd(8) for more information.
314 --lockstart
316 Start the lockspace of a shared VG in lvmlockd. lvmlockd locks
317 becomes available for the VG, allowing LVM to use the VG. See
318 lvmlockd(8) for more information.
319 --lockstop
321 Stop the lockspace of a shared VG in lvmlockd. lvmlockd locks
322 become unavailable for the VG, preventing LVM from using the VG.
323 See lvmlockd(8) for more information.
324 --locktype sanlock|dlm|none
326 Change the VG lock type to or from a shared lock type used with
327 lvmlockd. See lvmlockd(8) for more information.
328 -l|--logicalvolume Number
330 Sets the maximum number of LVs allowed in a VG.
331 --longhelp
333 Display long help text.
334 -p|--maxphysicalvolumes Number
336 Sets the maximum number of PVs that can belong to the VG. The
337 value 0 removes any limitation. For large numbers of PVs, also
338 see options --pvmetadatacopies, and --vgmetadatacopies for im‐
339 proving performance.
340 --metadataprofile String
342 The metadata profile to use for command configuration. See
343 lvm.conf(5) for more information about profiles.
344 --monitor y|n
346 Start (yes) or stop (no) monitoring an LV with dmeventd.
347 dmeventd monitors kernel events for an LV, and performs auto‐
348 mated maintenance for the LV in reponse to specific events. See
349 dmeventd(8) for more information.
350 --nolocking
352 Disable locking.
353 --noudevsync
355 Disables udev synchronisation. The process will not wait for no‐
356 tification from udev. It will continue irrespective of any pos‐
357 sible udev processing in the background. Only use this if udev
358 is not running or has rules that ignore the devices LVM creates.
359 -P|--partial
361 Commands will do their best to activate LVs with missing PV ex‐
362 tents. Missing extents may be replaced with error or zero seg‐
363 ments according to the lvm.conf missing_stripe_filler setting.
364 Metadata may not be changed with this option.
365 -s|--physicalextentsize Size[m|UNIT]
367 Sets the physical extent size of PVs in the VG. The value must
368 be either a power of 2 of at least 1 sector (where the sector
369 size is the largest sector size of the PVs currently used in the
370 VG), or at least 128KiB. Once this value has been set, it is
371 difficult to change without recreating the VG, unless no extents
372 need moving. Before increasing the physical extent size, you
373 might need to use lvresize, pvresize and/or pvmove so that ev‐
374 erything fits. For example, every contiguous range of extents
375 used in a LV must start and end on an extent boundary.
376 --poll y|n
378 When yes, start the background transformation of an LV. An in‐
379 complete transformation, e.g. pvmove or lvconvert interrupted by
380 reboot or crash, can be restarted from the last checkpoint with
381 --poll y. When no, background transformation of an LV will not
382 occur, and the transformation will not complete. It may not be
383 appropriate to immediately poll an LV after activation, in which
384 case --poll n can be used to defer polling until a later --poll
385 y command.
386 --profile String
388 An alias for --commandprofile or --metadataprofile, depending on
389 the command.
390 --pvmetadatacopies 0|1|2
392 The number of metadata areas to set aside on a PV for storing VG
393 metadata. When 2, one copy of the VG metadata is stored at the
394 front of the PV and a second copy is stored at the end. When 1,
395 one copy of the VG metadata is stored at the front of the PV.
396 When 0, no copies of the VG metadata are stored on the given PV.
397 This may be useful in VGs containing many PVs (this places limi‐
398 tations on the ability to use vgsplit later.)
399 -q|--quiet ...
401 Suppress output and log messages. Overrides --debug and --ver‐
402 bose. Repeat once to also suppress any prompts with answer
403 'no'.
404 --readonly
406 Run the command in a special read-only mode which will read on-
407 disk metadata without needing to take any locks. This can be
408 used to peek inside metadata used by a virtual machine image
409 while the virtual machine is running. No attempt will be made to
410 communicate with the device-mapper kernel driver, so this option
411 is unable to report whether or not LVs are actually in use.
412 --refresh
414 If the LV is active, reload its metadata. This is not necessary
415 in normal operation, but may be useful if something has gone
416 wrong, or if some form of manual LV sharing is being used.
417 --reportformat basic|json
419 Overrides current output format for reports which is defined
420 globally by the report/output_format setting in lvm.conf. basic
421 is the original format with columns and rows. If there is more
422 than one report per command, each report is prefixed with the
423 report name for identification. json produces report output in
424 JSON format. See lvmreport(7) for more information.
425 -x|--resizeable y|n
427 Enables or disables the addition or removal of PVs to/from a VG
428 (by vgextend/vgreduce).
429 -S|--select String
431 Select objects for processing and reporting based on specified
432 criteria. The criteria syntax is described by --select help and
433 lvmreport(7). For reporting commands, one row is displayed for
434 each object matching the criteria. See --options help for se‐
435 lectable object fields. Rows can be displayed with an addi‐
436 tional "selected" field (-o selected) showing 1 if the row
437 matches the selection and 0 otherwise. For non-reporting com‐
438 mands which process LVM entities, the selection is used to
439 choose items to process.
440 --sysinit
442 Indicates that vgchange/lvchange is being invoked from early
443 system initialisation scripts (e.g. rc.sysinit or an initrd),
444 before writable filesystems are available. As such, some func‐
445 tionality needs to be disabled and this option acts as a short‐
446 cut which selects an appropriate set of options. Currently, this
447 is equivalent to using --ignorelockingfailure, --ignoremonitor‐
448 ing, --poll n, and setting env var LVM_SUPPRESS_LOCKING_FAIL‐
449 URE_MESSAGES. vgchange/lvchange skip autoactivation, and defer
450 to pvscan autoactivation.
451 --systemid String
453 Changes the system ID of the VG. Using this option requires
454 caution because the VG may become foreign to the host running
455 the command, leaving the host unable to access it. See lvmsys‐
456 temid(7) for more information.
457 -t|--test
459 Run in test mode. Commands will not update metadata. This is
460 implemented by disabling all metadata writing but nevertheless
461 returning success to the calling function. This may lead to un‐
462 usual error messages in multi-stage operations if a tool relies
463 on reading back metadata it believes has changed but hasn't.
464 -u|--uuid
466 Generate new random UUID for specified VGs.
467 -v|--verbose ...
469 Set verbose level. Repeat from 1 to 4 times to increase the de‐
470 tail of messages sent to stdout and stderr.
471 --version
473 Display version information.
474 --[vg]metadatacopies all|unmanaged|Number
476 Number of copies of the VG metadata that are kept. VG metadata
477 is kept in VG metadata areas on PVs in the VG, i.e. reserved
478 space at the start and/or end of the PVs. Keeping a copy of the
479 VG metadata on every PV can reduce performance in VGs containing
480 a large number of PVs. When this number is set to a non-zero
481 value, LVM will automatically choose PVs on which to store meta‐
482 data, using the metadataignore flags on PVs to achieve the spec‐
483 ified number. The number can also be replaced with special
484 string values: unmanaged causes LVM to not automatically manage
485 the PV metadataignore flags. all causes LVM to first clear the
486 metadataignore flags on all PVs, and then to become unmanaged.
487 -y|--yes
489 Do not prompt for confirmation interactively but always assume
490 the answer yes. Use with extreme caution. (For automatic no,
491 see -qq.)
492
494 VG
495 Volume Group name. See lvm(8) for valid names.
496 Tag
498 Tag name. See lvm(8) for information about tag names and using
499 tags in place of a VG, LV or PV.
500 Select
502 Select indicates that a required positional parameter can be
503 omitted if the --select option is used. No arg appears in this
504 position.
505 String
507 See the option description for information about the string con‐
508 tent.
509 Size[UNIT]
511 Size is an input number that accepts an optional unit. Input
512 units are always treated as base two values, regardless of capi‐
513 talization, e.g. 'k' and 'K' both refer to 1024. The default
514 input unit is specified by letter, followed by |UNIT. UNIT rep‐
515 resents other possible input units: bBsSkKmMgGtTpPeE. b|B is
516 bytes, s|S is sectors of 512 bytes, k|K is KiB, m|M is MiB, g|G
517 is GiB, t|T is TiB, p|P is PiB, e|E is EiB. (This should not be
518 confused with the output control --units, where capital letters
519 mean multiple of 1000.)
520
522 See lvm(8) for information about environment variables used by lvm.
523 For example, LVM_VG_NAME can generally be substituted for a required VG
524 parameter.
525
527 If vgchange recognizes COW snapshot LVs that were dropped because they
528 ran out of space, it displays a message informing the administrator
529 that the snapshots should be removed.
530
532 Activate all LVs in all VGs on all existing devices.
533 vgchange -a y
534 Change the maximum number of LVs for an inactive VG.
536 vgchange -l 128 vg00
537
539 lvm(8) lvm.conf(5) lvmconfig(8)
540 pvchange(8) pvck(8) pvcreate(8) pvdisplay(8) pvmove(8) pvremove(8)
542 pvresize(8) pvs(8) pvscan(8)
543 vgcfgbackup(8) vgcfgrestore(8) vgchange(8) vgck(8) vgcreate(8) vgcon‐
545 vert(8) vgdisplay(8) vgexport(8) vgextend(8) vgimport(8) vgimport‐
546 clone(8) vgmerge(8) vgmknodes(8) vgreduce(8) vgremove(8) vgrename(8)
547 vgs(8) vgscan(8) vgsplit(8)
548 lvcreate(8) lvchange(8) lvconvert(8) lvdisplay(8) lvextend(8) lvre‐
550 duce(8) lvremove(8) lvrename(8) lvresize(8) lvs(8) lvscan(8)
551 lvm-fullreport(8) lvm-lvpoll(8) lvm2-activation-generator(8) blkdeacti‐
553 vate(8) lvmdump(8)
554 dmeventd(8) lvmpolld(8) lvmlockd(8) lvmlockctl(8) cmirrord(8) lvmd‐
556 busd(8)
557 lvmsystemid(7) lvmreport(7) lvmraid(7) lvmthin(7) lvmcache(7)
559Red Hat, Inc. LVM TOOLS 2.03.11(2) (2021-01-08) VGCHANGE(8)