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 --autoactivation String
18 -A|--autobackup y|n
19 --commandprofile String
20 --config String
21 -d|--debug
22 --deltag Tag
23 --detachprofile
24 --devices PV
25 --devicesfile String
26 --driverloaded y|n
27 -f|--force
28 -h|--help
29 -K|--ignoreactivationskip
30 --ignorelockingfailure
31 --ignoremonitoring
32 --journal String
33 --lockopt String
34 --lockstart
35 --lockstop
36 --locktype sanlock|dlm|none
37 -l|--logicalvolume Number
38 --longhelp
39 --majoritypvs
40 -p|--maxphysicalvolumes Number
41 --metadataprofile String
42 --monitor y|n
43 --nohints
44 --nolocking
45 --noudevsync
46 -P|--partial
47 -s|--physicalextentsize Size[m|UNIT]
48 --poll y|n
49 --profile String
50 --pvmetadatacopies 0|1|2
51 -q|--quiet
52 --readonly
53 --refresh
54 --reportformat basic|json|json_std
55 -x|--resizeable y|n
56 -S|--select String
57 --setautoactivation y|n
58 --sysinit
59 --systemid String
60 -t|--test
61 -u|--uuid
62 -v|--verbose
63 --version
64 --[vg]metadatacopies all|unmanaged|Number
65 -y|--yes
66
68 vgchange changes VG attributes, changes LV activation in the kernel,
69 and includes other utilities for VG maintenance.
70
72 Change a general VG attribute.
73 For options listed in parentheses, any one is
74 required, after which the others are optional.
75 vgchange
77 ( -l|--logicalvolume Number
78 -p|--maxphysicalvolumes Number
79 -u|--uuid
80 -s|--physicalextentsize Size[m|UNIT]
81 -x|--resizeable y|n
82 --addtag Tag
83 --deltag Tag
84 --alloc contiguous|cling|cling_by_tags|normal|anywhere|inherit
85 --pvmetadatacopies 0|1|2
86 --[vg]metadatacopies all|unmanaged|Number
87 --profile String
88 --detachprofile
89 --metadataprofile String
90 --setautoactivation y|n )
91 [ -A|--autobackup y|n ]
92 [ -S|--select String ]
93 [ -f|--force ]
94 [ --poll y|n ]
95 [ --ignoremonitoring ]
96 [ --noudevsync ]
97 [ --reportformat basic|json|json_std ]
98 [ COMMON_OPTIONS ]
99 [ VG|Tag|Select ... ]
100 —
102 Start or stop monitoring LVs from dmeventd.
104 vgchange --monitor y|n
106 [ -A|--autobackup y|n ]
107 [ -S|--select String ]
108 [ -f|--force ]
109 [ --sysinit ]
110 [ --ignorelockingfailure ]
111 [ --poll y|n ]
112 [ --ignoremonitoring ]
113 [ --noudevsync ]
114 [ --reportformat basic|json|json_std ]
115 [ COMMON_OPTIONS ]
116 [ VG|Tag|Select ... ]
117 —
119 Start or stop processing LV conversions.
121 vgchange --poll y|n
123 [ -A|--autobackup y|n ]
124 [ -S|--select String ]
125 [ -f|--force ]
126 [ --ignorelockingfailure ]
127 [ --ignoremonitoring ]
128 [ --noudevsync ]
129 [ --reportformat basic|json|json_std ]
130 [ COMMON_OPTIONS ]
131 [ VG|Tag|Select ... ]
132 —
134 Activate or deactivate LVs.
136 vgchange -a|--activate y|n|ay
138 [ -K|--ignoreactivationskip ]
139 [ -P|--partial ]
140 [ -A|--autobackup y|n ]
141 [ -S|--select String ]
142 [ -f|--force ]
143 [ --activationmode partial|degraded|complete ]
144 [ --sysinit ]
145 [ --readonly ]
146 [ --ignorelockingfailure ]
147 [ --monitor y|n ]
148 [ --poll y|n ]
149 [ --autoactivation String ]
150 [ --ignoremonitoring ]
151 [ --noudevsync ]
152 [ --reportformat basic|json|json_std ]
153 [ COMMON_OPTIONS ]
154 [ VG|Tag|Select ... ]
155 —
157 Reactivate LVs using the latest metadata.
159 vgchange --refresh
161 [ -A|--autobackup y|n ]
162 [ -S|--select String ]
163 [ -f|--force ]
164 [ --sysinit ]
165 [ --ignorelockingfailure ]
166 [ --poll y|n ]
167 [ --ignoremonitoring ]
168 [ --noudevsync ]
169 [ --reportformat basic|json|json_std ]
170 [ COMMON_OPTIONS ]
171 [ VG|Tag|Select ... ]
172 —
174 Change the system ID of a VG.
176 vgchange --systemid String VG|Tag|Select
178 [ -S|--select String ]
179 [ --majoritypvs ]
180 [ COMMON_OPTIONS ]
181 —
183 Start the lockspace of a shared VG in lvmlockd.
185 vgchange --lockstart
187 [ -S|--select String ]
188 [ COMMON_OPTIONS ]
189 [ VG|Tag|Select ... ]
190 —
192 Stop the lockspace of a shared VG in lvmlockd.
194 vgchange --lockstop
196 [ -S|--select String ]
197 [ COMMON_OPTIONS ]
198 [ VG|Tag|Select ... ]
199 —
201 Change the lock type for a shared VG.
203 vgchange --locktype sanlock|dlm|none VG
205 [ COMMON_OPTIONS ]
206 —
208 Common options for lvm:
210 [ -d|--debug ]
211 [ -h|--help ]
212 [ -q|--quiet ]
213 [ -t|--test ]
214 [ -v|--verbose ]
215 [ -y|--yes ]
216 [ --commandprofile String ]
217 [ --config String ]
218 [ --devices PV ]
219 [ --devicesfile String ]
220 [ --driverloaded y|n ]
221 [ --journal String ]
222 [ --lockopt String ]
223 [ --longhelp ]
224 [ --nohints ]
225 [ --nolocking ]
226 [ --profile String ]
227 [ --version ]
228
230 -a|--activate y|n|ay
231 Change the active state of LVs. An active LV can be used
232 through a block device, allowing data on the LV to be accessed.
233 y makes LVs active, or available. n makes LVs inactive, or un‐
234 available. The block device for the LV is added or removed from
235 the system using device-mapper in the kernel. A symbolic link
236 /dev/VGName/LVName pointing to the device node is also added/re‐
237 moved. All software and scripts should access the device
238 through the symbolic link and present this as the name of the
239 device. The location and name of the underlying device node may
240 depend on the distribution, configuration (e.g. udev), or re‐
241 lease version. ay specifies autoactivation, which is used by
242 system-generated activation commands. By default, LVs are au‐
243 toactivated. An autoactivation property can be set on a VG or
244 LV to disable autoactivation, see --setautoactivation y|n in
245 vgchange, lvchange, vgcreate, and lvcreate. Display the proper‐
246 ty with vgs or lvs "-o autoactivation". The lvm.conf(5) au‐
247 to_activation_volume_list includes names of VGs or LVs that
248 should be autoactivated, and anything not listed is not autoac‐
249 tivated. When auto_activation_volume_list is undefined (the de‐
250 fault), it has no effect. If auto_activation_volume_list is de‐
251 fined and empty, no LVs are autoactivated. Items included by
252 auto_activation_volume_list will not be autoactivated if the au‐
253 toactivation property has been disabled. See lvmlockd(8) for
254 more information about activation options ey and sy for shared
255 VGs.
256 --activationmode partial|degraded|complete
258 Determines if LV activation is allowed when PVs are missing,
259 e.g. because of a device failure. complete only allows LVs with
260 no missing PVs to be activated, and is the most restrictive
261 mode. degraded allows RAID LVs with missing PVs to be activat‐
262 ed. (This does not include the "mirror" type, see "raid1" in‐
263 stead.) partial allows any LV with missing PVs to be activated,
264 and should only be used for recovery or repair. For default,
265 see lvm.conf(5) activation_mode. See lvmraid(7) for more infor‐
266 mation.
267 --addtag Tag
269 Adds a tag to a PV, VG or LV. This option can be repeated to add
270 multiple tags at once. See lvm(8) for information about tags.
271 --alloc contiguous|cling|cling_by_tags|normal|anywhere|inherit
273 Determines the allocation policy when a command needs to allo‐
274 cate Physical Extents (PEs) from the VG. Each VG and LV has an
275 allocation policy which can be changed with vgchange/lvchange,
276 or overridden on the command line. normal applies common sense
277 rules such as not placing parallel stripes on the same PV. in‐
278 herit applies the VG policy to an LV. contiguous requires new
279 PEs be placed adjacent to existing PEs. cling places new PEs on
280 the same PV as existing PEs in the same stripe of the LV. If
281 there are sufficient PEs for an allocation, but normal does not
282 use them, anywhere will use them even if it reduces performance,
283 e.g. by placing two stripes on the same PV. Optional positional
284 PV args on the command line can also be used to limit which PVs
285 the command will use for allocation. See lvm(8) for more infor‐
286 mation about allocation.
287 --autoactivation String
289 Specify if autoactivation is being used from an event. This al‐
290 lows the command to apply settings that are specific to event
291 activation, such as device scanning optimizations using pvs_on‐
292 line files created by event-based pvscans.
293 -A|--autobackup y|n
295 Specifies if metadata should be backed up automatically after a
296 change. Enabling this is strongly advised! See vgcfgbackup(8)
297 for more information.
298 --commandprofile String
300 The command profile to use for command configuration. See
301 lvm.conf(5) for more information about profiles.
302 --config String
304 Config settings for the command. These override lvm.conf(5) set‐
305 tings. The String arg uses the same format as lvm.conf(5), or
306 may use section/field syntax. See lvm.conf(5) for more informa‐
307 tion about config.
308 -d|--debug ...
310 Set debug level. Repeat from 1 to 6 times to increase the detail
311 of messages sent to the log file and/or syslog (if configured).
312 --deltag Tag
314 Deletes a tag from a PV, VG or LV. This option can be repeated
315 to delete multiple tags at once. See lvm(8) for information
316 about tags.
317 --detachprofile
319 Detaches a metadata profile from a VG or LV. See lvm.conf(5)
320 for more information about profiles.
321 --devices PV
323 Restricts the devices that are visible and accessible to the
324 command. Devices not listed will appear to be missing. This op‐
325 tion can be repeated, or accepts a comma separated list of de‐
326 vices. This overrides the devices file.
327 --devicesfile String
329 A file listing devices that LVM should use. The file must exist
330 in /etc/lvm/devices/ and is managed with the lvmdevices(8) com‐
331 mand. This overrides the lvm.conf(5) devices/devicesfile and
332 devices/use_devicesfile settings.
333 --driverloaded y|n
335 If set to no, the command will not attempt to use device-mapper.
336 For testing and debugging.
337 -f|--force ...
339 Override various checks, confirmations and protections. Use
340 with extreme caution.
341 -h|--help
343 Display help text.
344 -K|--ignoreactivationskip
346 Ignore the "activation skip" LV flag during activation to allow
347 LVs with the flag set to be activated.
348 --ignorelockingfailure
350 Allows a command to continue with read-only metadata operations
351 after locking failures.
352 --ignoremonitoring
354 Do not interact with dmeventd unless --monitor is specified. Do
355 not use this if dmeventd is already monitoring a device.
356 --journal String
358 Record information in the systemd journal. This information is
359 in addition to information enabled by the lvm.conf log/journal
360 setting. command: record information about the command. out‐
361 put: record the default command output. debug: record full com‐
362 mand debugging.
363 --lockopt String
365 Used to pass options for special cases to lvmlockd. See lvm‐
366 lockd(8) for more information.
367 --lockstart
369 Start the lockspace of a shared VG in lvmlockd. lvmlockd locks
370 becomes available for the VG, allowing LVM to use the VG. See
371 lvmlockd(8) for more information.
372 --lockstop
374 Stop the lockspace of a shared VG in lvmlockd. lvmlockd locks
375 become unavailable for the VG, preventing LVM from using the VG.
376 See lvmlockd(8) for more information.
377 --locktype sanlock|dlm|none
379 Change the VG lock type to or from a shared lock type used with
380 lvmlockd. See lvmlockd(8) for more information.
381 -l|--logicalvolume Number
383 Sets the maximum number of LVs allowed in a VG.
384 --longhelp
386 Display long help text.
387 --majoritypvs
389 Change the VG system ID if the majority of PVs in the VG are
390 present (one more than half).
391 -p|--maxphysicalvolumes Number
393 Sets the maximum number of PVs that can belong to the VG. The
394 value 0 removes any limitation. For large numbers of PVs, also
395 see options --pvmetadatacopies, and --vgmetadatacopies for im‐
396 proving performance.
397 --metadataprofile String
399 The metadata profile to use for command configuration. See
400 lvm.conf(5) for more information about profiles.
401 --monitor y|n
403 Start (yes) or stop (no) monitoring an LV with dmeventd.
404 dmeventd monitors kernel events for an LV, and performs automat‐
405 ed maintenance for the LV in response to specific events. See
406 dmeventd(8) for more information.
407 --nohints
409 Do not use the hints file to locate devices for PVs. A command
410 may read more devices to find PVs when hints are not used. The
411 command will still perform standard hint file invalidation where
412 appropriate.
413 --nolocking
415 Disable locking. Use with caution, concurrent commands may pro‐
416 duce incorrect results.
417 --noudevsync
419 Disables udev synchronization. The process will not wait for no‐
420 tification from udev. It will continue irrespective of any pos‐
421 sible udev processing in the background. Only use this if udev
422 is not running or has rules that ignore the devices LVM creates.
423 -P|--partial
425 Commands will do their best to activate LVs with missing PV ex‐
426 tents. Missing extents may be replaced with error or zero seg‐
427 ments according to the missing_stripe_filler setting. Metadata
428 may not be changed with this option.
429 -s|--physicalextentsize Size[m|UNIT]
431 Sets the physical extent size of PVs in the VG. The value must
432 be either a power of 2 of at least 1 sector (where the sector
433 size is the largest sector size of the PVs currently used in the
434 VG), or at least 128 KiB. Once this value has been set, it is
435 difficult to change without recreating the VG, unless no extents
436 need moving. Before increasing the physical extent size, you
437 might need to use lvresize, pvresize and/or pvmove so that ev‐
438 erything fits. For example, every contiguous range of extents
439 used in a LV must start and end on an extent boundary.
440 --poll y|n
442 When yes, start the background transformation of an LV. An in‐
443 complete transformation, e.g. pvmove or lvconvert interrupted by
444 reboot or crash, can be restarted from the last checkpoint with
445 --poll y. When no, background transformation of an LV will not
446 occur, and the transformation will not complete. It may not be
447 appropriate to immediately poll an LV after activation, in which
448 case --poll n can be used to defer polling until a later --poll
449 y command.
450 --profile String
452 An alias for --commandprofile or --metadataprofile, depending on
453 the command.
454 --pvmetadatacopies 0|1|2
456 The number of metadata areas to set aside on a PV for storing VG
457 metadata. When 2, one copy of the VG metadata is stored at the
458 front of the PV and a second copy is stored at the end. When 1,
459 one copy of the VG metadata is stored at the front of the PV.
460 When 0, no copies of the VG metadata are stored on the given PV.
461 This may be useful in VGs containing many PVs (this places limi‐
462 tations on the ability to use vgsplit later.)
463 -q|--quiet ...
465 Suppress output and log messages. Overrides --debug and --ver‐
466 bose. Repeat once to also suppress any prompts with answer
467 'no'.
468 --readonly
470 Run the command in a special read-only mode which will read on-
471 disk metadata without needing to take any locks. This can be
472 used to peek inside metadata used by a virtual machine image
473 while the virtual machine is running. No attempt will be made to
474 communicate with the device-mapper kernel driver, so this option
475 is unable to report whether or not LVs are actually in use.
476 --refresh
478 If the LV is active, reload its metadata. This is not necessary
479 in normal operation, but may be useful if something has gone
480 wrong, or if some form of manual LV sharing is being used.
481 --reportformat basic|json|json_std
483 Overrides current output format for reports which is defined
484 globally by the report/output_format setting in lvm.conf(5).
485 basic is the original format with columns and rows. If there is
486 more than one report per command, each report is prefixed with
487 the report name for identification. json produces report output
488 in JSON format. json_std produces report output in JSON format
489 which is more compliant with JSON standard. See lvmreport(7)
490 for more information.
491 -x|--resizeable y|n
493 Enables or disables the addition or removal of PVs to/from a VG
494 (by vgextend/vgreduce).
495 -S|--select String
497 Select objects for processing and reporting based on specified
498 criteria. The criteria syntax is described by --select help and
499 lvmreport(7). For reporting commands, one row is displayed for
500 each object matching the criteria. See --options help for se‐
501 lectable object fields. Rows can be displayed with an addition‐
502 al "selected" field (-o selected) showing 1 if the row matches
503 the selection and 0 otherwise. For non-reporting commands which
504 process LVM entities, the selection is used to choose items to
505 process.
506 --setautoactivation y|n
508 Set the autoactivation property on a VG or LV. Display the
509 property with vgs or lvs "-o autoactivation". When the autoac‐
510 tivation property is disabled, the VG or LV will not be activat‐
511 ed by a command doing autoactivation (vgchange, lvchange, or
512 pvscan using -aay.) If autoactivation is disabled on a VG, no
513 LVs will be autoactivated in that VG, and the LV autoactivation
514 property has no effect. If autoactivation is enabled on a VG,
515 autoactivation can be disabled for individual LVs.
516 --sysinit
518 Indicates that vgchange/lvchange is being invoked from early
519 system initialisation scripts (e.g. rc.sysinit or an initrd),
520 before writable filesystems are available. As such, some func‐
521 tionality needs to be disabled and this option acts as a short‐
522 cut which selects an appropriate set of options. Currently, this
523 is equivalent to using --ignorelockingfailure, --ignoremonitor‐
524 ing, --poll n, and setting env var LVM_SUPPRESS_LOCKING_FAIL‐
525 URE_MESSAGES. vgchange/lvchange skip autoactivation, and defer
526 to pvscan autoactivation.
527 --systemid String
529 Changes the system ID of the VG. Using this option requires
530 caution because the VG may become foreign to the host running
531 the command, leaving the host unable to access it. See lvmsys‐
532 temid(7) for more information.
533 -t|--test
535 Run in test mode. Commands will not update metadata. This is
536 implemented by disabling all metadata writing but nevertheless
537 returning success to the calling function. This may lead to un‐
538 usual error messages in multi-stage operations if a tool relies
539 on reading back metadata it believes has changed but hasn't.
540 -u|--uuid
542 Generate new random UUID for specified VGs.
543 -v|--verbose ...
545 Set verbose level. Repeat from 1 to 4 times to increase the de‐
546 tail of messages sent to stdout and stderr.
547 --version
549 Display version information.
550 --[vg]metadatacopies all|unmanaged|Number
552 Number of copies of the VG metadata that are kept. VG metadata
553 is kept in VG metadata areas on PVs in the VG, i.e. reserved
554 space at the start and/or end of the PVs. Keeping a copy of the
555 VG metadata on every PV can reduce performance in VGs containing
556 a large number of PVs. When this number is set to a non-zero
557 value, LVM will automatically choose PVs on which to store meta‐
558 data, using the metadataignore flags on PVs to achieve the spec‐
559 ified number. The number can also be replaced with special
560 string values: unmanaged causes LVM to not automatically manage
561 the PV metadataignore flags. all causes LVM to first clear the
562 metadataignore flags on all PVs, and then to become unmanaged.
563 -y|--yes
565 Do not prompt for confirmation interactively but always assume
566 the answer yes. Use with extreme caution. (For automatic no,
567 see -qq.)
568
570 VG Volume Group name. See lvm(8) for valid names.
571 Tag Tag name. See lvm(8) for information about tag names and using
573 tags in place of a VG, LV or PV.
574 Select Select indicates that a required positional parameter can be
576 omitted if the --select option is used. No arg appears in this
577 position.
578 String See the option description for information about the string con‐
580 tent.
581 Size[UNIT]
583 Size is an input number that accepts an optional unit. Input
584 units are always treated as base two values, regardless of capi‐
585 talization, e.g. 'k' and 'K' both refer to 1024. The default
586 input unit is specified by letter, followed by |UNIT. UNIT rep‐
587 resents other possible input units: b|B is bytes, s|S is sectors
588 of 512 bytes, k|K is KiB, m|M is MiB, g|G is GiB, t|T is TiB,
589 p|P is PiB, e|E is EiB. (This should not be confused with the
590 output control --units, where capital letters mean multiple of
591 1000.)
592
594 See lvm(8) for information about environment variables used by lvm.
595 For example, LVM_VG_NAME can generally be substituted for a required VG
596 parameter.
597
599 If vgchange recognizes COW snapshot LVs that were dropped because they
600 ran out of space, it displays a message informing the administrator
601 that the snapshots should be removed.
602
604 Activate all LVs in all VGs on all existing devices.
605 vgchange -a y
606 Change the maximum number of LVs for an inactive VG.
608 vgchange -l 128 vg00
609
611 lvm(8), lvm.conf(5), lvmconfig(8), lvmdevices(8),
612 pvchange(8), pvck(8), pvcreate(8), pvdisplay(8), pvmove(8),
614 pvremove(8), pvresize(8), pvs(8), pvscan(8),
615 vgcfgbackup(8), vgcfgrestore(8), vgchange(8), vgck(8), vgcreate(8),
617 vgconvert(8), vgdisplay(8), vgexport(8), vgextend(8), vgimport(8),
618 vgimportclone(8), vgimportdevices(8), vgmerge(8), vgmknodes(8),
619 vgreduce(8), vgremove(8), vgrename(8), vgs(8), vgscan(8), vgsplit(8),
620 lvcreate(8), lvchange(8), lvconvert(8), lvdisplay(8), lvextend(8),
622 lvreduce(8), lvremove(8), lvrename(8), lvresize(8), lvs(8), lvscan(8),
623 lvm-fullreport(8), lvm-lvpoll(8), blkdeactivate(8), lvmdump(8),
625 dmeventd(8), lvmpolld(8), lvmlockd(8), lvmlockctl(8), cmirrord(8),
627 lvmdbusd(8), fsadm(8),
628 lvmsystemid(7), lvmreport(7), lvmcache(7), lvmraid(7), lvmthin(7),
630 lvmvdo(7), lvmautoactivation(7)
631Red Hat, Inc. LVM TOOLS 2.03.22(2) (2023-08-02) VGCHANGE(8)