Logical volume manager

LVM
It is a device mapper target in linux

It is a software abstraction of hard disk and partition

Features

Resizing - extend and reduce

Snapshots

Migrate logical volumes

Logical volume LV Logical volume LV

Volume group - VG

PV PV PV PV
PV

/dev/sdb /dev/sdc /dev/sdd /dev/sde

Physical Volume

It is a label given to hard disk or partition

Volume Group

Multiple physical volume combined together to form a storage pool called volume group

Logical Volume

It is a resizable portion created from volume group

 Demo layout

/dev/sdb
/dev/sdc
/dev/sdd

are the three blank hard disk of size 20G each

Create PV
#create pv

pvcreate /dev/sdb /dev/sdc

#verify

pvs
Create VG
#create vg

vgcreate testvg /dev/sdb /dev/sdc

#verify

vgs

pvs
Create LV
#create lv

lvcreate -n testlv -L 30G testvg

or

lvcreate -n testlv -l 7680 testvg

#verify

lvs

vgs

pvs
Give filesystem
Note:

● Once logical volume is created /dev/mapper/vgname-lvname and /dev/vgname/lvname

dev file will be created.

mkfs.xfs /dev/testvg/testlv

or

mkfs.xfs /dev/mapper/testvg-testlv
Mounting
#temporary mounting

mount /dev/mapper/testvg-testlv /mnt

#permanent mounting

vi /etc/fstab

/dev/mapper/testvg-testlv /mnt xfs defaults 0 0

:wq

mount -a
Extending LV
lvextend -r -L +5G /dev/mapper/testvg-testlv

Verify:

Device path, current size, and mount point - lsblk

Free space in volume group to extend logical volume - vgs

Physical extend(PE)
Physical extend (PE) is a chunks of data block in volume group and the same in logical
volume is called logical extend (LE)

1PE = 4MiB

#verify

pvdisplay

vgdisplay

lvdisplay
Extending volume group
vgextend testvg /dev/sdd

Note:

● Volume group can be extended by adding a hard disk or partition without file system
Reducing volume group
vgreduce testvg /dev/sdd

Note:

● Volume group can be reduced by removing a physical volume which is not in use
Removing the old or unused hard disk

#New disk should be added to same VG

Snapshot
lvcreate -s -n testsnap -L 1G /dev/testvg/testlv
Revert the snapshot
#unmount

umount /mnt

#merge the snapshot with original volume

lvconvert --merge /dev/testvg/testsnap

#remount

mount -a
Deleting the logical volume
#remove entry from /etc/fstab

#unmount

umount /mnt

#remove the logical volume (This will remove the data)

lvremove /dev/testvg/testlv

#remove volume group

vgremove testvg

#remove physical volume

pvremove /dev/sdb /dev/sdc /dev/sdd