LVCHANGE(8) System Manager's Manual LVCHANGE(8)
NAME
lvchange - Change the attributes of logical volume(s)
SYNOPSIS
lvchange option_args position_args
[ option_args ]
-a|--activate y|n|ay
--activationmode partial|degraded|complete
--addtag Tag
--alloc contiguous|cling|cling_by_tags|normal|anywhere|inherit
-A|--autobackup y|n
--cachemode writethrough|writeback|passthrough
--cachepolicy String
--cachesettings String
--commandprofile String
--compression y|n
--config String
-C|--contiguous y|n
-d|--debug
--deduplication y|n
--deltag Tag
--detachprofile
--discards passdown|nopassdown|ignore
--driverloaded y|n
--errorwhenfull y|n
-f|--force
-h|--help
-K|--ignoreactivationskip
--ignorelockingfailure
--ignoremonitoring
--lockopt String
--longhelp
-j|--major Number
--[raid]maxrecoveryrate Size[k|UNIT]
--metadataprofile String
--minor Number
--[raid]minrecoveryrate Size[k|UNIT]
--monitor y|n
--nolocking
--noudevsync
-P|--partial
-p|--permission rw|r
-M|--persistent y|n
--poll y|n
--profile String
-q|--quiet
-r|--readahead auto|none|Number
--readonly
--rebuild PV
--refresh
--reportformat basic|json
--resync
-S|--select String
-k|--setactivationskip y|n
--[raid]syncaction check|repair
--sysinit
-t|--test
-v|--verbose
--version
--[raid]writebehind Number
--[raid]writemostly PV[:t|n|y]
-y|--yes
-Z|--zero y|n
DESCRIPTION
lvchange changes LV attributes in the VG, changes LV activation in the
kernel, and includes other utilities for LV maintenance.
USAGE
Change a general LV attribute.
For options listed in parentheses, any one is
required, after which the others are optional.
lvchange
( -C|--contiguous y|n,
-p|--permission rw|r,
-r|--readahead auto|none|Number,
-k|--setactivationskip y|n,
-Z|--zero y|n,
-M|--persistent n,
--addtag Tag,
--deltag Tag,
--alloc contiguous|cling|cling_by_tags|normal|anywhere|in-
herit,
--compression y|n,
--deduplication y|n,
--detachprofile,
--metadataprofile String,
--profile String,
--errorwhenfull y|n,
--discards passdown|nopassdown|ignore,
--cachemode writethrough|writeback|passthrough,
--cachepolicy String,
--cachesettings String,
--[raid]minrecoveryrate Size[k|UNIT],
--[raid]maxrecoveryrate Size[k|UNIT],
--[raid]writebehind Number,
--[raid]writemostly PV[:t|n|y] )
VG|LV|Tag|Select ...
[ -a|--activate y|n|ay ]
[ --poll y|n ]
[ --monitor y|n ]
[ COMMON_OPTIONS ]
-
Resyncronize a mirror or raid LV.
Use to reset 'R' attribute on a not initially synchronized LV.
lvchange --resync VG|LV_mirror_raid|Tag|Select ...
[ -a|--activate y|n|ay ]
[ COMMON_OPTIONS ]
-
Resynchronize or check a raid LV.
lvchange --syncaction check|repair VG|LV_raid|Tag|Select ...
[ COMMON_OPTIONS ]
-
Reconstruct data on specific PVs of a raid LV.
lvchange --rebuild PV VG|LV_raid|Tag|Select ...
[ COMMON_OPTIONS ]
-
Activate or deactivate an LV.
lvchange -a|--activate y|n|ay VG|LV|Tag|Select ...
[ -P|--partial ]
[ -K|--ignoreactivationskip ]
[ --activationmode partial|degraded|complete ]
[ --poll y|n ]
[ --monitor y|n ]
[ --ignorelockingfailure ]
[ --sysinit ]
[ --readonly ]
[ COMMON_OPTIONS ]
-
Reactivate an LV using the latest metadata.
lvchange --refresh VG|LV|Tag|Select ...
[ -P|--partial ]
[ --activationmode partial|degraded|complete ]
[ --poll y|n ]
[ --monitor y|n ]
[ COMMON_OPTIONS ]
-
Start or stop monitoring an LV from dmeventd.
lvchange --monitor y|n VG|LV|Tag|Select ...
[ COMMON_OPTIONS ]
-
Start or stop processing an LV conversion.
lvchange --poll y|n VG|LV|Tag|Select ...
[ --monitor y|n ]
[ COMMON_OPTIONS ]
-
Make the minor device number persistent for an LV.
lvchange -M|--persistent y --minor Number LV
[ -j|--major Number ]
[ -a|--activate y|n|ay ]
[ --poll y|n ]
[ --monitor y|n ]
[ COMMON_OPTIONS ]
-
Common options for command:
[ -A|--autobackup y|n ]
[ -f|--force ]
[ -S|--select String ]
[ --ignoremonitoring ]
[ --noudevsync ]
[ --reportformat basic|json ]
Common options for lvm:
[ -d|--debug ]
[ -h|--help ]
[ -q|--quiet ]
[ -t|--test ]
[ -v|--verbose ]
[ -y|--yes ]
[ --commandprofile String ]
[ --config String ]
[ --driverloaded y|n ]
[ --lockopt String ]
[ --longhelp ]
[ --nolocking ]
[ --profile String ]
[ --version ]
OPTIONS
-a|--activate y|n|ay
Change the active state of LVs. An active LV can be used
through a block device, allowing data on the LV to be accessed.
y makes LVs active, or available. n makes LVs inactive, or un-
available. The block device for the LV is added or removed from
the system using device-mapper in the kernel. A symbolic link
/dev/VGName/LVName pointing to the device node is also added/re-
moved. All software and scripts should access the device
through the symbolic link and present this as the name of the
device. The location and name of the underlying device node may
depend on the distribution, configuration (e.g. udev), or re-
lease version. ay specifies autoactivation, in which case an LV
is activated only if it matches an item in lvm.conf activa-
tion/auto_activation_volume_list. If the list is not set, all
LVs are considered to match, and if if the list is set but
empty, no LVs match. Autoactivation should be used during sys-
tem boot to make it possible to select which LVs should be auto-
matically activated by the system. See lvmlockd(8) for more in-
formation about activation options ey and sy for shared VGs.
--activationmode partial|degraded|complete
Determines if LV activation is allowed when PVs are missing,
e.g. because of a device failure. complete only allows LVs with
no missing PVs to be activated, and is the most restrictive
mode. degraded allows RAID LVs with missing PVs to be acti-
vated. (This does not include the "mirror" type, see "raid1"
instead.) partial allows any LV with missing PVs to be acti-
vated, and should only be used for recovery or repair. For de-
fault, see lvm.conf/activation_mode. See lvmraid(7) for more
information.
--addtag Tag
Adds a tag to a PV, VG or LV. This option can be repeated to add
multiple tags at once. See lvm(8) for information about tags.
--alloc contiguous|cling|cling_by_tags|normal|anywhere|inherit
Determines the allocation policy when a command needs to allo-
cate Physical Extents (PEs) from the VG. Each VG and LV has an
allocation policy which can be changed with vgchange/lvchange,
or overriden on the command line. normal applies common sense
rules such as not placing parallel stripes on the same PV. in-
herit applies the VG policy to an LV. contiguous requires new
PEs be placed adjacent to existing PEs. cling places new PEs on
the same PV as existing PEs in the same stripe of the LV. If
there are sufficient PEs for an allocation, but normal does not
use them, anywhere will use them even if it reduces performance,
e.g. by placing two stripes on the same PV. Optional positional
PV args on the command line can also be used to limit which PVs
the command will use for allocation. See lvm(8) for more infor-
mation about allocation.
-A|--autobackup y|n
Specifies if metadata should be backed up automatically after a
change. Enabling this is strongly advised! See vgcfgbackup(8)
for more information.
--cachemode writethrough|writeback|passthrough
Specifies when writes to a cache LV should be considered com-
plete. writeback considers a write complete as soon as it is
stored in the cache pool. writethough considers a write com-
plete only when it has been stored in both the cache pool and on
the origin LV. While writethrough may be slower for writes, it
is more resilient if something should happen to a device associ-
ated with the cache pool LV. With passthrough, all reads are
served from the origin LV (all reads miss the cache) and all
writes are forwarded to the origin LV; additionally, write hits
cause cache block invalidates. See lvmcache(7) for more informa-
tion.
--cachepolicy String
Specifies the cache policy for a cache LV. See lvmcache(7) for
more information.
--cachesettings String
Specifies tunable values for a cache LV in "Key = Value" form.
Repeat this option to specify multiple values. (The default
values should usually be adequate.) The special string value
default switches settings back to their default kernel values
and removes them from the list of settings stored in LVM meta-
data. See lvmcache(7) for more information.
--commandprofile String
The command profile to use for command configuration. See
lvm.conf(5) for more information about profiles.
--compression y|n
Controls whether compression is enabled or disable for VDO vol-
ume. See lvmvdo(7) for more information about VDO usage.
--config String
Config settings for the command. These override lvm.conf set-
tings. The String arg uses the same format as lvm.conf, or may
use section/field syntax. See lvm.conf(5) for more information
about config.
-C|--contiguous y|n
Sets or resets the contiguous allocation policy for LVs. De-
fault is no contiguous allocation based on a next free princi-
ple. It is only possible to change a non-contiguous allocation
policy to contiguous if all of the allocated physical extents in
the LV are already contiguous.
-d|--debug ...
Set debug level. Repeat from 1 to 6 times to increase the detail
of messages sent to the log file and/or syslog (if configured).
--deduplication y|n
Controls whether deduplication is enabled or disable for VDO
volume. See lvmvdo(7) for more information about VDO usage.
--deltag Tag
Deletes a tag from a PV, VG or LV. This option can be repeated
to delete multiple tags at once. See lvm(8) for information
about tags.
--detachprofile
Detaches a metadata profile from a VG or LV. See lvm.conf(5)
for more information about profiles.
--discards passdown|nopassdown|ignore
Specifies how the device-mapper thin pool layer in the kernel
should handle discards. ignore causes the thin pool to ignore
discards. nopassdown causes the thin pool to process discards
itself to allow reuse of unneeded extents in the thin pool.
passdown causes the thin pool to process discards itself (like
nopassdown) and pass the discards to the underlying device. See
lvmthin(7) for more information.
--driverloaded y|n
If set to no, the command will not attempt to use device-mapper.
For testing and debugging.
--errorwhenfull y|n
Specifies thin pool behavior when data space is exhausted. When
yes, device-mapper will immediately return an error when a thin
pool is full and an I/O request requires space. When no, de-
vice-mapper will queue these I/O requests for a period of time
to allow the thin pool to be extended. Errors are returned if
no space is available after the timeout. (Also see dm-thin-pool
kernel module option no_space_timeout.) See lvmthin(7) for more
information.
-f|--force ...
Override various checks, confirmations and protections. Use
with extreme caution.
-h|--help
Display help text.
-K|--ignoreactivationskip
Ignore the "activation skip" LV flag during activation to allow
LVs with the flag set to be activated.
--ignorelockingfailure
Allows a command to continue with read-only metadata operations
after locking failures.
--ignoremonitoring
Do not interact with dmeventd unless --monitor is specified. Do
not use this if dmeventd is already monitoring a device.
--lockopt String
Used to pass options for special cases to lvmlockd. See lvm-
lockd(8) for more information.
--longhelp
Display long help text.
-j|--major Number
Sets the major number of an LV block device.
--[raid]maxrecoveryrate Size[k|UNIT]
Sets the maximum recovery rate for a RAID LV. The rate value is
an amount of data per second for each device in the array. Set-
ting the rate to 0 means it will be unbounded. See lvmraid(7)
for more information.
--metadataprofile String
The metadata profile to use for command configuration. See
lvm.conf(5) for more information about profiles.
--minor Number
Sets the minor number of an LV block device.
--[raid]minrecoveryrate Size[k|UNIT]
Sets the minimum recovery rate for a RAID LV. The rate value is
an amount of data per second for each device in the array. Set-
ting the rate to 0 means it will be unbounded. See lvmraid(7)
for more information.
--monitor y|n
Start (yes) or stop (no) monitoring an LV with dmeventd.
dmeventd monitors kernel events for an LV, and performs auto-
mated maintenance for the LV in reponse to specific events. See
dmeventd(8) for more information.
--nolocking
Disable locking.
--noudevsync
Disables udev synchronisation. The process will not wait for no-
tification from udev. It will continue irrespective of any pos-
sible udev processing in the background. Only use this if udev
is not running or has rules that ignore the devices LVM creates.
-P|--partial
Commands will do their best to activate LVs with missing PV ex-
tents. Missing extents may be replaced with error or zero seg-
ments according to the lvm.conf missing_stripe_filler setting.
Metadata may not be changed with this option.
-p|--permission rw|r
Set access permission to read only r or read and write rw.
-M|--persistent y|n
When yes, makes the specified minor number persistent.
--poll y|n
When yes, start the background transformation of an LV. An in-
complete transformation, e.g. pvmove or lvconvert interrupted by
reboot or crash, can be restarted from the last checkpoint with
--poll y. When no, background transformation of an LV will not
occur, and the transformation will not complete. It may not be
appropriate to immediately poll an LV after activation, in which
case --poll n can be used to defer polling until a later --poll
y command.
--profile String
An alias for --commandprofile or --metadataprofile, depending on
the command.
-q|--quiet ...
Suppress output and log messages. Overrides --debug and --ver-
bose. Repeat once to also suppress any prompts with answer
'no'.
-r|--readahead auto|none|Number
Sets read ahead sector count of an LV. auto is the default
which allows the kernel to choose a suitable value automati-
cally. none is equivalent to zero.
--readonly
Run the command in a special read-only mode which will read on-
disk metadata without needing to take any locks. This can be
used to peek inside metadata used by a virtual machine image
while the virtual machine is running. No attempt will be made to
communicate with the device-mapper kernel driver, so this option
is unable to report whether or not LVs are actually in use.
--rebuild PV
Selects a PV to rebuild in a raid LV. Multiple PVs can be re-
built by repeating this option. Use this option in place of
--resync or --syncaction repair when the PVs with corrupted data
are known, and their data should be reconstructed rather than
reconstructing default (rotating) data. See lvmraid(7) for more
information.
--refresh
If the LV is active, reload its metadata. This is not necessary
in normal operation, but may be useful if something has gone
wrong, or if some form of manual LV sharing is being used.
--reportformat basic|json
Overrides current output format for reports which is defined
globally by the report/output_format setting in lvm.conf. basic
is the original format with columns and rows. If there is more
than one report per command, each report is prefixed with the
report name for identification. json produces report output in
JSON format. See lvmreport(7) for more information.
--resync
Initiates mirror synchronization. Synchronization generally hap-
pens automatically, but this option forces it to run. Also see
--rebuild to synchronize a specific PV. During synchronization,
data is read from the primary mirror device and copied to the
others. This can take considerable time, during which the LV is
without a complete redundant copy of the data. See lvmraid(7)
for more information.
-S|--select String
Select objects for processing and reporting based on specified
criteria. The criteria syntax is described by --select help and
lvmreport(7). For reporting commands, one row is displayed for
each object matching the criteria. See --options help for se-
lectable object fields. Rows can be displayed with an addi-
tional "selected" field (-o selected) showing 1 if the row
matches the selection and 0 otherwise. For non-reporting com-
mands which process LVM entities, the selection is used to
choose items to process.
-k|--setactivationskip y|n
Persistently sets (yes) or clears (no) the "activation skip"
flag on an LV. An LV with this flag set is not activated unless
the --ignoreactivationskip option is used by the activation com-
mand. This flag is set by default on new thin snapshot LVs.
The flag is not applied to deactivation. The current value of
the flag is indicated in the lvs lv_attr bits.
--[raid]syncaction check|repair
Initiate different types of RAID synchronization. This causes
the RAID LV to read all data and parity blocks in the array and
check for discrepancies (mismatches between mirrors or incorrect
parity values). check will count but not correct discrepancies.
repair will correct discrepancies. See lvs for reporting dis-
crepancies found or repaired.
--sysinit
Indicates that vgchange/lvchange is being invoked from early
system initialisation scripts (e.g. rc.sysinit or an initrd),
before writable filesystems are available. As such, some func-
tionality needs to be disabled and this option acts as a short-
cut which selects an appropriate set of options. Currently, this
is equivalent to using --ignorelockingfailure, --ignoremonitor-
ing, --poll n, and setting env var LVM_SUPPRESS_LOCKING_FAIL-
URE_MESSAGES. vgchange/lvchange skip autoactivation, and defer
to pvscan autoactivation.
-t|--test
Run in test mode. Commands will not update metadata. This is
implemented by disabling all metadata writing but nevertheless
returning success to the calling function. This may lead to un-
usual error messages in multi-stage operations if a tool relies
on reading back metadata it believes has changed but hasn't.
-v|--verbose ...
Set verbose level. Repeat from 1 to 4 times to increase the de-
tail of messages sent to stdout and stderr.
--version
Display version information.
--[raid]writebehind Number
The maximum number of outstanding writes that are allowed to de-
vices in a RAID1 LV that is marked write-mostly. Once this
value is exceeded, writes become synchronous (i.e. all writes to
the constituent devices must complete before the array signals
the write has completed). Setting the value to zero clears the
preference and allows the system to choose the value arbitrar-
ily.
--[raid]writemostly PV[:t|n|y]
Mark a device in a RAID1 LV as write-mostly. All reads to these
drives will be avoided unless absolutely necessary. This keeps
the number of I/Os to the drive to a minimum. The default behav-
ior is to set the write-mostly attribute for the specified PV.
It is also possible to remove the write-mostly flag by adding
the suffix :n at the end of the PV name, or to toggle the value
with the suffix :t. Repeat this option to change the attribute
on multiple PVs.
-y|--yes
Do not prompt for confirmation interactively but always assume
the answer yes. Use with extreme caution. (For automatic no,
see -qq.)
-Z|--zero y|n
Set zeroing mode for thin pool. Note: already provisioned blocks
from pool in non-zero mode are not cleared in unwritten parts
when setting --zero y.
VARIABLES
VG
Volume Group name. See lvm(8) for valid names.
LV
Logical Volume name. See lvm(8) for valid names. An LV posi-
tional arg generally includes the VG name and LV name, e.g.
VG/LV. LV followed by _<type> indicates that an LV of the given
type is required. (raid represents raid<N> type)
Tag
Tag name. See lvm(8) for information about tag names and using
tags in place of a VG, LV or PV.
Select
Select indicates that a required positional parameter can be
omitted if the --select option is used. No arg appears in this
position.
String
See the option description for information about the string con-
tent.
Size[UNIT]
Size is an input number that accepts an optional unit. Input
units are always treated as base two values, regardless of capi-
talization, e.g. 'k' and 'K' both refer to 1024. The default
input unit is specified by letter, followed by |UNIT. UNIT rep-
resents other possible input units: bBsSkKmMgGtTpPeE. b|B is
bytes, s|S is sectors of 512 bytes, k|K is kilobytes, m|M is
megabytes, g|G is gigabytes, t|T is terabytes, p|P is petabytes,
e|E is exabytes. (This should not be confused with the output
control --units, where capital letters mean multiple of 1000.)
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
See lvm(8) for information about environment variables used by lvm.
For example, LVM_VG_NAME can generally be substituted for a required VG
parameter.
EXAMPLES
Change LV permission to read-only:
lvchange -pr vg00/lvol1
SEE ALSO
lvm(8)lvm.conf(5)lvmconfig(8)pvchange(8)pvck(8)pvcreate(8)pvdisplay(8)pvmove(8)pvremove(8)pvresize(8)pvs(8)pvscan(8)vgcfgbackup(8)vgcfgrestore(8)vgchange(8)vgck(8)vgcreate(8) vgcon-
vert(8)vgdisplay(8)vgexport(8)vgextend(8)vgimport(8) vgimport-
clone(8)vgmerge(8)vgmknodes(8)vgreduce(8)vgremove(8)vgrename(8)vgs(8)vgscan(8)vgsplit(8)lvcreate(8)lvchange(8)lvconvert(8)lvdisplay(8)lvextend(8) lvre-
duce(8)lvremove(8)lvrename(8)lvresize(8)lvs(8)lvscan(8)lvm-fullreport(8)lvm-lvpoll(8)lvm2-activation-generator(8) blkdeacti-
vate(8)lvmdump(8)dmeventd(8)lvmpolld(8)lvmlockd(8)lvmlockctl(8)cmirrord(8) lvmd-
busd(8)lvmsystemid(7)lvmreport(7)lvmraid(7)lvmthin(7)lvmcache(7)
Red Hat, Inc. LVM TOOLS 2.03.07(2) (2019-11-30) LVCHANGE(8)