vgcreate(8)



VGCREATE(8)                 System Manager's Manual                VGCREATE(8)

NAME
       vgcreate - Create a volume group

SYNOPSIS
       vgcreate position_args
           [ option_args ]

DESCRIPTION
       vgcreate  creates  a  new  VG on block devices. If the devices were not
       previously intialized as PVs with pvcreate(8), vgcreate will inititial-
       ize  them,  making  them PVs. The pvcreate options for initializing de-
       vices are also available with vgcreate.

       When vgcreate uses an existing PV, that PV's existing values for  meta-
       data size, PE start, etc, are used, even if different values are speci-
       fied in the vgcreate command.  To change these values, first use  pvre-
       move on the device.

USAGE
       vgcreate VG_new PV ...
           [ -A|--autobackup y|n ]
           [ -c|--clustered y|n ]
           [ -l|--maxlogicalvolumes Number ]
           [ -p|--maxphysicalvolumes Number ]
           [ -M|--metadatatype lvm2 ]
           [ -s|--physicalextentsize Size[m|UNIT] ]
           [ -f|--force ]
           [ -Z|--zero y|n ]
           [    --addtag Tag ]
           [    --alloc contiguous|cling|cling_by_tags|normal|anywhere|inherit
           ]
           [    --metadataprofile String ]
           [    --labelsector Number ]
           [    --metadatasize Size[m|UNIT] ]
           [    --pvmetadatacopies 0|1|2 ]
           [    --[vg]metadatacopies all|unmanaged|Number ]
           [    --reportformat basic|json ]
           [    --dataalignment Size[k|UNIT] ]
           [    --dataalignmentoffset Size[k|UNIT] ]
           [    --shared ]
           [    --systemid String ]
           [    --locktype sanlock|dlm|none ]
           [ COMMON_OPTIONS ]

       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
       --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.

       -c|--clustered y|n
              This option was specific to clvm and is now replaced by the
              --shared option with lvmlockd(8).

       --commandprofile String
              The command profile to use for command configuration.  See
              lvm.conf(5) for more information about profiles.

       --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.

       --dataalignment Size[k|UNIT]
              Align the start of a PV data area with a multiple of this num-
              ber.  To see the location of the first Physical Extent (PE) of
              an existing PV, use pvs -o +pe_start. In addition, it may be
              shifted by an alignment offset, see --dataalignmentoffset.  Also
              specify an appropriate PE size when creating a VG.

       --dataalignmentoffset Size[k|UNIT]
              Shift the start of the PV data area by this additional offset.

       -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).

       --driverloaded y|n
              If set to no, the command will not attempt to use device-mapper.
              For testing and debugging.

       -f|--force ...
              Override various checks, confirmations and protections.  Use
              with extreme caution.

       -h|--help
              Display help text.

       --labelsector Number
              By default the PV is labelled with an LVM2 identifier in its
              second sector (sector 1). This lets you use a different sector
              near the start of the disk (between 0 and 3 inclusive - see LA-
              BEL_SCAN_SECTORS in the source). Use with care.

       --lockopt String
              Used to pass options for special cases to lvmlockd.  See lvm-
              lockd(8) for more information.

       --locktype sanlock|dlm|none
              Specify the VG lock type directly in place of using --shared.
              See lvmlockd(8) for more information.

       --longhelp
              Display long help text.

       -l|--maxlogicalvolumes Number
              Sets the maximum number of LVs allowed in a VG.

       -p|--maxphysicalvolumes Number
              Sets the maximum number of PVs that can belong to the VG.  The
              value 0 removes any limitation.  For large numbers of PVs, also
              see options --pvmetadatacopies, and --vgmetadatacopies for im-
              proving performance.

       --metadataprofile String
              The metadata profile to use for command configuration.  See
              lvm.conf(5) for more information about profiles.

       --metadatasize Size[m|UNIT]
              The approximate amount of space used for each VG metadata area.
              The size may be rounded.

       -M|--metadatatype lvm2
              Specifies the type of on-disk metadata to use.  lvm2 (or just 2)
              is the current, standard format.  lvm1 (or just 1) is no longer
              used.

       --nolocking
              Disable locking.

       -s|--physicalextentsize Size[m|UNIT]
              Sets the physical extent size of PVs in the VG.  The value must
              be either a power of 2 of at least 1 sector (where the sector
              size is the largest sector size of the PVs currently used in the
              VG), or at least 128KiB.  Once this value has been set, it is
              difficult to change without recreating the VG, unless no extents
              need moving.

       --profile String
              An alias for --commandprofile or --metadataprofile, depending on
              the command.

       --pvmetadatacopies 0|1|2
              The number of metadata areas to set aside on a PV for storing VG
              metadata.  When 2, one copy of the VG metadata is stored at the
              front of the PV and a second copy is stored at the end.  When 1,
              one copy of the VG metadata is stored at the front of the PV.
              When 0, no copies of the VG metadata are stored on the given PV.
              This may be useful in VGs containing many PVs (this places limi-
              tations on the ability to use vgsplit later.)

       -q|--quiet ...
              Suppress output and log messages. Overrides --debug and --ver-
              bose.  Repeat once to also suppress any prompts with answer
              'no'.

       --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.

       --shared
              Create a shared VG using lvmlockd if LVM is compiled with lockd
              support.  lvmlockd will select lock type sanlock or dlm depend-
              ing on which lock manager is running. This allows multiple hosts
              to share a VG on shared devices. lvmlockd and a lock manager
              must be configured and running.  See lvmlockd(8) for more infor-
              mation about shared VGs.

       --systemid String
              Specifies the system ID that will be given to the new VG, over-
              riding the system ID of the host running the command. A VG is
              normally created without this option, in which case the new VG
              is given the system ID of the host creating it. Using this op-
              tion requires caution because the system ID of the new VG may
              not match the system ID of the host running the command, leaving
              the VG inaccessible to the host.  See lvmsystemid(7) for more
              information.

       -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.

       --[vg]metadatacopies all|unmanaged|Number
              Number of copies of the VG metadata that are kept.  VG metadata
              is kept in VG metadata areas on PVs in the VG, i.e. reserved
              space at the start and/or end of the PVs.  Keeping a copy of the
              VG metadata on every PV can reduce performance in VGs containing
              a large number of PVs.  When this number is set to a non-zero
              value, LVM will automatically choose PVs on which to store meta-
              data, using the metadataignore flags on PVs to achieve the spec-
              ified number.  The number can also be replaced with special
              string values: unmanaged causes LVM to not automatically manage
              the PV metadataignore flags.  all causes LVM to first clear the
              metadataignore flags on all PVs, and then to become unmanaged.

       -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
              Controls if the first 4 sectors (2048 bytes) of the device are
              wiped.  The default is to wipe these sectors unless either or
              both of --restorefile or --uuid are specified.

VARIABLES
       VG
              Volume Group name.  See lvm(8) for valid names.

       PV
              Physical Volume name, a device path under  /dev.   For  commands
              managing physical extents, a PV positional arg generally accepts
              a suffix indicating a range (or multiple ranges) of physical ex-
              tents  (PEs).  When  the first PE is omitted, it defaults to the
              start of the device, and when the last PE is omitted it defaults
              to  end.   Start and end range (inclusive): PV[:PE-PE]...  Start
              and length range (counting from 0): PV[:PE+PE]...

       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
       Create a VG with two PVs, using the default physical extent size.
       vgcreate myvg /dev/sdk1 /dev/sdl1

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)           VGCREATE(8)

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