Joseph Herlant
version 1.0.0, 2014-07-05 : Initial version

1. Raw commands

Basic display commands:

  • pvs → Displays physical volumes

  • vgs → Displays volume groups

  • lvs → Displays logical volumes

Detailed display commands:

  • pvdisplay → Displays detailed informations on PV

  • vgdisplay → Displays detailed informations on VG

  • lvdisplay → Displays detailed informations on LV

Creating new ones:

  • pvcreate → Initializes a disk or partition for use by LVM

  • vgcreate → Creates a VG

  • lvcreate → Creates a LV inside a VG

Extension and resize commands:

  • vgextend → Adds one or more PV to an existing VG

  • vgreduce → Removes one or mode PV to an existing VG

  • lvextend → Increases the size of an existing LV

  • lvresize → Changes the size of an existing LV

  • lvreduce → Reduces the size of an existing LV

Deletion commands:

  • pvremove → Removes LVM labels from a PV

  • vgremove → Removes a VG definition

  • lvremove → Removes a LV definition

Changing attributes of a LVM layer:

  • pvchange

  • vgchange

  • lvchange

Other manipulations:

  • lvrename → renames a LV

  • pvmove → Migrates data from one PV to another

2. Real life cases

2.1. Creating a new VG

Here we are creating a VG called vg_test and containing a 3GB LV named lv_test on the sdb disk.

# PV initialisation and verification
pvcreate /dev/sdb
pvdisplay /dev/sdb
# VG creation and verification
vgcreate vg_test /dev/sdb
vgdisplay -v vg_test
# LV creation and check
lvcreate -L 3G -n lv_test vg_test
vgdisplay -v vg_test
lvdisplay vg_test/lv_test
# Then create your FS as usual
mkfs -t ext4 /dev/vg_test/lv_test
# Mount it and update fstab
mkdir /media/test_fs
mount /dev/vg_test/lv_test /media/test_fs
echo -e "$(blkid /dev/mapper/vgtest-lvtest | cut -d" " -f2) \t /media/test_fs \t ext4 \t defaults \t 1 \t  1" >> /etc/fstab

2.2. Removing PV from a VG

For mode fun, let’s consider that a LV named VolGroup/lv_root containing / has been allocated to 2 disks (/dev/sda and /dev/sdb) and that you want to remove one of the PV (/dev/sdb).

1st things first, as it is a root partition, you should boot on e CD in rescue mode but don’t mount the current system in /mnt/sysimage.

# Then activate all known volumes in the system if not automatically done with
vgchange -a y
# Then check the unmounted LV
e2fsck -f /dev/VolGroup/lv_root
# Then resize the FS to the minimum size possible
resize2fs -M /dev/VolGroup/lv_root
# Then reduce the LV
lvreduce -r -L 5G VolGroup/lv_root
# The mode the data from /dev/sdb1 to /dev/sda2
pvmode /dev/sdb1 /dev/sda2
# Then remove the PV from the VG
vgreduce VolGroup /dev/sdb1
# Then extend the LV and FS of the max available extents
lvextend -r -l +100%FREE VolGroup/lv_root

Then reboot, removing the rescue CD.

Note
You can use the -r option of lvreduce to resize both the FS and the LV together. This will call resize2fs automatically.