VGCHANGE(8) System Manager's Manual VGCHANGE(8)
NAME
vgchange — Change volume group attributes
SYNOPSIS
vgchange option_args position_args
[ option_args ]
[ position_args ]
-a|--activate y|n|ay
--activationmode partial|degraded|complete
--addtag Tag
--alloc contiguous|cling|cling_by_tags|normal|anywhere|inherit
--autoactivation String
-A|--autobackup y|n
--commandprofile String
--config String
-d|--debug
--deltag Tag
--detachprofile
--devices PV
--devicesfile String
--driverloaded y|n
-f|--force
-h|--help
-K|--ignoreactivationskip
--ignorelockingfailure
--ignoremonitoring
--journal String
--lockopt String
--lockstart
--lockstop
--locktype sanlock|dlm|none
-l|--logicalvolume Number
--longhelp
-p|--maxphysicalvolumes Number
--metadataprofile String
--monitor y|n
--nohints
--nolocking
--noudevsync
-P|--partial
-s|--physicalextentsize Size[m|UNIT]
--poll y|n
--profile String
--pvmetadatacopies 0|1|2
-q|--quiet
--readonly
--refresh
--reportformat basic|json
-x|--resizeable y|n
-S|--select String
--setautoactivation y|n
--sysinit
--systemid String
-t|--test
-u|--uuid
-v|--verbose
--version
--[vg]metadatacopies all|unmanaged|Number
-y|--yes
DESCRIPTION
vgchange changes VG attributes, changes LV activation in the kernel,
and includes other utilities for VG maintenance.
USAGE
Change a general VG attribute.
For options listed in parentheses, any one is
required, after which the others are optional.
vgchange
( -l|--logicalvolume Number
-p|--maxphysicalvolumes Number
-u|--uuid
-s|--physicalextentsize Size[m|UNIT]
-x|--resizeable y|n
--addtag Tag
--deltag Tag
--alloc contiguous|cling|cling_by_tags|normal|anywhere|inherit
--pvmetadatacopies 0|1|2
--[vg]metadatacopies all|unmanaged|Number
--profile String
--detachprofile
--metadataprofile String
--setautoactivation y|n )
[ -A|--autobackup y|n ]
[ -S|--select String ]
[ -f|--force ]
[ --poll y|n ]
[ --ignoremonitoring ]
[ --noudevsync ]
[ --reportformat basic|json ]
[ COMMON_OPTIONS ]
[ VG|Tag|Select ... ]
—
Start or stop monitoring LVs from dmeventd.
vgchange --monitor y|n
[ -A|--autobackup y|n ]
[ -S|--select String ]
[ -f|--force ]
[ --sysinit ]
[ --ignorelockingfailure ]
[ --poll y|n ]
[ --ignoremonitoring ]
[ --noudevsync ]
[ --reportformat basic|json ]
[ COMMON_OPTIONS ]
[ VG|Tag|Select ... ]
—
Start or stop processing LV conversions.
vgchange --poll y|n
[ -A|--autobackup y|n ]
[ -S|--select String ]
[ -f|--force ]
[ --ignorelockingfailure ]
[ --ignoremonitoring ]
[ --noudevsync ]
[ --reportformat basic|json ]
[ COMMON_OPTIONS ]
[ VG|Tag|Select ... ]
—
Activate or deactivate LVs.
vgchange -a|--activate y|n|ay
[ -K|--ignoreactivationskip ]
[ -P|--partial ]
[ -A|--autobackup y|n ]
[ -S|--select String ]
[ -f|--force ]
[ --activationmode partial|degraded|complete ]
[ --sysinit ]
[ --readonly ]
[ --ignorelockingfailure ]
[ --monitor y|n ]
[ --poll y|n ]
[ --autoactivation String ]
[ --ignoremonitoring ]
[ --noudevsync ]
[ --reportformat basic|json ]
[ COMMON_OPTIONS ]
[ VG|Tag|Select ... ]
—
Reactivate LVs using the latest metadata.
vgchange --refresh
[ -A|--autobackup y|n ]
[ -S|--select String ]
[ -f|--force ]
[ --sysinit ]
[ --ignorelockingfailure ]
[ --poll y|n ]
[ --ignoremonitoring ]
[ --noudevsync ]
[ --reportformat basic|json ]
[ COMMON_OPTIONS ]
[ VG|Tag|Select ... ]
—
Change the system ID of a VG.
vgchange --systemid String VG
[ COMMON_OPTIONS ]
—
Start the lockspace of a shared VG in lvmlockd.
vgchange --lockstart
[ -S|--select String ]
[ COMMON_OPTIONS ]
[ VG|Tag|Select ... ]
—
Stop the lockspace of a shared VG in lvmlockd.
vgchange --lockstop
[ -S|--select String ]
[ COMMON_OPTIONS ]
[ VG|Tag|Select ... ]
—
Change the lock type for a shared VG.
vgchange --locktype sanlock|dlm|none VG
[ COMMON_OPTIONS ]
—
Common options for lvm:
[ -d|--debug ]
[ -h|--help ]
[ -q|--quiet ]
[ -t|--test ]
[ -v|--verbose ]
[ -y|--yes ]
[ --commandprofile String ]
[ --config String ]
[ --devices PV ]
[ --devicesfile String ]
[ --driverloaded y|n ]
[ --journal String ]
[ --lockopt String ]
[ --longhelp ]
[ --nohints ]
[ --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, which is used by
system-generated activation commands. By default, LVs are au-
toactivated. An autoactivation property can be set on a VG or
LV to disable autoactivation, see --setautoactivation y|n in
vgchange, lvchange, vgcreate, and lvcreate. Display the proper-
ty with vgs or lvs "-o autoactivation". The lvm.conf(5) au-
to_activation_volume_list includes names of VGs or LVs that
should be autoactivated, and anything not listed is not autoac-
tivated. When auto_activation_volume_list is undefined (the de-
fault), it has no effect. If auto_activation_volume_list is de-
fined and empty, no LVs are autoactivated. Items included by
auto_activation_volume_list will not be autoactivated if the au-
toactivation property has been disabled. See lvmlockd(8) for
more information 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 activat-
ed. (This does not include the "mirror" type, see "raid1" in-
stead.) partial allows any LV with missing PVs to be activated,
and should only be used for recovery or repair. For default,
see lvm.conf(5) activation_mode. See lvmraid(7) for more infor-
mation.
--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 overridden 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.
--autoactivation String
Specify if autoactivation is being used from an event. This al-
lows the command to apply settings that are specific to event
activation, such as device scanning optimizations using pvs_on-
line files created by event-based pvscans.
-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.
--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(5) set-
tings. The String arg uses the same format as lvm.conf(5), or
may use section/field syntax. See lvm.conf(5) for more informa-
tion about config.
-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).
--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.
--devices PV
Restricts the devices that are visible and accessible to the
command. Devices not listed will appear to be missing. This op-
tion can be repeated, or accepts a comma separated list of de-
vices. This overrides the devices file.
--devicesfile String
A file listing devices that LVM should use. The file must exist
in /etc/lvm/devices/ and is managed with the lvmdevices(8) com-
mand. This overrides the lvm.conf(5) devices/devicesfile and
devices/use_devicesfile settings.
--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.
-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.
--journal String
Record information in the systemd journal. This information is
in addition to information enabled by the lvm.conf log/journal
setting. command: record information about the command. out-
put: record the default command output. debug: record full com-
mand debugging.
--lockopt String
Used to pass options for special cases to lvmlockd. See lvm-
lockd(8) for more information.
--lockstart
Start the lockspace of a shared VG in lvmlockd. lvmlockd locks
becomes available for the VG, allowing LVM to use the VG. See
lvmlockd(8) for more information.
--lockstop
Stop the lockspace of a shared VG in lvmlockd. lvmlockd locks
become unavailable for the VG, preventing LVM from using the VG.
See lvmlockd(8) for more information.
--locktype sanlock|dlm|none
Change the VG lock type to or from a shared lock type used with
lvmlockd. See lvmlockd(8) for more information.
-l|--logicalvolume Number
Sets the maximum number of LVs allowed in a VG.
--longhelp
Display long help text.
-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.
--monitor y|n
Start (yes) or stop (no) monitoring an LV with dmeventd.
dmeventd monitors kernel events for an LV, and performs automat-
ed maintenance for the LV in reponse to specific events. See
dmeventd(8) for more information.
--nohints
Do not use the hints file to locate devices for PVs. A command
may read more devices to find PVs when hints are not used. The
command will still perform standard hint file invalidation where
appropriate.
--nolocking
Disable locking. Use with caution, concurrent commands may pro-
duce incorrect results.
--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 missing_stripe_filler setting. Metadata
may not be changed with this option.
-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. Before increasing the physical extent size, you
might need to use lvresize, pvresize and/or pvmove so that
everything fits. For example, every contiguous range of extents
used in a LV must start and end on an extent boundary.
--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.
--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'.
--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.
--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(5).
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.
-x|--resizeable y|n
Enables or disables the addition or removal of PVs to/from a VG
(by vgextend/vgreduce).
-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 addition-
al "selected" field (-o selected) showing 1 if the row matches
the selection and 0 otherwise. For non-reporting commands which
process LVM entities, the selection is used to choose items to
process.
--setautoactivation y|n
Set the autoactivation property on a VG or LV. Display the
property with vgs or lvs "-o autoactivation". When the autoac-
tivation property is disabled, the VG or LV will not be activat-
ed by a command doing autoactivation (vgchange, lvchange, or
pvscan using -aay.) If autoactivation is disabled on a VG, no
LVs will be autoactivated in that VG, and the LV autoactivation
property has no effect. If autoactivation is enabled on a VG,
autoactivation can be disabled for individual LVs.
--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.
--systemid String
Changes the system ID of the VG. Using this option requires
caution because the VG may become foreign to the host running
the command, leaving the host unable to access it. See lvmsys-
temid(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.
-u|--uuid
Generate new random UUID for specified VGs.
-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.)
VARIABLES
VG Volume Group name. See lvm(8) for valid names.
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: b|B is bytes, s|S is sectors
of 512 bytes, k|K is KiB, m|M is MiB, g|G is GiB, t|T is TiB,
p|P is PiB, e|E is EiB. (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.
NOTES
If vgchange recognizes COW snapshot LVs that were dropped because they
ran out of space, it displays a message informing the administrator
that the snapshots should be removed.
EXAMPLES
Activate all LVs in all VGs on all existing devices.
vgchange -a y
Change the maximum number of LVs for an inactive VG.
vgchange -l 128 vg00
SEE ALSO
lvm(8), lvm.conf(5), lvmconfig(8), lvmdevices(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),
vgconvert(8), vgdisplay(8), vgexport(8), vgextend(8), vgimport(8),
vgimportclone(8), vgimportdevices(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),
lvreduce(8), lvremove(8), lvrename(8), lvresize(8), lvs(8), lvscan(8),
lvm-fullreport(8), lvm-lvpoll(8), blkdeactivate(8), lvmdump(8),
dmeventd(8), lvmpolld(8), lvmlockd(8), lvmlockctl(8), cmirrord(8),
lvmdbusd(8), fsadm(8),
lvmsystemid(7), lvmreport(7), lvmraid(7), lvmthin(7), lvmcache(7)
Red Hat, Inc. LVM TOOLS 2.03.16(2) (2022-05-18) VGCHANGE(8)
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