lvchange(8) — Linux manual page
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
--devices PV
--devicesfile String
--discards passdown|nopassdown|ignore
--driverloaded y|n
--errorwhenfull y|n
-f|--force
-h|--help
-K|--ignoreactivationskip
--ignorelockingfailure
--ignoremonitoring
--journal String
--lockopt String
--longhelp
-j|--major Number
--[raid]maxrecoveryrate Size[k|UNIT]
--metadataprofile String
--minor Number
--[raid]minrecoveryrate Size[k|UNIT]
--monitor y|n
--nohints
--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
--setautoactivation 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|
inherit
--compression y|n
--deduplication y|n
--detachprofile
--metadataprofile String
--profile String
--setautoactivation y|n
--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|LV1|Tag|Select ...
[ -a|--activate y|n|ay ]
[ COMMON_OPTIONS ]
LV1 types: mirror raid
—
Resynchronize or check a raid LV.
lvchange --syncaction check|repair VG|LV1|Tag|Select ...
[ COMMON_OPTIONS ]
LV1 types: raid
—
Reconstruct data on specific PVs of a raid LV.
lvchange --rebuild PV VG|LV1|Tag|Select ...
[ COMMON_OPTIONS ]
LV1 types: raid
—
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 ]
[ --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 ac‐
cessed. y makes LVs active, or available. n makes LVs
inactive, or unavailable. 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/removed. All software
and scripts should access the device through the symbolic
link and present this as the name of the device. The lo‐
cation and name of the underlying device node may depend
on the distribution, configuration (e.g. udev), or release
version. ay specifies autoactivation, which is used by
system-generated activation commands. By default, LVs are
autoactivated. An autoactivation property can be set on a
VG or LV to disable autoactivation, see --setautoactiva‐
tion y|n in vgchange, lvchange, vgcreate, and lvcreate.
Display the property with vgs or lvs "-o autoactivation".
The lvm.conf(5) auto_activation_volume_list includes names
of VGs or LVs that should be autoactivated, and anything
not listed is not autoactivated. When auto_activa‐
tion_volume_list is undefined (the default), it has no ef‐
fect. If auto_activation_volume_list is defined and emp‐
ty, no LVs are autoactivated. Items included by auto_ac‐
tivation_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 miss‐
ing, e.g. because of a device failure. complete only al‐
lows LVs with no missing PVs to be activated, and is the
most restrictive mode. degraded allows RAID LVs with
missing PVs to be activated. (This does not include the
"mirror" type, see "raid1" instead.) 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 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
allocate 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 par‐
allel stripes on the same PV. inherit applies the VG pol‐
icy to an LV. contiguous requires new PEs be placed adja‐
cent 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 per‐
formance, e.g. by placing two stripes on the same PV. Op‐
tional positional PV args on the command line can also be
used to limit which PVs the command will use for alloca‐
tion. See lvm(8) for more information 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
complete. writeback considers a write complete as soon as
it is stored in the cache pool. writethough considers a
write complete 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 associated 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 information.
--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 spe‐
cial string value default switches settings back to their
default kernel values and removes them from the list of
settings stored in LVM metadata. 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
volume. See lvmvdo(7) for more information about VDO us‐
age.
--config String
Config settings for the command. These override
lvm.conf(5) settings. The String arg uses the same format
as lvm.conf(5), 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.
Default is no contiguous allocation based on a next free
principle. 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 re‐
peated to delete multiple tags at once. See lvm(8) for in‐
formation about tags.
--detachprofile
Detaches a metadata profile from a VG or LV. See
lvm.conf(5) for more information about profiles.
--devices PV
Devices that the command can use. This option can be re‐
peated or accepts a comma separated list of devices. 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) command. This overrides the lvm.conf(5) de‐
vices/devicesfile and devices/use_devicesfile settings.
--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 ex‐
tents 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, device-mapper will queue these I/O re‐
quests 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 infor‐
mation.
-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 oper‐
ations after locking failures.
--ignoremonitoring
Do not interact with dmeventd unless --monitor is speci‐
fied. Do not use this if dmeventd is already monitoring a
device.
--journal String
Record information in the systemd journal. This informa‐
tion is in addition to information enabled by the lvm.conf
log/journal setting. command: record information about
the command. output: record the default command output.
debug: record full command debugging.
--lockopt String
Used to pass options for special cases to lvmlockd. See
lvmlockd(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. Setting the rate to 0 means it will be un‐
bounded. 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. Setting the rate to 0 means it will be un‐
bounded. 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
automated 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.
--noudevsync
Disables udev synchronisation. The process will not wait
for notification from udev. It will continue irrespective
of any possible 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 extents. Missing extents may be replaced with error or
zero segments according to the missing_stripe_filler set‐
ting. 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 incomplete transformation, e.g. pvmove or lvconvert in‐
terrupted by reboot or crash, can be restarted from the
last checkpoint with --poll y. When no, background trans‐
formation of an LV will not occur, and the transformation
will not complete. It may not be appropriate to immediate‐
ly 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, de‐
pending on the command.
-q|--quiet ...
Suppress output and log messages. Overrides --debug and
--verbose. 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 de‐
fault which allows the kernel to choose a suitable value
automatically. 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 at‐
tempt 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
rebuilt 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 recon‐
structed rather than reconstructing default (rotating) da‐
ta. 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 some‐
thing 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 de‐
fined 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 identifi‐
cation. json produces report output in JSON format. See
lvmreport(7) for more information.
--resync
Initiates mirror synchronization. Synchronization general‐
ly happens automatically, but this option forces it to
run. Also see --rebuild to synchronize a specific PV.
During synchronization, data is read from the primary mir‐
ror device and copied to the others. This can take consid‐
erable time, during which the LV is without a complete re‐
dundant copy of the data. See lvmraid(7) for more infor‐
mation.
-S|--select String
Select objects for processing and reporting based on spec‐
ified criteria. The criteria syntax is described by --se‐
lect help and lvmreport(7). For reporting commands, one
row is displayed for each object matching the criteria.
See --options help for selectable object fields. Rows can
be displayed with an additional "selected" field (-o se‐
lected) 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.
-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 ac‐
tivated unless the --ignoreactivationskip option is used
by the activation command. This flag is set by default on
new thin snapshot LVs. The flag is not applied to deacti‐
vation. The current value of the flag is indicated in the
lvs lv_attr bits.
--setautoactivation y|n
Set the autoactivation property on a VG or LV. Display
the property with vgs or lvs "-o autoactivation". When
the autoactivation property is disabled, the VG or LV will
not be activated by a command doing autoactivation
(vgchange, lvchange, or pvscan using -aay.) If autoacti‐
vation is disabled on a VG, no LVs will be autoactivated
in that VG, and the LV autoactivation property has no ef‐
fect. If autoactivation is enabled on a VG, autoactiva‐
tion can be disabled for individual LVs.
--[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 discrepan‐
cies. See lvs(8) for reporting discrepancies found or re‐
paired.
--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 functionality needs to be disabled and this op‐
tion acts as a shortcut which selects an appropriate set
of options. Currently, this is equivalent to using --ig‐
norelockingfailure, --ignoremonitoring, --poll n, and set‐
ting env var LVM_SUPPRESS_LOCKING_FAILURE_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 nev‐
ertheless returning success to the calling function. This
may lead to unusual error messages in multi-stage opera‐
tions if a tool relies on reading back metadata it be‐
lieves has changed but hasn't.
-v|--verbose ...
Set verbose level. Repeat from 1 to 4 times to increase
the detail of messages sent to stdout and stderr.
--version
Display version information.
--[raid]writebehind Number
The maximum number of outstanding writes that are allowed
to devices 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 arbitrarily.
--[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 behavior 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 au‐
tomatic 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 un‐
written 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
positional arg generally includes the VG name and LV name,
e.g. VG/LV. LV1 indicates the LV must have a specific
type, where the accepted LV types are listed. (raid repre‐
sents 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 content.
Size[UNIT]
Size is an input number that accepts an optional unit.
Input units are always treated as base two values, regard‐
less of capitalization, e.g. 'k' and 'K' both refer to
1024. The default input unit is specified by letter, fol‐
lowed by |UNIT. UNIT represents 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 con‐
trol --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), 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), lvmcache(7), lvmraid(7),
lvmthin(7), lvmvdo(7), lvmautoactivation(7)
COLOPHON
This page is part of the lvm2 (Logical Volume Manager 2) project.
Information about the project can be found at
⟨http://www.sourceware.org/lvm2/⟩. If you have a bug report for
this manual page, see ⟨https://github.com/lvmteam/lvm2/issues⟩.
This page was obtained from the project's upstream Git repository
⟨git://sourceware.org/git/lvm2.git⟩ on 2024-06-14. (At that
time, the date of the most recent commit that was found in the
repository was 2024-06-11.) If you discover any rendering
problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there
is a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
(which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
man-pages@man7.org
Red Hat, Inc. LVM TOOLS 2.03.25(2)-git (2024-05-16) LVCHANGE(8)
Pages that refer to this page: lvmcache(7), lvmraid(7), lvmthin(7), lvmvdo(7), lvchange(8), lvconvert(8), lvcreate(8), lvdisplay(8), lvextend(8), lvm(8), lvmconfig(8), lvmdevices(8), lvmdiskscan(8), lvm-fullreport(8), lvm-lvpoll(8), lvreduce(8), lvremove(8), lvrename(8), lvresize(8), lvs(8), lvscan(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), vgconvert(8), vgcreate(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)