vgchange(8) — Linux manual page

NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | USAGE | OPTIONS | VARIABLES | ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES | NOTES | EXAMPLES | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON

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

NAME         top

       vgchange — Change volume group attributes

SYNOPSIS         top

       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         top

       vgchange changes VG attributes, changes LV activation in the
       kernel, and includes other utilities for VG maintenance.

USAGE         top

       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         top


       -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 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
              location 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
              --setautoactivation 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_activation_volume_list is
              undefined (the default), it has no effect.  If
              auto_activation_volume_list is defined and empty, no LVs
              are autoactivated.  Items included by
              auto_activation_volume_list will not be autoactivated if
              the autoactivation 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 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
              parallel stripes on the same PV.  inherit 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 information about
              allocation.

       --autoactivation String
              Specify if autoactivation is being used from an event.
              This allows the command to apply settings that are
              specific to event activation, such as device scanning
              optimizations using pvs_online 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) 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.

       -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
              Devices that the command can use. This option can be
              repeated 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)
              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.  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.

       --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 improving 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
              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
              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 incomplete 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 limitations
              on the ability to use vgsplit later.)

       -q|--quiet ...
              Suppress output and log messages. Overrides --debug and
              --verbose.  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 selectable object
              fields.  Rows can be displayed with an additional
              "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 autoactivation property is disabled, the VG or LV will
              not be activated 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 functionality needs to be disabled and this
              option acts as a shortcut which selects an appropriate set
              of options. Currently, this is equivalent to using
              --ignorelockingfailure, --ignoremonitoring, --poll n, and
              setting env var LVM_SUPPRESS_LOCKING_FAILURE_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 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 unusual 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 detail 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 metadata, using
              the metadataignore flags on PVs to achieve the specified
              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         top

       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 content.

       Size[UNIT]
              Size is an input number that accepts an optional unit.
              Input units are always treated as base two values,
              regardless of capitalization, e.g. 'k' and 'K' both refer
              to 1024.  The default input unit is specified by letter,
              followed 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
              control --units, where capital letters mean multiple of
              1000.)

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES         top

       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         top

       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         top

       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         top

       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         top

       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 2023-12-22.  (At that
       time, the date of the most recent commit that was found in the
       repository was 2023-12-06.)  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 2.03.24(2)-git (2023-11-21)      VGCHANGE(8)

Pages that refer to this page: lvmcache(7)lvmsystemid(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)