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 ker‐
       nel, 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 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.

       --autoactivation String
              Specify  if  autoactivation  is  being used from an event.
              This allows the command to apply settings that are specif‐
              ic to event activation, such as device scanning  optimiza‐
              tions  using  pvs_online files created by event-based pvs‐
              cans.

       -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  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.

       --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 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.

       --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 --vgmetadat‐
              acopies 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 set‐
              ting.  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 cur‐
              rently 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 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.

       --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 use‐
              ful 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 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.

       --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.

       -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 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.

       --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.

       --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.

       --systemid String
              Changes  the  system  ID of the VG.  Using this option re‐
              quires caution because the VG may become  foreign  to  the
              host  running  the command, leaving the host unable to ac‐
              cess 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  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.

       -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 automati‐
              cally  choose  PVs  on  which to store metadata, using the
              metadataignore flags on PVs to achieve the specified  num‐
              ber.   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 be‐
              come unmanaged.

       -y|--yes
              Do not prompt for confirmation  interactively  but  always
              assume the answer yes. Use with extreme caution.  (For au‐
              tomatic 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, 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         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 admin‐
       istrator 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 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
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Red Hat, Inc.     LVM TOOLS 2.03.25(2)-git (2024-05-16)      VGCHANGE(8)

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