vgcreate(8) — Linux manual page

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

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

NAME         top

       vgcreate — Create a volume group

SYNOPSIS         top

       vgcreate position_args
           [ option_args ]

DESCRIPTION         top

       vgcreate creates a new VG on block devices. If the devices were
       not previously initialized as PVs with pvcreate(8), vgcreate will
       inititialize them, making them PVs. The pvcreate options for
       initializing devices are also available with vgcreate.

       When vgcreate uses an existing PV, that PV's existing values for
       metadata size, PE start, etc, are used, even if different values
       are specified in the vgcreate command.  To change these values,
       first use pvremove on the device.

USAGE         top

       vgcreate VG_new PV ...
           [ -A|--autobackup y|n ]
           [ -c|--clustered y|n ]
           [ -l|--maxlogicalvolumes Number ]
           [ -p|--maxphysicalvolumes Number ]
           [ -M|--metadatatype lvm2 ]
           [ -s|--physicalextentsize Size[m|UNIT] ]
           [ -f|--force ]
           [ -Z|--zero y|n ]
           [    --addtag Tag ]
           [    --alloc contiguous|cling|cling_by_tags|normal|anywhere|
           inherit ]
           [    --metadataprofile String ]
           [    --labelsector Number ]
           [    --metadatasize Size[m|UNIT] ]
           [    --pvmetadatacopies 0|1|2 ]
           [    --[vg]metadatacopies all|unmanaged|Number ]
           [    --reportformat basic|json ]
           [    --dataalignment Size[k|UNIT] ]
           [    --dataalignmentoffset Size[k|UNIT] ]
           [    --shared ]
           [    --systemid String ]
           [    --locktype sanlock|dlm|none ]
           [    --setautoactivation y|n ]
           [ 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


       --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.

       -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.

       -c|--clustered y|n
              This option was specific to clvm and is now replaced by
              the --shared option with lvmlockd(8).

       --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.

       --dataalignment Size[k|UNIT]
              Align the start of a PV data area with a multiple of this
              number.  To see the location of the first Physical Extent
              (PE) of an existing PV, use pvs -o +pe_start. In addition,
              it may be shifted by an alignment offset, see
              --dataalignmentoffset.  Also specify an appropriate PE
              size when creating a VG.

       --dataalignmentoffset Size[k|UNIT]
              Shift the start of the PV data area by this additional
              offset.

       -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).

       --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.

       --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.

       --labelsector Number
              By default the PV is labelled with an LVM2 identifier in
              its second sector (sector 1). This lets you use a
              different sector near the start of the disk (between 0 and
              3 inclusive - see LABEL_SCAN_SECTORS in the source). Use
              with care.

       --lockopt String
              Used to pass options for special cases to lvmlockd.  See
              lvmlockd(8) for more information.

       --locktype sanlock|dlm|none
              Specify the VG lock type directly in place of using
              --shared.  See lvmlockd(8) for more information.

       --longhelp
              Display long help text.

       -l|--maxlogicalvolumes Number
              Sets the maximum number of LVs allowed in a VG.

       -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.

       --metadatasize Size[m|UNIT]
              The approximate amount of space used for each VG metadata
              area.  The size may be rounded.

       -M|--metadatatype lvm2
              Specifies the type of on-disk metadata to use.  lvm2 (or
              just 2) is the current, standard format.  lvm1 (or just 1)
              is no longer used.

       --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.

       -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.

       --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'.

       --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.

       --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.

       --shared
              Create a shared VG using lvmlockd if LVM is compiled with
              lockd support.  lvmlockd will select lock type sanlock or
              dlm depending on which lock manager is running. This
              allows multiple hosts to share a VG on shared devices.
              lvmlockd and a lock manager must be configured and
              running.  See lvmlockd(8) for more information about
              shared VGs.

       --systemid String
              Specifies the system ID that will be given to the new VG,
              overriding the system ID of the host running the command.
              A VG is normally created without this option, in which
              case the new VG is given the system ID of the host
              creating it. Using this option requires caution because
              the system ID of the new VG may not match the system ID of
              the host running the command, leaving the VG inaccessible
              to the host.  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.

       -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.)

       -Z|--zero y|n
              Controls if the first 4 sectors (2048 bytes) of the device
              are wiped.  The default is to wipe these sectors unless
              either or both of --restorefile or --uuid are specified.

VARIABLES         top

       VG     Volume Group name.  See lvm(8) for valid names.

       PV     Physical Volume name, a device path under /dev.  For
              commands managing physical extents, a PV positional arg
              generally accepts a suffix indicating a range (or multiple
              ranges) of physical extents (PEs). When the first PE is
              omitted, it defaults to the start of the device, and when
              the last PE is omitted it defaults to end.  Start and end
              range (inclusive): PV[:PE-PE]...  Start and length range
              (counting from 0): PV[:PE+PE]...

       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.

EXAMPLES         top

       Create a VG with two PVs, using the default physical extent size.
       vgcreate myvg /dev/sdk1 /dev/sdl1

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)      VGCREATE(8)

Pages that refer to this page: 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)