-a|--activate y|n|ay
Controls the active state of the new LV. y makes the LV
active, or available. New LVs are made active by default.
n makes the LV inactive, or unavailable, only when
possible. In some cases, creating an LV requires it to be
active. For example, COW snapshots of an active origin LV
can only be created in the active state (this does not
apply to thin snapshots). The --zero option normally
requires the LV to be active. If autoactivation ay is
used, the LV is only activated if it matches an item in
lvm.conf(5) activation/auto_activation_volume_list. ay
implies --zero n and --wipesignatures n. See lvmlockd(8)
for more information about activation options for shared
VGs.
--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.
-H|--cache
Specifies the command is handling a cache LV or cache
pool. See --type cache and --type cache-pool. See
lvmcache(7) for more information about LVM caching.
--cachedevice PV
The name of a device to use for a cache.
--cachemetadataformat auto|1|2
Specifies the cache metadata format used by cache target.
--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.
--cachepool LV
The name of a cache pool.
--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
special 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.
--cachesize Size[m|UNIT]
The size of cache to use.
--cachevol LV
The name of a cache volume.
-c|--chunksize Size[k|UNIT]
The size of chunks in a snapshot, cache pool or thin pool.
For snapshots, the value must be a power of 2 between 4KiB
and 512KiB and the default value is 4. For a cache pool
the value must be between 32KiB and 1GiB and the default
value is 64. For a thin pool the value must be between
64KiB and 1GiB and the default value starts with 64 and
scales up to fit the pool metadata size within 128MiB, if
the pool metadata size is not specified. The value must
be a multiple of 64KiB. See lvmthin(7) and 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
usage.
--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.
--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.
--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
extents 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
requests 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
information.
-l|--extents Number[PERCENT]
Specifies the size of the new LV in logical extents. The
--size and --extents options are alternate methods of
specifying size. The total number of physical extents
used will be greater when redundant data is needed for
RAID levels. An alternate syntax allows the size to be
determined indirectly as a percentage of the size of a
related VG, LV, or set of PVs. The suffix %VG denotes the
total size of the VG, the suffix %FREE the remaining free
space in the VG, and the suffix %PVS the free space in the
specified PVs. For a snapshot, the size can be expressed
as a percentage of the total size of the origin LV with
the suffix %ORIGIN (100%ORIGIN provides space for the
whole origin). When expressed as a percentage, the size
defines an upper limit for the number of logical extents
in the new LV. The precise number of logical extents in
the new LV is not determined until the command has
completed.
-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.
--ignoremonitoring
Do not interact with dmeventd unless --monitor is
specified. Do not use this if dmeventd is already
monitoring a device.
--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
unbounded. 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
unbounded. See lvmraid(7) for more information.
--mirrorlog core|disk
Specifies the type of mirror log for LVs with the "mirror"
type (does not apply to the "raid1" type.) disk is a
persistent log and requires a small amount of storage
space, usually on a separate device from the data being
mirrored. core is not persistent; the log is kept only in
memory. In this case, the mirror must be synchronized (by
copying LV data from the first device to others) each time
the LV is activated, e.g. after reboot. mirrored is a
persistent log that is itself mirrored, but should be
avoided. Instead, use the raid1 type for log redundancy.
-m|--mirrors Number
Specifies the number of mirror images in addition to the
original LV image, e.g. --mirrors 1 means there are two
images of the data, the original and one mirror image.
Optional positional PV args on the command line can
specify the devices the images should be placed on. There
are two mirroring implementations: "raid1" and "mirror".
These are the names of the corresponding LV types, or
"segment types". Use the --type option to specify which
to use (raid1 is default, and mirror is legacy) Use
lvm.conf(5) global/mirror_segtype_default and
global/raid10_segtype_default to configure the default
types. See the --nosync option for avoiding initial image
synchronization. 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.
-n|--name String
Specifies the name of a new LV. When unspecified, a
default name of "lvol#" is generated, where # is a number
generated by LVM.
--nolocking
Disable locking.
--nosync
Causes the creation of mirror, raid1, raid4, raid5 and
raid10 to skip the initial synchronization. In case of
mirror, raid1 and raid10, any data written afterwards will
be mirrored, but the original contents will not be copied.
In case of raid4 and raid5, no parity blocks will be
written, though any data written afterwards will cause
parity blocks to be stored. This is useful for skipping a
potentially long and resource intensive initial sync of an
empty mirror/raid1/raid4/raid5 and raid10 LV. This option
is not valid for raid6, because raid6 relies on proper
parity (P and Q Syndromes) being created during initial
synchronization in order to reconstruct proper user date
in case of device failures. raid0 and raid0_meta do not
provide any data copies or parity support and thus do not
support initial synchronization.
--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|--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.
--poolmetadatasize Size[m|UNIT]
Specifies the size of the new pool metadata LV.
--poolmetadataspare y|n
Enable or disable the automatic creation and management of
a spare pool metadata LV in the VG. A spare metadata LV is
reserved space that can be used when repairing a pool.
--profile String
An alias for --commandprofile or --metadataprofile,
depending on the command.
-q|--quiet ...
Suppress output and log messages. Overrides --debug and
--verbose. Repeat once to also suppress any prompts with
answer 'no'.
--raidintegrity y|n
Enable or disable data integrity checksums for raid
images.
--raidintegrityblocksize Number
The block size to use for dm-integrity on raid images.
The integrity block size should usually match the device
logical block size, or the file system block size. It may
be less than the file system block size, but not less than
the device logical block size. Possible values: 512,
1024, 2048, 4096.
--raidintegritymode String
Use a journal (default) or bitmap for keeping integrity
checksums consistent in case of a crash. The bitmap areas
are recalculated after a crash, so corruption in those
areas would not be detected. A journal does not have this
problem. The journal mode doubles writes to storage, but
can improve performance for scattered writes packed into a
single journal write. bitmap mode can in theory achieve
full write throughput of the device, but would not benefit
from the potential scattered write optimization.
-r|--readahead auto|none|Number
Sets read ahead sector count of an LV. auto is the
default which allows the kernel to choose a suitable value
automatically. none is equivalent to zero.
-R|--regionsize Size[m|UNIT]
Size of each raid or mirror synchronization region.
lvm.conf(5) activation/raid_region_size can be used to
configure a default.
--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.
-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
activated 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
deactivation. 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
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.
-L|--size Size[m|UNIT]
Specifies the size of the new LV. The --size and
--extents options are alternate methods of specifying
size. The total number of physical extents used will be
greater when redundant data is needed for RAID levels.
-s|--snapshot
Create a snapshot. Snapshots provide a "frozen image" of
an origin LV. The snapshot LV can be used, e.g. for
backups, while the origin LV continues to be used. This
option can create a COW (copy on write) snapshot, or a
thin snapshot (in a thin pool.) Thin snapshots are
created when the origin is a thin LV and the size option
is NOT specified. Thin snapshots share the same blocks in
the thin pool, and do not allocate new space from the VG.
Thin snapshots are created with the "activation skip"
flag, see --setactivationskip. A thin snapshot of a non-
thin "external origin" LV is created when a thin pool is
specified. Unprovisioned blocks in the thin snapshot LV
are read from the external origin LV. The external origin
LV must be read-only. See lvmthin(7) for more information
about LVM thin provisioning. COW snapshots are created
when a size is specified. The size is allocated from space
in the VG, and is the amount of space that can be used for
saving COW blocks as writes occur to the origin or
snapshot. The size chosen should depend upon the amount
of writes that are expected; often 20% of the origin LV is
enough. If COW space runs low, it can be extended with
lvextend (shrinking is also allowed with lvreduce.) A
small amount of the COW snapshot LV size is used to track
COW block locations, so the full size is not available for
COW data blocks. Use lvs to check how much space is used,
and see --monitor to to automatically extend the size to
avoid running out of space.
-i|--stripes Number
Specifies the number of stripes in a striped LV. This is
the number of PVs (devices) that a striped LV is spread
across. Data that appears sequential in the LV is spread
across multiple devices in units of the stripe size (see
--stripesize). This does not change existing allocated
space, but only applies to space being allocated by the
command. When creating a RAID 4/5/6 LV, this number does
not include the extra devices that are required for
parity. The largest number depends on the RAID type
(raid0: 64, raid10: 32, raid4/5: 63, raid6: 62), and when
unspecified, the default depends on the RAID type (raid0:
2, raid10: 2, raid4/5: 3, raid6: 5.) To stripe a new raid
LV across all PVs by default, see lvm.conf(5)
allocation/raid_stripe_all_devices.
-I|--stripesize Size[k|UNIT]
The amount of data that is written to one device before
moving to the next in a striped LV.
-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.
-T|--thin
Specifies the command is handling a thin LV or thin pool.
See --type thin, --type thin-pool, and --virtualsize. See
lvmthin(7) for more information about LVM thin
provisioning.
--thinpool LV
The name of a thin pool LV.
--type linear|striped|snapshot|raid|mirror|thin|thin-pool|vdo|
vdo-pool|cache|cache-pool|writecache
The LV type, also known as "segment type" or "segtype".
See usage descriptions for the specific ways to use these
types. For more information about redundancy and
performance (raid<N>, mirror, striped, linear) see
lvmraid(7). For thin provisioning (thin, thin-pool) see
lvmthin(7). For performance caching (cache, cache-pool)
see lvmcache(7). For copy-on-write snapshots (snapshot)
see usage definitions. For VDO (vdo) see lvmvdo(7).
Several commands omit an explicit type option because the
type is inferred from other options or shortcuts (e.g.
--stripes, --mirrors, --snapshot, --virtualsize, --thin,
--cache, --vdo). Use inferred types with care because it
can lead to unexpected results.
--vdo
Specifies the command is handling VDO LV. See --type vdo.
See lvmvdo(7) for more information about VDO usage.
--vdopool LV
The name of a VDO pool LV. See lvmvdo(7) for more
information about VDO usage.
-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.
-V|--virtualsize Size[m|UNIT]
The virtual size of a new thin LV. See lvmthin(7) for
more information about LVM thin provisioning. Using
virtual size (-V) and actual size (-L) together creates a
sparse LV. lvm.conf(5) global/sparse_segtype_default
determines the default segment type used to create a
sparse LV. Anything written to a sparse LV will be
returned when reading from it. Reading from other areas
of the LV will return blocks of zeros. When using a
snapshot to create a sparse LV, a hidden virtual device is
created using the zero target, and the LV has the suffix
_vorigin. Snapshots are less efficient than thin
provisioning when creating large sparse LVs (GiB).
-W|--wipesignatures y|n
Controls detection and subsequent wiping of signatures on
new LVs. There is a prompt for each signature detected to
confirm its wiping (unless --yes is used to override
confirmations.) When not specified, signatures are wiped
whenever zeroing is done (see --zero). This behaviour can
be configured with lvm.conf(5)
allocation/wipe_signatures_when_zeroing_new_lvs. If blkid
wiping is used (lvm.conf(5) allocation/use_blkid_wiping)
and LVM is compiled with blkid wiping support, then the
blkid(8) library is used to detect the signatures (use
blkid -k to list the signatures that are recognized).
Otherwise, native LVM code is used to detect signatures
(only MD RAID, swap and LUKS signatures are detected in
this case.) The LV is not wiped if the read only flag is
set.
-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 zeroing of the first 4KiB of data in the new LV.
Default is y. Snapshot COW volumes are always zeroed.
For thin pools, this controls zeroing of provisioned
blocks. LV is not zeroed if the read only flag is set.
Warning: trying to mount an unzeroed LV can cause the
system to hang.
