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 in‐
              active,  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  ver‐
              sion.   ay  specifies autoactivation, which is used by sys‐
              tem-generated activation commands.  By default, LVs are au‐
              toactivated.  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_vol‐
              ume_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_vol‐
              ume_list will not be autoactivated  if  the  autoactivation
              property  has  been disabled.  See lvmlockd(8) for more in‐
              formation 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 miss‐
              ing PVs to be activated.  (This does not include the  "mir‐
              ror"  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) acti‐
              vation_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.  nor‐
              mal 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 ex‐
              isting PEs in the same stripe of the LV.  If there are suf‐
              ficient PEs for an allocation,  but  normal  does  not  use
              them,  anywhere  will  use  them even if it reduces perfor‐
              mance, e.g. by placing two stripes on the same PV.  Option‐
              al 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 af‐
              ter 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 opera‐
              tions 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.  de‐
              bug: 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 --vgmetadata‐
              copies 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 au‐
              tomated 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 com‐
              mand  may  read more devices to find PVs when hints are not
              used. The command will still perform standard hint file in‐
              validation 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 ze‐
              ro  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 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, pvre‐
              size 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  inter‐
              rupted  by  reboot or crash, can be restarted from the last
              checkpoint with --poll y.  When no, background  transforma‐
              tion  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, depend‐
              ing on the command.

       --pvmetadatacopies 0|1|2
              The number of metadata areas to set aside on a PV for stor‐
              ing  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  meta‐
              data 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  ma‐
              chine  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 nec‐
              essary in normal operation, but may be useful if  something
              has gone wrong, or if some form of manual LV sharing is be‐
              ing 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 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 speci‐
              fied 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 au‐
              toactivation 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 dis‐
              abled on a VG, no LVs will be autoactivated in that VG, and
              the LV autoactivation property has no effect.  If autoacti‐
              vation is enabled on a VG, autoactivation can  be  disabled
              for individual LVs.

       --sysinit
              Indicates that vgchange/lvchange is being invoked from ear‐
              ly  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  --ignore‐
              lockingfailure,  --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  re‐
              quires  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 never‐
              theless 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 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 become un‐
              managed.

       -y|--yes
              Do not prompt for confirmation interactively but always as‐
              sume the answer yes. Use with extreme caution.  (For  auto‐
              matic 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.  In‐
              put 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 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 2025-02-02.  (At that time,
       the date of the most recent commit that was found in the
       repository was 2025-01-31.)  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 2.03.31(2)-git (2025-01-14)       VGCHANGE(8)

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