LVM Command Examples
Display Physical Volumes (pvs and pvdisplay)
To display Physical Volumes (PV) on a system you can issue the pvs command:
[root@rhel01a ~]# pvs
PV VG Fmt Attr PSize PFree
/dev/sda2 vg_rhel01 lvm2 a-- 7.51g 0
/dev/sdb1 vg_rhel01 lvm2 a-- 4.99g 0
To display more details about a PV, you can issue the pvdisplay command:
[root@rhel01a ~]# pvdisplay
--- Physical volume ---
PV Name /dev/sda2
VG Name vg_rhel01
PV Size 7.51 GiB / not usable 3.00 MiB
Allocatable yes (but full)
PE Size 4.00 MiB
Total PE 1922
Free PE 0
Allocated PE 1922
PV UUID 2fkPz2-8os0-4kJN-3moF-2prj-Z37s-cMC6Rh
--- Physical volume ---
PV Name /dev/sdb1
VG Name vg_rhel01
PV Size 4.99 GiB / not usable 2.41 MiB
Allocatable yes (but full)
PE Size 4.00 MiB
Total PE 1278
Free PE 0
Allocated PE 1278
PV UUID Q3lBfV-tDi9-LJOw-nZKj-fge1-pqSQ-l0Cute
Display Volume Groups (vgs and vgdisplay)
To display basic information regarding a Volume Group on a Linux system you can issue the vgs command:
[root@rhel01a ~]# vgs
VG #PV #LV #SN Attr VSize VFree
vg_rhel01 2 2 0 wz--n- 12.50g 0
From the above output we can see that there are 2 Physical Volumes (PV) assigned to the Volume Group (VG) vg_rhel01
For a more detailed view of Volume Groups on a Linux system, you can use the command vgdisplay
[root@rhel01a ~]# vgdisplay vg_rhel01
--- Volume group ---
VG Name vg_rhel01
System ID
Format lvm2
Metadata Areas 2
Metadata Sequence No 5
VG Access read/write
VG Status resizable
MAX LV 0
Cur LV 2
Open LV 2
Max PV 0
Cur PV 2
Act PV 2
VG Size 12.50 GiB
PE Size 4.00 MiB
Total PE 3200
Alloc PE / Size 3200 / 12.50 GiB
Free PE / Size 0 / 0
VG UUID ttO0aF-RgCq-OZM7-dKcj-sDr0-vfg1-TDFzj0
Display Logical Volume Information (lvs and lvdisplay)
To display Logical Volume (LV) information on a Linux system you can issue the lvs command:
[root@rhel01a ~]# lvs
LV VG Attr LSize Pool Origin Data% Move Log Copy% Convert
lv_root vg_rhel01 -wi-ao-- 10.53g
lv_swap vg_rhel01 -wi-ao-- 1.97g
For a more detailed display of Logical Volumes on a Linux system you can use the command lvdisplay:
[root@rhel01a ~]# lvdisplay /dev/vg_rhel01/lv_root
--- Logical volume ---
LV Path /dev/vg_rhel01/lv_root
LV Name lv_root
VG Name vg_rhel01
LV UUID 2LwbRo-KMuD-DQne-3NMI-Jndp-gClY-Zj3uL0
LV Write Access read/write
LV Creation host, time rhel01, 2014-02-19 19:54:06 +0000
LV Status available
# open 1
LV Size 10.53 GiB
Current LE 2696
Segments 2
Allocation inherit
Read ahead sectors auto
- currently set to 256
Block device 253:0
If you issue the "lvdisplay" command without specifying a specific Logical Volume, then all Logical Volumes on your system will be displayed. In the above example the parameter "/dev/vg_rhel01/lv_root" was passed to the lvdisplay command.
List Partition types on a Linux system
Although this command is not a LVM command, it us useful for displaying partition information. To display partition types and disk information on a Linux system, you can use the lsblk command:
[root@rhel01a ~]# lsblk
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sr0 11:0 1 1024M 0 rom
sda 8:0 0 8G 0 disk
├─sda1 8:1 0 500M 0 part /boot
└─sda2 8:2 0 7.5G 0 part
├─vg_rhel01-lv_root (dm-0) 253:0 0 10.5G 0 lvm /
└─vg_rhel01-lv_swap (dm-1) 253:1 0 2G 0 lvm [SWAP]
sdb 8:16 0 5G 0 disk
└─sdb1 8:17 0 5G 0 part
└─vg_rhel01-lv_root (dm-0) 253:0 0 10.5G 0 lvm /
sdc 8:32 0 2G 0 disk
List Partitions on a Linux system - fdisk
To display partition information on a Linux system, you can issue the fdisk -l command:
[root@rhel01a ~]# fdisk -l /dev/sda
Disk /dev/sda: 8589 MB, 8589934592 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 1044 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00029be4
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 64 512000 83 Linux
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda2 64 1045 7875584 8e Linux LVM 8:32 0 2G 0 disk
If you issue the command "fdisk -l" without specifying a disk, then all disk information is displayed. Sometimes it is useful to use the command in conjunction with "grep" to limit the output displayed:
[root@rhel01a ~]# fdisk -l | grep /dev/sd
Disk /dev/sda: 8589 MB, 8589934592 bytes
/dev/sda1 * 1 64 512000 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 64 1045 7875584 8e Linux LVM
Disk /dev/sdb: 5368 MB, 5368709120 bytes
/dev/sdb1 1 652 5237158+ 8e Linux LVM
Disk /dev/sdc: 2147 MB, 2147483648 bytes
From the above we can see that we have a spare disk on our Red Hat system "/dev/sdc". This command is useful to help identify a disk that has just been added to a system.
Create a Physical Volume (pvcreate)
To add a new disk into a system that is to be managed by LVM, you must use the command pvcreate
[root@rhel01a ~]# pvcreate /dev/sdc
Writing physical volume data to disk "/dev/sdc"
Physical volume "/dev/sdc" successfully created
Remove a Physical Volume (pvremove)
To remove a Physical Volume from a system, you use the pvremove command:
[root@rhel01a ~]# pvremove /dev/sdc
Labels on physical volume "/dev/sdc" successfully wiped
Create a New Volume Group (vgcreate)
To create a new Volume Group (VG) you must use the vgcreate command. You will also need to specify which Physical Volume (PV) is to be associated with the new Volume Group. In the example below we are using a newly added disk /dev/sdc. Before the newly added disk can be used we use the pvcreate command. The command pvs is used to show that it is not associated with any existing Volume Groups.
[root@rhel01a ~]# pvcreate /dev/sdc
Writing physical volume data to disk "/dev/sdc"
Physical volume "/dev/sdc" successfully created
[root@rhel01a ~]# pvs
PV VG Fmt Attr PSize PFree
/dev/sda2 vg_rhel01 lvm2 a-- 7.51g 0
/dev/sdb1 vg_rhel01 lvm2 a-- 4.99g 0
/dev/sdc lvm2 a-- 2.00g 2.00g
[root@rhel01a ~]# vgcreate vg01 /dev/sdc
Volume group "vg01" successfully created
Now when the pvs command is issued, we can see that the storage is now associated with the new Volume Group "vg01".
[root@rhel01a ~]# pvs
PV VG Fmt Attr PSize PFree
/dev/sda2 vg_rhel01 lvm2 a-- 7.51g 0
/dev/sdb1 vg_rhel01 lvm2 a-- 4.99g 0
/dev/sdc vg01 lvm2 a-- 2.00g 2.00g
Rename a Volume Group (vgrename)
To rename an existing Volume Group, the vgrename command is used:
[root@rhel01a ~]# vgs
VG #PV #LV #SN Attr VSize VFree
vg01 1 0 0 wz--n- 2.00g 2.00g
vg_rhel01 2 2 0 wz--n- 12.50g 0
[root@rhel01a ~]# vgrename vg01 test_vg01
Volume group "vg01" successfully renamed to "test_vg01"
[root@rhel01a ~]# vgs
VG #PV #LV #SN Attr VSize VFree
test_vg01 1 0 0 wz--n- 2.00g 2.00g
vg_rhel01 2 2 0 wz--n- 12.50g 0
In the above example, we used the vgrename command to rename the existing Volume Group "vg01" to "test_vg01". The command vgs was used to display the before and after results.
Remove a Volume Group
To remove a Volume Group, the command vgremove is used:
[root@rhel01a ~]# vgremove test_vg01
Volume group "test_vg01" successfully removed
Extend a Volume Group (vgextend)
To add additional space to an existing Volume Group, the command vgextend is used. You also need to supply the name of the Physical Volume (disk) that is going to be added. In the following example, we are going to add 2GB of space to the existing Volume Group vg_rhel01
[root@rhel01a ~]# vgdisplay vg_rhel01
--- Volume group ---
VG Name vg_rhel01
System ID
Format lvm2
Metadata Areas 2
Metadata Sequence No 5
VG Access read/write
VG Status resizable
MAX LV 0
Cur LV 2
Open LV 2
Max PV 0
Cur PV 2
Act PV 2
VG Size 12.50 GiB
PE Size 4.00 MiB
Total PE 3200
Alloc PE / Size 3200 / 12.50 GiB
Free PE / Size 0 / 0
VG UUID ttO0aF-RgCq-OZM7-dKcj-sDr0-vfg1-TDFzj0
[root@rhel01a ~]# vgextend vg_rhel01 /dev/sdc
Volume group "vg_rhel01" successfully extended
[root@rhel01a ~]# vgdisplay vg_rhel01
--- Volume group ---
VG Name vg_rhel01
System ID
Format lvm2
Metadata Areas 3
Metadata Sequence No 6
VG Access read/write
VG Status resizable
MAX LV 0
Cur LV 2
Open LV 2
Max PV 0
Cur PV 3
Act PV 3
VG Size 14.50 GiB
PE Size 4.00 MiB
Total PE 3711
Alloc PE / Size 3200 / 12.50 GiB
Free PE / Size 511 / 2.00 GiB
VG UUID ttO0aF-RgCq-OZM7-dKcj-sDr0-vfg1-TDFzj0
In the above example, we used the vgdisplay command to display the current size and associated Physical Volumes with the Volume Group "vg_rhel01". Next the vgextend command is issued along with the specified Physical Volume to use. After the command was issued, the vgdisplay command was used to display the new attributes of the specified Volume Group. From the output you can see the size and associated PV count has increased.
Remove a Physical Volume from a Volume Group (vgreduce)
To remove storage from a Volume Group, the command vgreduce is used. This command is the opposite of the vgextend command. IN the following example, we will remove the specified PV from the Volume Group:
[root@rhel01a ~]# pvs
PV VG Fmt Attr PSize PFree
/dev/sda2 vg_rhel01 lvm2 a-- 7.51g 0
/dev/sdb1 vg_rhel01 lvm2 a-- 4.99g 0
/dev/sdc vg_rhel01 lvm2 a-- 2.00g 2.00g
[root@rhel01a ~]# vgreduce vg_rhel01 /dev/sdc
Removed "/dev/sdc" from volume group "vg_rhel01"
[root@rhel01a ~]# pvs
PV VG Fmt Attr PSize PFree
/dev/sda2 vg_rhel01 lvm2 a-- 7.51g 0
/dev/sdb1 vg_rhel01 lvm2 a-- 4.99g 0
/dev/sdc lvm2 a-- 2.00g 2.00g
The pvs command is initially used to show the relationship between the Physical Volume and the Volume Group. After the vgreduce command is issued, we use the pvs command to verify that the Physical Volume "/dev/sdc" is no longer attached to the Volume Group "vg_rhel01
Create a Logical Volume (lvcreate)
To create a Logical Volume on an existing Volume Group, the command lvcreate is used.
[root@rhel01a ~]# lvcreate -n lv01 -l 100%VG vg01
Logical volume "lv01" created
The above example will create a Logical Volume (LV) called lv01 on the Volume Group (VG) vg01. We have also specified that the Logical Volume should utilise all available space within the Volume Group ( 100%VG )
Create a Logical Volume (lvcreate) with a specified size
IN the following example, the command lvcreate is used to create a new Logical Volume. This time, we are going to specify the amount of space to be used from the Volume Group. IN the example, we will allocate 1GB of space from the Volume Group.
[root@rhel01a ~]# pvs
PV VG Fmt Attr PSize PFree
/dev/sda2 vg_rhel01 lvm2 a-- 7.51g 0
/dev/sdb1 vg_rhel01 lvm2 a-- 4.99g 0
/dev/sdc vg01 lvm2 a-- 2.00g 2.00g
[root@rhel01a ~]# lvcreate -n lv01 -L1G vg01
Logical volume "lv01" created
[root@rhel01a ~]# pvs
PV VG Fmt Attr PSize PFree
/dev/sda2 vg_rhel01 lvm2 a-- 7.51g 0
/dev/sdb1 vg_rhel01 lvm2 a-- 4.99g 0
/dev/sdc vg01 lvm2 a-- 2.00g 1020.00m
In the above example we can see that initially there is 2GB of space allocated to the Volume Group vg01. We then issued the command:
lvcreate -n lv01 -L1G vg01
The command will create a Logical Volume (LV) called lv01 with an allocation of 1GB from the Volume Group (VG) vg01
Add Space to a File System with lvextend
To add space to an existing file system, the command lvextend is used. In the example below we can see that a file system called testfs exists and currently has 924MB of available space. Before we can add space, you must verify that space is available to the Logical Volume. To see the current allocation of space to a file system we use the df command. To view available space we can issue the command pvs. IN the example below we can see that there is 1020MB of available space within Volume Group vg01.
[root@rhel01a /]# df -h /testfs
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/vg01-lv01
1008M 34M 924M 4% /testfs
[root@rhel01a /]# pvs
PV VG Fmt Attr PSize PFree
/dev/sda2 vg_rhel01 lvm2 a-- 7.51g 0
/dev/sdb1 vg_rhel01 lvm2 a-- 4.99g 0
/dev/sdc vg01 lvm2 a-- 2.00g 1020.00m
[root@rhel01a /]# lvextend /dev/vg01/lv01 -L+1000M -r
Extending logical volume lv01 to 1.98 GiB
Logical volume lv01 successfully resized
resize2fs 1.41.12 (17-May-2010)
Filesystem at /dev/mapper/vg01-lv01 is mounted on /testfs; on-line resizing required
old desc_blocks = 1, new_desc_blocks = 1
Performing an on-line resize of /dev/mapper/vg01-lv01 to 518144 (4k) blocks.
The filesystem on /dev/mapper/vg01-lv01 is now 518144 blocks long.
The command lvextend /dev/vg01/lv01 -L+1000M -r is used to increase the size of the Logical Volume by 1000MB. the -r option is specified as this will carry out a resize of the file system online.
Now when we use the df command, we can see that the file system has been increased in size.
[root@rhel01a /]# df -h testfs/
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/vg01-lv01
2.0G 34M 1.9G 2% /testfs
Specify the size of a file system with lvextend
If you wanted to specify the size of a file system, we can use the option -L. Here we can then specify the size we require in MB/GB. In the example below we are going to specify a size of 1.5GB should be used with a file system. Currently there is only 435MB of space available to the file system testfs
[root@rhel01a /]# df -h /testfs/
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/vg01-lv01
492M 33M 435M 8% /testfs
[root@rhel01a /]# lvextend /dev/vg01/lv01 -L1.5GB -r
Extending logical volume lv01 to 1.50 GiB
Logical volume lv01 successfully resized
resize2fs 1.41.12 (17-May-2010)
Filesystem at /dev/mapper/vg01-lv01 is mounted on /testfs; on-line resizing required
old desc_blocks = 1, new_desc_blocks = 1
Performing an on-line resize of /dev/mapper/vg01-lv01 to 393216 (4k) blocks.
The filesystem on /dev/mapper/vg01-lv01 is now 393216 blocks long.
Reduce the size of a file system (lvreduce)
To reduce the size of a file system, the lvreduce command is used to change the size of the underlying Logical Volume. WARNING use this command with care as you can loose data if you shrink your file system.
In the example below, we will use the command lvreduce /dev/vg01/lv01 -L500M -r
[root@rhel01a /]# df -h /testfs/
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/vg01-lv01
1.5G 34M 1.4G 3% /testfs
[root@rhel01a /]# lvreduce /dev/vg01/lv01 -L500M -r
Do you want to unmount "/testfs"? [Y|n] y
fsck from util-linux-ng 2.17.2
/dev/mapper/vg01-lv01: 11/98304 files (9.1% non-contiguous), 14756/393216 blocks
resize2fs 1.41.12 (17-May-2010)
Resizing the filesystem on /dev/mapper/vg01-lv01 to 128000 (4k) blocks.
The filesystem on /dev/mapper/vg01-lv01 is now 128000 blocks long.
Reducing logical volume lv01 to 500.00 MiB
Logical volume lv01 successfully resized
[root@rhel01a /]# df -h testfs/
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/vg01-lv01
492M 33M 435M 8% /testfs
Reduce a file system by a specified amount
In the following example, we will specify the amount of size to reduce the file system by:
[root@rhel01a /]# df -h /testfs/
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/vg01-lv01
492M 33M 435M 8% /testfs
[root@rhel01a /]# lvreduce /dev/vg01/lv01 -L-235M -r
Rounding size to boundary between physical extents: 232.00 MiB
Do you want to unmount "/testfs"? [Y|n] y
fsck from util-linux-ng 2.17.2
/dev/mapper/vg01-lv01: 11/32768 files (9.1% non-contiguous), 10449/128000 blocks
resize2fs 1.41.12 (17-May-2010)
Resizing the filesystem on /dev/mapper/vg01-lv01 to 68608 (4k) blocks.
The filesystem on /dev/mapper/vg01-lv01 is now 68608 blocks long.
Reducing logical volume lv01 to 268.00 MiB
Logical volume lv01 successfully resized
[root@rhel01a /]# df -h /testfs/
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/vg01-lv01
262M 33M 217M 14% /testfs
