LVCHANGE(8) System Manager's Manual LVCHANGE(8)
NAME
lvchange — Change the attributes of logical volume(s)
SYNOPSIS
lvchange option_args position_args
[ option_args ]
-a|--activate y|n|ay
--activationmode partial|degraded|complete
--addtag Tag
--alloc contiguous|cling|cling_by_tags|normal|anywhere|inherit
-A|--autobackup y|n
--cachemode writethrough|writeback|passthrough
--cachepolicy String
--cachesettings String
--commandprofile String
--compression y|n
--config String
-C|--contiguous y|n
-d|--debug
--deduplication y|n
--deltag Tag
--detachprofile
--devices PV
--devicesfile String
--discards passdown|nopassdown|ignore
--driverloaded y|n
--errorwhenfull y|n
-f|--force
-h|--help
-K|--ignoreactivationskip
--ignorelockingfailure
--ignoremonitoring
--integritysettings String
--journal String
--lockopt String
--longhelp
-j|--major Number
--[raid]maxrecoveryrate Size[k|UNIT]
--metadataprofile String
--minor Number
--[raid]minrecoveryrate Size[k|UNIT]
--monitor y|n
--nohints
--nolocking
--noudevsync
-P|--partial
-p|--permission rw|r
-M|--persistent y|n
--poll y|n
--profile String
-q|--quiet
-r|--readahead auto|none|Number
--readonly
--rebuild PV
--refresh
--reportformat basic|json|json_std
--resync
-S|--select String
-k|--setactivationskip y|n
--setautoactivation y|n
--[raid]syncaction check|repair
--sysinit
-t|--test
--vdosettings String
-v|--verbose
--version
--[raid]writebehind Number
--[raid]writemostly PV[:t|n|y]
-y|--yes
-Z|--zero y|n
DESCRIPTION
lvchange changes LV attributes in the VG, changes LV activation in the
kernel, and includes other utilities for LV maintenance.
USAGE
Change a general LV attribute.
For options listed in parentheses, any one is
required, after which the others are optional.
lvchange
( -C|--contiguous y|n
-p|--permission rw|r
-r|--readahead auto|none|Number
-k|--setactivationskip y|n
-Z|--zero y|n
-M|--persistent n
--addtag Tag
--deltag Tag
--alloc contiguous|cling|cling_by_tags|normal|anywhere|inherit
--compression y|n
--deduplication y|n
--detachprofile
--metadataprofile String
--profile String
--setautoactivation y|n
--errorwhenfull y|n
--discards passdown|nopassdown|ignore
--cachemode writethrough|writeback|passthrough
--cachepolicy String
--cachesettings String
--[raid]minrecoveryrate Size[k|UNIT]
--[raid]maxrecoveryrate Size[k|UNIT]
--vdosettings String
--integritysettings String
--[raid]writebehind Number
--[raid]writemostly PV[:t|n|y] )
VG|LV|Tag|Select ...
[ -a|--activate y|n|ay ]
[ --poll y|n ]
[ --monitor y|n ]
[ COMMON_OPTIONS ]
—
Resynchronize a mirror or raid LV.
Use to reset 'R' attribute on a not initially synchronized LV.
lvchange --resync VG|LV1|Tag|Select ...
[ -a|--activate y|n|ay ]
[ COMMON_OPTIONS ]
LV1 types: mirror raid
—
Resynchronize or check a raid LV.
lvchange --[raid]syncaction check|repair VG|LV1|Tag|Select ...
[ COMMON_OPTIONS ]
LV1 types: raid
—
Reconstruct data on specific PVs of a raid LV.
lvchange --rebuild PV VG|LV1|Tag|Select ...
[ COMMON_OPTIONS ]
LV1 types: raid
—
Activate or deactivate an LV.
lvchange -a|--activate y|n|ay VG|LV|Tag|Select ...
[ -P|--partial ]
[ -K|--ignoreactivationskip ]
[ --activationmode partial|degraded|complete ]
[ --poll y|n ]
[ --monitor y|n ]
[ --ignorelockingfailure ]
[ --sysinit ]
[ --readonly ]
[ COMMON_OPTIONS ]
—
Reactivate an LV using the latest metadata.
lvchange --refresh VG|LV|Tag|Select ...
[ -P|--partial ]
[ --activationmode partial|degraded|complete ]
[ --poll y|n ]
[ --monitor y|n ]
[ COMMON_OPTIONS ]
—
Start or stop monitoring an LV from dmeventd.
lvchange --monitor y|n VG|LV|Tag|Select ...
[ COMMON_OPTIONS ]
—
Start or stop processing an LV conversion.
lvchange --poll y|n VG|LV|Tag|Select ...
[ --monitor y|n ]
[ COMMON_OPTIONS ]
—
Make the minor device number persistent for an LV.
lvchange -M|--persistent y --minor Number LV
[ -j|--major Number ]
[ -a|--activate y|n|ay ]
[ --poll y|n ]
[ --monitor y|n ]
[ COMMON_OPTIONS ]
—
Common options for command:
[ -A|--autobackup y|n ]
[ -f|--force ]
[ -S|--select String ]
[ --ignoremonitoring ]
[ --noudevsync ]
[ --reportformat basic|json|json_std ]
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
-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 accessed. 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/VG-
Name/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 version. ay
specifies autoactivation, which is used by system-generated acti-
vation commands. By default, LVs are autoactivated. An autoacti-
vation property can be set on a VG or LV to disable autoactiva-
tion, see --setautoactivation y|n in vgchange, lvchange, vgcre-
ate, and lvcreate. Display the property with vgs or lvs "-o au-
toactivation". The lvm.conf(5) auto_activation_volume_list in-
cludes names of VGs or LVs that should be autoactivated, and any-
thing not listed is not autoactivated. When auto_activation_vol-
ume_list is undefined (the default), it has no effect. If au-
to_activation_volume_list is defined and empty, no LVs are au-
toactivated. Items included by auto_activation_volume_list will
not be autoactivated if the autoactivation property has been dis-
abled. See lvmlockd(8) for more information about activation op-
tions ey and sy for shared VGs.
--activationmode partial|degraded|complete
Determines if LV activation is allowed when PVs are missing, e.g.
because of a device failure. complete only allows 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.) par-
tial 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 informa-
tion.
--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 alloca-
tion policy which can be changed with vgchange/lvchange, or over-
ridden on the command line. normal applies common sense rules
such as not placing parallel stripes on the same PV. inherit ap-
plies 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.
--cachemode writethrough|writeback|passthrough
Specifies when writes to a cache LV should be considered com-
plete. 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.
--cachesettings String
Specifies tunable kernel options for dm-cache or dm-writecache
LVs. Use the form 'option=value' or 'option1=value option2=val-
ue', or repeat --cachesettings for each option being set. These
settings override the default kernel behaviors which are usually
adequate. To remove cachesettings and revert to the default ker-
nel behaviors, use --cachesettings 'default' for dm-cache or an
empty string --cachesettings '' for dm-writecache. See lvm-
cache(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 vol-
ume. See lvmvdo(7) for more information about VDO usage.
--config String
Config settings for the command. These override lvm.conf(5) set-
tings. The String arg uses the same format as lvm.conf(5), or
may use section/field syntax. See lvm.conf(5) for more informa-
tion 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 vol-
ume. See lvmvdo(7) for more information about VDO usage.
--deltag Tag
Deletes a tag from a PV, VG or LV. This option can be repeated to
delete multiple tags at once. See lvm(8) for information about
tags.
--detachprofile
Detaches a metadata profile from a VG or LV. See lvm.conf(5) for
more information about profiles.
--devices PV
Restricts the devices that are visible and accessible to the com-
mand. Devices not listed will appear to be missing. 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) com-
mand. This overrides the lvm.conf(5) devices/devicesfile and de-
vices/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 al-
low 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.
-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 operations
after locking failures.
--ignoremonitoring
Do not interact with dmeventd unless --monitor is specified. Do
not use this if dmeventd is already monitoring a device.
--integritysettings String
Specifies tunable kernel options for dm-integrity. See lvm-
raid(7) for more information.
--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.
--lockopt String
Used to pass options for special cases to lvmlockd. See lvm-
lockd(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. Set-
ting 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. Set-
ting the rate to 0 means it will be unbounded. 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 response 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. Use with caution, concurrent commands may pro-
duce incorrect results.
--noudevsync
Disables udev synchronization. The process will not wait for no-
tification from udev. It will continue irrespective of any possi-
ble 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 ex-
tents. Missing extents may be replaced with error or zero seg-
ments according to the missing_stripe_filler setting. Metadata
may not be changed with this option.
-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.
--poll y|n
When yes, start the background transformation of an LV. An in-
complete transformation, e.g. pvmove or lvconvert interrupted by
reboot or crash, can be restarted from the last checkpoint with
--poll y. When no, background transformation 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, depending on
the command.
-q|--quiet ...
Suppress output and log messages. Overrides --debug and --ver-
bose. Repeat once to also suppress any prompts with answer 'no'.
-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.
--readonly
Prevent the command from making changes, including activation and
metadata updates. (See --permission r for read only LVs.)
--rebuild PV
Selects a PV to rebuild in a raid LV. Multiple PVs can be rebuilt
by repeating this option. Use this option in place of --resync
or --syncaction repair when the PVs with corrupted data are
known, and their data should be reconstructed rather than recon-
structing default (rotating) data. See lvmraid(7) for more in-
formation.
--refresh
If the LV is active, reload its metadata. In an environment
where udev is used to manage the /dev content, usage of this op-
tion is highly recommended. This is because refresh also regener-
ates udev events for an LV based on which existing udev rules are
applied to set the /dev content and permissions. Also, this op-
eration may be useful if something has gone wrong, or if some
form of manual LV sharing is being used.
--reportformat basic|json|json_std
Overrides current output format for reports which is defined
globally by the report/output_format setting in lvm.conf(5). ba-
sic 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. json_std produces report output in JSON format
which is more compliant with JSON standard. See lvmreport(7) for
more information.
--resync
Initiates mirror synchronization. Synchronization generally hap-
pens automatically, but this option forces it to run. Also see
--rebuild to synchronize a specific PV. During synchronization,
data is read from the primary mirror device and copied to the
others. This can take considerable time, during which the LV is
without a complete redundant copy of the data. See lvmraid(7)
for more information.
-S|--select String
Select objects for processing and reporting based on specified
criteria. The criteria syntax is described by --select help and
lvmreport(7). For reporting commands, one row is displayed for
each object matching the criteria. See --options help for selec-
table object fields. Rows can be displayed with an additional
"selected" field (-o selected) 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.
-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 prop-
erty with vgs or lvs "-o autoactivation". When the autoactiva-
tion property is disabled, the VG or LV will not be activated by
a command doing autoactivation (vgchange, lvchange, or pvscan us-
ing -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.
--[raid]syncaction check|repair
Initiate different types of RAID synchronization. This causes
the RAID LV to read all data and parity blocks in the array and
check for discrepancies (mismatches between mirrors or incorrect
parity values). check will count but not correct discrepancies.
repair will correct discrepancies. Mind that these synchroniza-
tion actions are transient and have to be restarted after a sys-
tem failure/reboot or a configuration change to the RaidLV. See
lvs(8) for reporting discrepancies found or repaired.
--sysinit
Indicates that vgchange/lvchange is being invoked from early sys-
tem initialisation scripts (e.g. rc.sysinit or an initrd), before
writable filesystems are available. As such, some functionality
needs to be disabled and this option acts as a shortcut which se-
lects an appropriate set of options. Currently, this is equiva-
lent to using --ignorelockingfailure, --ignoremonitoring, --poll
n, and setting env var LVM_SUPPRESS_LOCKING_FAILURE_MESSAGES.
vgchange/lvchange skip autoactivation, and defer to pvscan au-
toactivation.
-t|--test
Run in test mode. Commands will not update metadata. This is im-
plemented by disabling all metadata writing but nevertheless re-
turning 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.
--vdosettings String
Specifies tunable VDO options for VDO LVs. Use the form 'op-
tion=value' or 'option1=value option2=value', or repeat --vdoset-
tings for each option being set. These settings override the de-
fault VDO behaviors. To remove vdosettings and revert to the de-
fault VDO behaviors, use --vdosettings 'default'. See lvmvdo(7)
for more information.
-v|--verbose ...
Set verbose level. Repeat from 1 to 4 times to increase the de-
tail of messages sent to stdout and stderr.
--version
Display version information.
--[raid]writebehind Number
The maximum number of outstanding writes that are allowed to de-
vices in a RAID1 LV that is marked write-mostly. Once this value
is exceeded, writes become synchronous (i.e. all writes to the
constituent devices must complete before the array signals the
write has completed). Setting the value to zero clears the pref-
erence and allows the system to choose the value arbitrarily.
--[raid]writemostly PV[:t|n|y]
Mark a device in a RAID1 LV as write-mostly. All reads to these
drives will be avoided unless absolutely necessary. This keeps
the number of I/Os to the drive to a minimum. The default behav-
ior is to set the write-mostly attribute for the specified PV.
It is also possible to remove the write-mostly flag by adding the
suffix :n at the end of the PV name, or to toggle the value with
the suffix :t. Repeat this option to change the attribute on mul-
tiple PVs.
-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
Set zeroing mode for thin pool. Note: already provisioned blocks
from pool in non-zero mode are not cleared in unwritten parts
when setting --zero y.
VARIABLES
VG Volume Group name. See lvm(8) for valid names.
LV Logical Volume name. See lvm(8) for valid names. An LV posi-
tional arg generally includes the VG name and LV name, e.g.
VG/LV. LV1 indicates the LV must have a specific type, where the
accepted LV types are listed. (raid represents raid<N> type).
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 con-
tent.
Size[UNIT]
Size is an input number that accepts an optional unit. Input
units are always treated as base two values, regardless of capi-
talization, e.g. 'k' and 'K' both refer to 1024. The default in-
put unit is specified by letter, followed by |UNIT. UNIT repre-
sents 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
See lvm(8) for information about environment variables used by lvm. For
example, LVM_VG_NAME can generally be substituted for a required VG pa-
rameter.
EXAMPLES
Change LV permission to read-only:
lvchange -pr vg00/lvol1
SEE ALSO
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)
Red Hat, Inc. LVM TOOLS 2.03.31(2) (2025-02-27) LVCHANGE(8)
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