Installation guide

iii
Introduction vii
1. About This Guide .......................................................................................................... vii
2. Audience ....................................................................................................................... vii
3. Software Versions .......................................................................................................... vii
4. Related Documentation .................................................................................................. vii
5. We Need Feedback! ..................................................................................................... viii
6. Document Conventions ................................................................................................. viii
6.1. Typographic Conventions .................................................................................... viii
6.2. Pull-quote Conventions ......................................................................................... x
6.3. Notes and Warnings ............................................................................................. x
1. The LVM Logical Volume Manager 1
1.1. New and Changed Features ......................................................................................... 1
1.1.1. New and Changed Features for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.0 .............................. 1
1.1.2. New and Changed Features for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.1 .............................. 2
1.1.3. New and Changed Features for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.2 .............................. 2
1.2. Logical Volumes ........................................................................................................... 2
1.3. LVM Architecture Overview ........................................................................................... 3
1.4. The Clustered Logical Volume Manager (CLVM) ............................................................ 4
1.5. Document Overview ..................................................................................................... 6
2. LVM Components 9
2.1. Physical Volumes ......................................................................................................... 9
2.1.1. LVM Physical Volume Layout ............................................................................. 9
2.1.2. Multiple Partitions on a Disk ............................................................................. 10
2.2. Volume Groups .......................................................................................................... 10
2.3. LVM Logical Volumes ................................................................................................. 11
2.3.1. Linear Volumes ................................................................................................ 11
2.3.2. Striped Logical Volumes ................................................................................... 12
2.3.3. Mirrored Logical Volumes ................................................................................. 13
2.3.4. Snapshot Volumes ........................................................................................... 14
3. LVM Administration Overview 17
3.1. Creating LVM Volumes in a Cluster ............................................................................. 17
3.2. Logical Volume Creation Overview .............................................................................. 17
3.3. Growing a File System on a Logical Volume ................................................................ 18
3.4. Logical Volume Backup .............................................................................................. 18
3.5. Logging ...................................................................................................................... 19
4. LVM Administration with CLI Commands 21
4.1. Using CLI Commands ................................................................................................ 21
4.2. Physical Volume Administration ................................................................................... 22
4.2.1. Creating Physical Volumes ............................................................................... 22
4.2.2. Displaying Physical Volumes ............................................................................ 24
4.2.3. Preventing Allocation on a Physical Volume ...................................................... 25
4.2.4. Resizing a Physical Volume ............................................................................. 25
4.2.5. Removing Physical Volumes ............................................................................ 25
4.3. Volume Group Administration ...................................................................................... 25
4.3.1. Creating Volume Groups .................................................................................. 25
4.3.2. Creating Volume Groups in a Cluster ................................................................ 26
4.3.3. Adding Physical Volumes to a Volume Group .................................................... 27
4.3.4. Displaying Volume Groups ............................................................................... 27
4.3.5. Scanning Disks for Volume Groups to Build the Cache File ................................ 28
4.3.6. Removing Physical Volumes from a Volume Group ............................................ 29
4.3.7. Changing the Parameters of a Volume Group .................................................... 29
4.3.8. Activating and Deactivating Volume Groups ...................................................... 30