Linux "lvchange" Command Line Options and Examples
Change the attributes of logical volume
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.


Usage:

lvchange option_args position_args
[ option_args ]



Command Line Options:

-a|--activate
Change the active state of LVs. An active LV can be used through a block device, allowing data on the LV to be accessed. ymakes LVs active, or available. n makes LVs inactive, or unavailable. The block device for the LV is added or removed fromthe system using device-mapper in the kernel. A symbolic link /dev/VGName/LVName pointing to the device node is alsoadded/removed. All software and scripts should access the device through the symbolic link and present this as the name ofthe device. The location and name of the underlying device node may depend on the distribution, configuration (e.g. udev), orrelease version. ay specifies autoactivation, in which case an LV is activated only if it matches an item in lvm.conf activa‐tion/auto_activation_volume_list. If the list is not set, all LVs are considered to match, and if if the list is set butempty, no LVs match. Autoactivation should be used during system boot to make it possible to select which LVs should be auto‐matically activated by the system. See lvmlockd(8) for more information about activation options ey and sy for shared VGs.See clvmd(8) for more information about activation options ey, sy, ly and ln for clustered VGs.
lvchange -a|--activate ...
--activationmode
Determines if LV activation is allowed when PVs are missing, e.g. because of a device failure. complete only allows LVs withno 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.) partial allows any LV with missing PVs to be activated, andshould only be used for recovery or repair. For default, see lvm.conf/activation_mode. See lvmraid(7) for more information.
lvchange --activationmode ...
--addtag
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.
lvchange --addtag ...
--alloc
Determines the allocation policy when a command needs to allocate Physical Extents (PEs) from the VG. Each VG and LV has anallocation policy which can be changed with vgchange/lvchange, or overriden on the command line. normal applies common senserules such as not placing parallel stripes on the same PV. inherit applies the VG policy to an LV. contiguous requires newPEs be placed adjacent to existing PEs. cling places new PEs on the same PV as existing PEs in the same stripe of the LV. Ifthere are sufficient 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. Optional positional PV args on the command line can also be used to limitwhich PVs the command will use for allocation. See lvm(8) for more information about allocation.
lvchange --alloc ...
-A|--autobackup
Specifies if metadata should be backed up automatically after a change. Enabling this is strongly advised! See vgcfgbackup(8)for more information.
lvchange -A|--autobackup ...
--cachemode
Specifies when writes to a cache LV should be considered complete. writeback considers a write complete as soon as it isstored in the cache pool. writethough considers a write complete only when it has been stored in both the cache pool and onthe origin LV. While writethrough may be slower for writes, it is more resilient if something should happen to a device asso‐ciated with the cache pool LV. With passthrough, all reads are served from the origin LV (all reads miss the cache) and allwrites are forwarded to the origin LV; additionally, write hits cause cache block invalidates. See lvmcache(7) for more infor‐mation.
lvchange --cachemode ...
--cachepolicy
Specifies the cache policy for a cache LV. See lvmcache(7) for more information.
lvchange --cachepolicy ...
--cachesettings
Specifies tunable values for a cache LV in "Key = Value" form. Repeat this option to specify multiple values. (The defaultvalues should usually be adequate.) The special string value default switches settings back to their default kernel valuesand removes them from the list of settings stored in LVM metadata. See lvmcache(7) for more information.
lvchange --cachesettings ...
--commandprofile
The command profile to use for command configuration. See lvm.conf(5) for more information about profiles.
lvchange --commandprofile ...
--config
Config settings for the command. These override lvm.conf settings. The String arg uses the same format as lvm.conf, or mayuse section/field syntax. See lvm.conf(5) for more information about config.
lvchange --config ...
-C|--contiguous
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 theLV are already contiguous.
lvchange -C|--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 config‐ured).
lvchange -d|--debug ...
--deltag
Deletes a tag from a PV, VG or LV. This option can be repeated to delete multiple tags at once. See lvm(8) for informationabout tags.
lvchange --deltag ...
--detachprofile
Detaches a metadata profile from a VG or LV. See lvm.conf(5) for more information about profiles.
lvchange --detachprofile ...
--discards
Specifies how the device-mapper thin pool layer in the kernel should handle discards. ignore causes the thin pool to ignorediscards. 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.
lvchange --discards ...
--driverloaded
If set to no, the command will not attempt to use device-mapper. For testing and debugging.
lvchange --driverloaded ...
--errorwhenfull
Specifies thin pool behavior when data space is exhausted. When yes, device-mapper will immediately return an error when athin pool is full and an I/O request requires space. When no, device-mapper will queue these I/O requests for a period oftime 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.
lvchange --errorwhenfull ...
-f|--force
Override various checks, confirmations and protections. Use with extreme caution.
lvchange -f|--force ...
-h|--help
Display help text.
lvchange -h|--help ...
-K|--ignoreactivationskip
Ignore the "activation skip" LV flag during activation to allow LVs with the flag set to be activated.
lvchange -K|--ignoreactivationskip ...
--ignorelockingfailure
Allows a command to continue with read-only metadata operations after locking failures.
lvchange --ignorelockingfailure ...
--ignoremonitoring
Do not interact with dmeventd unless --monitor is specified. Do not use this if dmeventd is already monitoring a device.
lvchange --ignoremonitoring ...
--ignoreskippedcluster
Use to avoid exiting with an non-zero status code if the command is run without clustered locking and clustered VGs areskipped.
lvchange --ignoreskippedcluster ...
--longhelp
Display long help text.
lvchange --longhelp ...
-j|--major
Sets the major number of an LV block device.
lvchange -j|--major ...
--[raid]maxrecoveryrate
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.
lvchange --[raid]maxrecoveryrate ...
--metadataprofile
The metadata profile to use for command configuration. See lvm.conf(5) for more information about profiles.
lvchange --metadataprofile ...
--minor
Sets the minor number of an LV block device.
lvchange --minor ...
--[raid]minrecoveryrate
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.
lvchange --[raid]minrecoveryrate ...
--monitor
Start (yes) or stop (no) monitoring an LV with dmeventd. dmeventd monitors kernel events for an LV, and performs automatedmaintenance for the LV in reponse to specific events. See dmeventd(8) for more information.
lvchange --monitor ...
--noudevsync
Disables udev synchronisation. The process will not wait for notification from udev. It will continue irrespective of any pos‐sible udev processing in the background. Only use this if udev is not running or has rules that ignore the devices LVM cre‐ates.
lvchange --noudevsync ...
-P|--partial
Commands will do their best to activate LVs with missing PV extents. Missing extents may be replaced with error or zero seg‐ments according to the lvm.conf missing_stripe_filler setting. Metadata may not be changed with this option.
lvchange -P|--partial ...
-p|--permission
Set access permission to read only r or read and write rw.
lvchange -p|--permission ...
-M|--persistent
When yes, makes the specified minor number persistent.
lvchange -M|--persistent ...
--poll
When yes, start the background transformation of an LV. An incomplete transformation, e.g. pvmove or lvconvert interrupted byreboot or crash, can be restarted from the last checkpoint with --poll y. When no, background transformation of an LV willnot occur, and the transformation will not complete. It may not be appropriate to immediately poll an LV after activation, inwhich case --poll n can be used to defer polling until a later --poll y command.
lvchange --poll ...
--profile
An alias for --commandprofile or --metadataprofile, depending on the command.
lvchange --profile ...
-q|--quiet
Suppress output and log messages. Overrides --debug and --verbose. Repeat once to also suppress any prompts with answer 'no'.
lvchange -q|--quiet ...
-r|--readahead
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.
lvchange -r|--readahead ...
--rebuild
Selects a PV to rebuild in a raid LV. Multiple PVs can be rebuilt by repeating this option. Use this option in place of
lvchange --rebuild ...
--refresh
If the LV is active, reload its metadata. This is not necessary in normal operation, but may be useful if something has gonewrong, or if some form of manual LV sharing is being used.
lvchange --refresh ...
--reportformat
Overrides current output format for reports which is defined globally by the report/output_format setting in lvm.conf. basicis the original format with columns and rows. If there is more than one report per command, each report is prefixed with thereport name for identification. json produces report output in JSON format. See lvmreport(7) for more information.
lvchange --reportformat ...
--resync
Initiates mirror synchronization. Synchronization generally happens automatically, but this option forces it to run. Also see
lvchange --resync ...
-S|--select
Select objects for processing and reporting based on specified criteria. The criteria syntax is described by --select helpand lvmreport(7). For reporting commands, one row is displayed for each object matching the criteria. See --options help forselectable object fields. Rows can be displayed with an additional "selected" field (-o selected) showing 1 if the rowmatches the selection and 0 otherwise. For non-reporting commands which process LVM entities, the selection is used to chooseitems to process.
lvchange -S|--select ...
-k|--setactivationskip
Persistently sets (yes) or clears (no) the "activation skip" flag on an LV. An LV with this flag set is not activated unlessthe --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.
lvchange -k|--setactivationskip ...
--[raid]syncaction
Initiate different types of RAID synchronization. This causes the RAID LV to read all data and parity blocks in the array andcheck for discrepancies (mismatches between mirrors or incorrect parity values). check will count but not correct discrepan‐cies. repair will correct discrepancies. See lvs for reporting discrepancies found or repaired.
lvchange --[raid]syncaction ...
--sysinit
Indicates that vgchange/lvchange is being invoked from early 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 option acts as a shortcutwhich selects an appropriate set of options. Currently, this is equivalent to using --ignorelockingfailure, --ignoremonitor‐ing, --poll n, and setting env var LVM_SUPPRESS_LOCKING_FAILURE_MESSAGES. When used in conjunction with lvmetad enabled andrunning, vgchange/lvchange skip autoactivation, and defer to pvscan autoactivation.
lvchange --sysinit ...
-t|--test
Run in test mode. Commands will not update metadata. This is implemented by disabling all metadata writing but neverthelessreturning success to the calling function. This may lead to unusual error messages in multi-stage operations if a tool relieson reading back metadata it believes has changed but hasn't.
lvchange -t|--test ...
-v|--verbose
Set verbose level. Repeat from 1 to 4 times to increase the detail of messages sent to stdout and stderr.
lvchange -v|--verbose ...
--version
Display version information.
lvchange --version ...
--[raid]writebehind
The maximum number of outstanding writes that are allowed to devices in a RAID1 LV that is marked write-mostly. Once thisvalue is exceeded, writes become synchronous (i.e. all writes to the constituent devices must complete before the array sig‐nals the write has completed). Setting the value to zero clears the preference and allows the system to choose the value arbi‐trarily.
lvchange --[raid]writebehind ...
--[raid]writemostly
Mark a device in a RAID1 LV as write-mostly. All reads to these drives will be avoided unless absolutely necessary. Thiskeeps the number of I/Os to the drive to a minimum. The default behavior is to set the write-mostly attribute for the speci‐fied 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 togglethe value with the suffix :t. Repeat this option to change the attribute on multiple PVs.
lvchange --[raid]writemostly ...
-y|--yes
Do not prompt for confirmation interactively but always assume the answer yes. Use with extreme caution. (For automatic no,see -qq.)
lvchange -y|--yes ...
-Z|--zero
Set zeroing mode for thin pool. Note: already provisioned blocks from pool in non-zero mode are not cleared in unwritten partswhen setting --zero y.VARIABLESVGVolume Group name. See lvm(8) for valid names.LVLogical Volume name. See lvm(8) for valid names. An LV positional arg generally includes the VG name and LV name, e.g.VG/LV. LV followed by _<type> indicates that an LV of the given type is required. (raid represents raid<N> type)TagTag name. See lvm(8) for information about tag names and using tags in place of a VG, LV or PV.SelectSelect indicates that a required positional parameter can be omitted if the --select option is used. No arg appears in thisposition.StringSee the option description for information about the string content.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 input unit is specified by letter, followed by |UNIT. UNIT rep‐resents other possible input units: bBsSkKmMgGtTpPeE. b|B is bytes, s|S is sectors of 512 bytes, k|K is kilobytes, m|M ismegabytes, g|G is gigabytes, t|T is terabytes, p|P is petabytes, e|E is exabytes. (This should not be confused with the out‐put control --units, where capital letters mean multiple of 1000.)ENVIRONMENT VARIABLESSee lvm(8) for information about environment variables used by lvm. For example, LVM_VG_NAME can generally be substituted for arequired VG parameter.EXAMPLESChange LV permission to read-only:lvchange -pr vg00/lvol1
lvchange -Z|--zero ...