Create LV on VG on the Fly

Describes what is a LV (Logical Volume) - A virtual storage partition in a VG (Volume Group) managed by the LVM. A tutorial example is given on how to create a new LV on a VG.

What Is LV (Logical Volume)? LV represents a virtual storage partition in a VG (Volume Group) managed by the LVM (Logical Volume Manager). A LV can be formatted into a specific file system.

There are a number commands provided on CentOS 8 systems for you to create and manage PVs.

1. List all LVs that are currently managed by LVM using the "lvs" command, which is a also sub-command of the "lvm" command. The output shows that I have 3 LVs named hosted on the "cl" VG.

herong$ sudo lvs
  LV   VG Attr       LSize   Pool Origin Data%  Meta%  ...
  home cl -wi-ao---- 138.94g
  root cl -wi-ao----  50.00g
  swap cl -wi-ao----   7.71g

2. Display details of each LV using the "lvdisplay" command, which is also a sub-command of the "lvm" command. The output shows the VG's format is "lvm2".

herong$ sudo lvdisplay
  --- Logical volume ---
  LV Path                /dev/cl/swap
  LV Name                swap
  VG Name                cl
  LV UUID                gMCDUY-Ew9v-OFBj-pOuq-lZ27-...
  LV Write Access        read/write
  LV Creation host, time localhost, 2020-03-27 05:01:49 +0800
  LV Status              available
  # open                 2
  LV Size                7.71 GiB
  Current LE             1974
  Segments               1
  Allocation             inherit
  Read ahead sectors     auto
  - currently set to     8192
  Block device           253:1

  --- Logical volume ---
  LV Path                /dev/cl/home
  LV Name                home
  VG Name                cl
  LV UUID                GTeo46-cl6I-XFL8-tCvb-vCeN-...
  LV Write Access        read/write
  LV Creation host, time localhost, 2020-03-27 05:01:49 +0800
  LV Status              available
  # open                 1
  LV Size                138.94 GiB
  Current LE             35569
  Segments               2
  Allocation             inherit
  Read ahead sectors     auto
  - currently set to     8192
  Block device           253:2

  ...

As you can see from the output, a LV has 3 identities:

How To Create a New LV on a VG? If you have free spaces on a VG, you create a new LV using the "lvcreate" command.

1. Check free space on VG. I see "data" VG has 93 GiB of free space.

herong$ sudo vgs
  VG   #PV #LV #SN Attr   VSize   VFree
  cl     2   3   0 wz--n-   1.00t 831.69g
  data   1   0   0 wz--n-  93.13g  93.13g

2. Create a new PV called "hr" with 10GiB on "data" using "lvcreate" command.

herong$ sudo lvcreate -L 10G -n hr data
  Logical volume "hr" created.

herong$ sudo lvdisplay
  --- Logical volume ---
  LV Path                /dev/data/hr
  LV Name                hr
  VG Name                data
  LV UUID                2upNkI-v5p8-ctQZ-mBPD-CmKC-...
  LV Write Access        read/write
  LV Status              available
  # open                 0
  LV Size                10.00 GiB
  Current LE             2560
  Segments               1
  Allocation             inherit
  Read ahead sectors     auto
  - currently set to     8192
  Block device           253:3

3. Check the device path of the new LV using "file -s" command. The new LV is not formatted with file system yet and can be used as "data" device, also called "byte" device.

...
herong$ sudo file -s /dev/data/hr
/dev/data/hr: symbolic link to ../dm-3

herong$ sudo file -s /dev/dm-3
/dev/dm-3: data

4. Create an "ext4" file system on the LV using "mkfs" command.

herong$ sudo mkfs -t ext4 /dev/data/hr
mke2fs 1.44.6 (5-Mar-2019)
Creating filesystem with 2621440 4k blocks and 655360 inodes
Filesystem UUID: b560da43-52a3-41c4-98a9-...
Superblock backups stored on blocks:
  32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912, 819200, 884736, 1605632

Allocating group tables: done
Writing inode tables: done
Creating journal (16384 blocks): done
Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done

herong$ sudo file -s /dev/dm-3
/dev/dm-3: Linux rev 1.0 ext4 filesystem data, UUID=b560da43-52a3-...

5. Mount the file system on the LV. I see new file system path, /dev/mapper/data-hr, is given to the LV.

herong$ sudo mount /dev/data/hr /mnt/temp

herong$ ls -l /mnt/temp
total 16
drwx------. 2 root root 16384 Mar 22 14:20 lost+found

herong$ df
Filesystem            1K-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/data-hr    10255636     36888   9678076   1% /mnt/temp

Cool. I have successfully create a LV on a VG, and formatted it as an "ext4" file system.

Table of Contents

 About This Book

 Introduction to Linux Systems

 Cockpit - Web Portal for Administrator

 Process Management

 Files and Directories

 Users and Groups

 File Systems

 Block Devices and Partitions

LVM (Logical Volume Manager)

 What Is LVM (Logical Volume Manager)

 Create New PV (Physical Volume)

 Add/Remove PV on VG on the Fly

Create LV on VG on the Fly

 Extend /home LV with a New Partition

 Installing CentOS

 SELinux - Security-Enhanced Linux

 Network Connection on CentOS

 Internet Networking Tools

 SSH Protocol and ssh/scp Commands

 Software Package Manager on CentOS - DNF and YUM

 vsftpd - Very Secure FTP Daemon

 Postfix - Mail Transport Agent (MTA)

 Dovecot - IMAP and POP3 Server

 Email Client Tools - Mail User Agents (MUA)

 LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol)

 Administrative Tasks

 References

 Full Version in PDF/EPUB