vgcreate - create a volume group

vgcreate [-A|--autobackup {y|n}] [-d|--debug] [-h|--help] [-l|--maxlogicalvolumes MaxLogicalVolumes] [-p|--maxphysicalvolumes MaxPhysicalVolumes] [-s|--physicalextentsize PhysicalExtentSize[kKmMgGtT]] [-v|--verbose] [--version] VolumeGroupName PhysicalVolumePath [PhysicalVolumePath...]

vgcreate creates a new volume group called VolumeGroupName using the block special device PhysicalVolumePath previously configured for LVM with pvcreate(8).

OPTIONS

To create a volume group named test_vg using physical volumes /dev/hdk1, /dev/hdl1, and /dev/hdm1 with default physical extent size of 32MB:

vgcreate test_vg /dev/sd[k-m]1

NOTE: If you are using devfs it is essential to use the full devfs name of the device rather than the symlinked name in /dev. so: the above could be

vgcreate test_vg /dev/scsi/host1/bus0/target[1-3]/lun0/part1

To limit kernel memory usage, there is a limit of 65536 physical extents (PE) per logical volume, so the PE size determines the maximum logical volume size. The default PE size of 32MB limits a single logical volume to 2TB (see the -s option to change that limit). There is also (as of Linux 2.4) a kernel limitation of 2TB per block device.

vgcreate returns an exit code of 0 for success and > 0 for error;

1 no volume group and physical volume names on command line 2 no physical volume names on command line 3 invalid volume group name 4 error checking existence of volume group 5 maximum number of volume groups exceeded 6 error reading physical volume(s) 7 invalid physical volume name 8 error getting physical volume size 9 no new physical volume 10 physical volume occurs multiple times on command line 11 memory reallocation error 12 no valid physical volumes on command line 13 some invalid physical volumes on command line 14 physical volume is too small 15 error setting up VGDA 16 error writing VGDA to physical volumes 17 error creating VGDA in kernel 18 error inserting volume group into lvmtab 19 error doing backup of VGDA 20 error writing VGDA to lvmtab 21 volume group directory already exists in /dev

95 driver/module not in kernel 96 invalid I/O protocol version 97 error locking logical volume manager 98 invalid lvmtab (run vgscan(8)) 99 invalid command line

LVM_AUTOBACKUP

If this variable is set to "no" then the automatic backup of VG metadata is turned off.

LVM_VG_MAX_BACKUPS

This variable determines the backup history depth of kept VGDA copy files in /etc/lvmconf. It can be set to a positive number between 0 and 999. The higher this number is, the more changes you can restore using vgcfgrestore(8).

lvm(8), pvdisplay(8), pvcreate(8), vgremove(8), vgdisplay(8), vgextend(8), vgreduce(8), lvcreate(8), lvdisplay(8), lvextend(8), lvreduce(8)

Heinz Mauelshagen <Linux-LVM@Sistina.com>