vgcreate - create a volume group

vgcreate [--addtag Tag] [--alloc AllocationPolicy] [-A|--autobackup {y|n}] [-d|--debug] [-h|--help] [-l|--maxlogicalvolumes MaxLogicalVolumes] [-M|--metadatatypetype] [-p|--maxphysicalvolumes MaxPhysicalVolumes] [-s|--physicalextentsize PhysicalExtentSize[kKmMgGtT]] [-t|--test] [-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).

See lvm for common options.

-l, --maxlogicalvolumes MaxLogicalVolumes

Sets the maximum number of logical volumes allowed in this volume group. The setting can be changed with vgchange. For volume groups with metadata in lvm1 format, the limit and default value is 255. If the metadata uses lvm2 format, the default value is 0 which removes this restriction: there is then no limit.

-p, --maxphysicalvolumes MaxPhysicalVolumes

Sets the maximum number of physical volumes that can belong to this volume group. The setting can be changed with vgchange. For volume groups with metadata in lvm1 format, the limit and default value is 255. If the metadata uses lvm2 format, the default value is 0 which removes this restriction: there is then no limit. If you have a large number of physical volumes in a volume group with metadata in lvm2 format, for tool performance reasons, you should consider some use of --metadatacopies 0 as described in pvcreate(8).

-s, --physicalextentsize PhysicalExtentSize[kKmMgGtT]

Sets the physical extent size on physical volumes of this volume group. A size suffix (k for kilobytes up to t for terabytes) is optional, megabytes is the default if no suffix is present. Values can be from 8 KB to 16 GB in powers of 2. The default is 4 MB. Once this value has been set, it is difficult to change it without recreating the volume group which would involve backing up and restoring data on any logical volumes. If the volume group metadata uses lvm1 format, there is a limit of 65534 extents in each logical volume, so the default of 4 MB leads to a maximum logical volume size of around 256GB. If the volume group metadata uses lvm2 format there is no such restriction, although having a large number of extents will slow down the tools but have no impact on I/O performance to the logical volume. The 2.4 kernel has a limitation of 2TB per block device.

To create a volume group named test_vg using physical volumes /dev/hdk1, and /dev/hdl1 with default physical extent size of 4MB:

vgcreate test_vg /dev/sdk1 /dev/sdl1

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