Provided by: lvm2_2.03.16-3ubuntu3.2_amd64 
NAME
vgchange — Change volume group attributes
SYNOPSIS
vgchange option_args position_args
[ option_args ]
[ position_args ]
-a|--activate y|n|ay
--activationmode partial|degraded|complete
--addtag Tag
--alloc contiguous|cling|cling_by_tags|normal|anywhere|inherit
--autoactivation String
-A|--autobackup y|n
--commandprofile String
--config String
-d|--debug
--deltag Tag
--detachprofile
--devices PV
--devicesfile String
--driverloaded y|n
-f|--force
-h|--help
-K|--ignoreactivationskip
--ignorelockingfailure
--ignoremonitoring
--journal String
--lockopt String
--lockstart
--lockstop
--locktype sanlock|dlm|none
-l|--logicalvolume Number
--longhelp
-p|--maxphysicalvolumes Number
--metadataprofile String
--monitor y|n
--nohints
--nolocking
--noudevsync
-P|--partial
-s|--physicalextentsize Size[m|UNIT]
--poll y|n
--profile String
--pvmetadatacopies 0|1|2
-q|--quiet
--readonly
--refresh
--reportformat basic|json
-x|--resizeable y|n
-S|--select String
--setautoactivation y|n
--sysinit
--systemid String
-t|--test
-u|--uuid
-v|--verbose
--version
--[vg]metadatacopies all|unmanaged|Number
-y|--yes
DESCRIPTION
vgchange changes VG attributes, changes LV activation in the kernel, and includes other utilities for VG
maintenance.
USAGE
Change a general VG attribute.
For options listed in parentheses, any one is
required, after which the others are optional.
vgchange
( -l|--logicalvolume Number
-p|--maxphysicalvolumes Number
-u|--uuid
-s|--physicalextentsize Size[m|UNIT]
-x|--resizeable y|n
--addtag Tag
--deltag Tag
--alloc contiguous|cling|cling_by_tags|normal|anywhere|inherit
--pvmetadatacopies 0|1|2
--[vg]metadatacopies all|unmanaged|Number
--profile String
--detachprofile
--metadataprofile String
--setautoactivation y|n )
[ -A|--autobackup y|n ]
[ -S|--select String ]
[ -f|--force ]
[ --poll y|n ]
[ --ignoremonitoring ]
[ --noudevsync ]
[ --reportformat basic|json ]
[ COMMON_OPTIONS ]
[ VG|Tag|Select ... ]
—
Start or stop monitoring LVs from dmeventd.
vgchange --monitor y|n
[ -A|--autobackup y|n ]
[ -S|--select String ]
[ -f|--force ]
[ --sysinit ]
[ --ignorelockingfailure ]
[ --poll y|n ]
[ --ignoremonitoring ]
[ --noudevsync ]
[ --reportformat basic|json ]
[ COMMON_OPTIONS ]
[ VG|Tag|Select ... ]
—
Start or stop processing LV conversions.
vgchange --poll y|n
[ -A|--autobackup y|n ]
[ -S|--select String ]
[ -f|--force ]
[ --ignorelockingfailure ]
[ --ignoremonitoring ]
[ --noudevsync ]
[ --reportformat basic|json ]
[ COMMON_OPTIONS ]
[ VG|Tag|Select ... ]
—
Activate or deactivate LVs.
vgchange -a|--activate y|n|ay
[ -K|--ignoreactivationskip ]
[ -P|--partial ]
[ -A|--autobackup y|n ]
[ -S|--select String ]
[ -f|--force ]
[ --activationmode partial|degraded|complete ]
[ --sysinit ]
[ --readonly ]
[ --ignorelockingfailure ]
[ --monitor y|n ]
[ --poll y|n ]
[ --autoactivation String ]
[ --ignoremonitoring ]
[ --noudevsync ]
[ --reportformat basic|json ]
[ COMMON_OPTIONS ]
[ VG|Tag|Select ... ]
—
Reactivate LVs using the latest metadata.
vgchange --refresh
[ -A|--autobackup y|n ]
[ -S|--select String ]
[ -f|--force ]
[ --sysinit ]
[ --ignorelockingfailure ]
[ --poll y|n ]
[ --ignoremonitoring ]
[ --noudevsync ]
[ --reportformat basic|json ]
[ COMMON_OPTIONS ]
[ VG|Tag|Select ... ]
—
Change the system ID of a VG.
vgchange --systemid String VG
[ COMMON_OPTIONS ]
—
Start the lockspace of a shared VG in lvmlockd.
vgchange --lockstart
[ -S|--select String ]
[ COMMON_OPTIONS ]
[ VG|Tag|Select ... ]
—
Stop the lockspace of a shared VG in lvmlockd.
vgchange --lockstop
[ -S|--select String ]
[ COMMON_OPTIONS ]
[ VG|Tag|Select ... ]
—
Change the lock type for a shared VG.
vgchange --locktype sanlock|dlm|none VG
[ COMMON_OPTIONS ]
—
Common options for lvm:
[ -d|--debug ]
[ -h|--help ]
[ -q|--quiet ]
[ -t|--test ]
[ -v|--verbose ]
[ -y|--yes ]
[ --commandprofile String ]
[ --config String ]
[ --devices PV ]
[ --devicesfile String ]
[ --driverloaded y|n ]
[ --journal String ]
[ --lockopt String ]
[ --longhelp ]
[ --nohints ]
[ --nolocking ]
[ --profile String ]
[ --version ]
OPTIONS
-a|--activate y|n|ay
Change the active state of LVs. An active LV can be used through a block device, allowing data on
the LV to be accessed. y makes LVs active, or available. n makes LVs inactive, or unavailable.
The block device for the LV is added or removed from the system using device-mapper in the kernel.
A symbolic link /dev/VGName/LVName pointing to the device node is also added/removed. All soft‐
ware and scripts should access the device through the symbolic link and present this as the name
of the device. The location and name of the underlying device node may depend on the distribu‐
tion, configuration (e.g. udev), or release version. ay specifies autoactivation, which is used
by system-generated activation commands. By default, LVs are autoactivated. An autoactivation
property can be set on a VG or LV to disable autoactivation, see --setautoactivation y|n in
vgchange, lvchange, vgcreate, and lvcreate. Display the property with vgs or lvs "-o autoactiva‐
tion". The lvm.conf(5) auto_activation_volume_list includes names of VGs or LVs that should be
autoactivated, and anything not listed is not autoactivated. When auto_activation_volume_list is
undefined (the default), it has no effect. If auto_activation_volume_list is defined and empty,
no LVs are autoactivated. Items included by auto_activation_volume_list will not be autoactivated
if the autoactivation property has been disabled. See lvmlockd(8) for more information about ac‐
tivation options ey and sy for shared VGs.
--activationmode partial|degraded|complete
Determines if LV activation is allowed when PVs are missing, e.g. because of a device failure.
complete only allows LVs with no 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, and should
only be used for recovery or repair. For default, see lvm.conf(5) activation_mode. See lvm‐
raid(7) for more information.
--addtag Tag
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.
--alloc contiguous|cling|cling_by_tags|normal|anywhere|inherit
Determines the allocation policy when a command needs to allocate Physical Extents (PEs) from the
VG. Each VG and LV has an allocation policy which can be changed with vgchange/lvchange, or over‐
ridden on the command line. normal applies common sense rules such as not placing parallel
stripes on the same PV. inherit applies the VG policy to an LV. contiguous requires new PEs be
placed adjacent to existing PEs. cling places new PEs on the same PV as existing PEs in the same
stripe of the LV. If there are sufficient PEs for an allocation, but normal does not use them,
anywhere will use them even if it reduces performance, e.g. by placing two stripes on the same PV.
Optional positional PV args on the command line can also be used to limit which PVs the command
will use for allocation. See lvm(8) for more information about allocation.
--autoactivation String
Specify if autoactivation is being used from an event. This allows the command to apply settings
that are specific to event activation, such as device scanning optimizations using pvs_online
files created by event-based pvscans.
-A|--autobackup y|n
Specifies if metadata should be backed up automatically after a change. Enabling this is strongly
advised! See vgcfgbackup(8) for more information.
--commandprofile String
The command profile to use for command configuration. See lvm.conf(5) for more information about
profiles.
--config String
Config settings for the command. These override lvm.conf(5) settings. The String arg uses the
same format as lvm.conf(5), or may use section/field syntax. See lvm.conf(5) for more information
about config.
-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 configured).
--deltag Tag
Deletes a tag from a PV, VG or LV. This option can be repeated to delete multiple tags at once.
See lvm(8) for information about tags.
--detachprofile
Detaches a metadata profile from a VG or LV. See lvm.conf(5) for more information about profiles.
--devices PV
Restricts the devices that are visible and accessible to the command. Devices not listed will ap‐
pear to be missing. This option can be repeated, or accepts a comma separated list of devices.
This overrides the devices file.
--devicesfile String
A file listing devices that LVM should use. The file must exist in /etc/lvm/devices/ and is man‐
aged with the lvmdevices(8) command. This overrides the lvm.conf(5) devices/devicesfile and de‐
vices/use_devicesfile settings.
--driverloaded y|n
If set to no, the command will not attempt to use device-mapper. For testing and debugging.
-f|--force ...
Override various checks, confirmations and protections. Use with extreme caution.
-h|--help
Display help text.
-K|--ignoreactivationskip
Ignore the "activation skip" LV flag during activation to allow LVs with the flag set to be acti‐
vated.
--ignorelockingfailure
Allows a command to continue with read-only metadata operations after locking failures.
--ignoremonitoring
Do not interact with dmeventd unless --monitor is specified. Do not use this if dmeventd is al‐
ready monitoring a device.
--journal String
Record information in the systemd journal. This information is in addition to information enabled
by the lvm.conf log/journal setting. command: record information about the command. output:
record the default command output. debug: record full command debugging.
--lockopt String
Used to pass options for special cases to lvmlockd. See lvmlockd(8) for more information.
--lockstart
Start the lockspace of a shared VG in lvmlockd. lvmlockd locks becomes available for the VG, al‐
lowing LVM to use the VG. See lvmlockd(8) for more information.
--lockstop
Stop the lockspace of a shared VG in lvmlockd. lvmlockd locks become unavailable for the VG, pre‐
venting LVM from using the VG. See lvmlockd(8) for more information.
--locktype sanlock|dlm|none
Change the VG lock type to or from a shared lock type used with lvmlockd. See lvmlockd(8) for
more information.
-l|--logicalvolume Number
Sets the maximum number of LVs allowed in a VG.
--longhelp
Display long help text.
-p|--maxphysicalvolumes Number
Sets the maximum number of PVs that can belong to the VG. The value 0 removes any limitation.
For large numbers of PVs, also see options --pvmetadatacopies, and --vgmetadatacopies for improv‐
ing performance.
--metadataprofile String
The metadata profile to use for command configuration. See lvm.conf(5) for more information about
profiles.
--monitor y|n
Start (yes) or stop (no) monitoring an LV with dmeventd. dmeventd monitors kernel events for an
LV, and performs automated maintenance for the LV in reponse to specific events. See dmeventd(8)
for more information.
--nohints
Do not use the hints file to locate devices for PVs. A command may read more devices to find PVs
when hints are not used. The command will still perform standard hint file invalidation where ap‐
propriate.
--nolocking
Disable locking. Use with caution, concurrent commands may produce incorrect results.
--noudevsync
Disables udev synchronisation. The process will not wait for notification from udev. It will con‐
tinue irrespective of any possible udev processing in the background. Only use this if udev is not
running or has rules that ignore the devices LVM creates.
-P|--partial
Commands will do their best to activate LVs with missing PV extents. Missing extents may be re‐
placed with error or zero segments according to the missing_stripe_filler setting. Metadata may
not be changed with this option.
-s|--physicalextentsize Size[m|UNIT]
Sets the physical extent size of PVs in the VG. The value must be either a power of 2 of at least
1 sector (where the sector size is the largest sector size of the PVs currently used in the VG),
or at least 128KiB. Once this value has been set, it is difficult to change without recreating
the VG, unless no extents need moving. Before increasing the physical extent size, you might need
to use lvresize, pvresize and/or pvmove so that everything fits. For example, every contiguous
range of extents used in a LV must start and end on an extent boundary.
--poll y|n
When yes, start the background transformation of an LV. An incomplete transformation, e.g. pvmove
or lvconvert interrupted by reboot or crash, can be restarted from the last checkpoint with --poll
y. When no, background transformation of an LV will not occur, and the transformation will not
complete. It may not be appropriate to immediately poll an LV after activation, in which case
--poll n can be used to defer polling until a later --poll y command.
--profile String
An alias for --commandprofile or --metadataprofile, depending on the command.
--pvmetadatacopies 0|1|2
The number of metadata areas to set aside on a PV for storing VG metadata. When 2, one copy of
the VG metadata is stored at the front of the PV and a second copy is stored at the end. When 1,
one copy of the VG metadata is stored at the front of the PV. When 0, no copies of the VG metada‐
ta are stored on the given PV. This may be useful in VGs containing many PVs (this places limita‐
tions on the ability to use vgsplit later.)
-q|--quiet ...
Suppress output and log messages. Overrides --debug and --verbose. Repeat once to also suppress
any prompts with answer 'no'.
--readonly
Run the command in a special read-only mode which will read on-disk metadata without needing to
take any locks. This can be used to peek inside metadata used by a virtual machine image while the
virtual machine is running. No attempt will be made to communicate with the device-mapper kernel
driver, so this option is unable to report whether or not LVs are actually in use.
--refresh
If the LV is active, reload its metadata. This is not necessary in normal operation, but may be
useful if something has gone wrong, or if some form of manual LV sharing is being used.
--reportformat basic|json
Overrides current output format for reports which is defined globally by the report/output_format
setting in lvm.conf(5). basic is the original format with columns and rows. If there is more
than one report per command, each report is prefixed with the report name for identification. json
produces report output in JSON format. See lvmreport(7) for more information.
-x|--resizeable y|n
Enables or disables the addition or removal of PVs to/from a VG (by vgextend/vgreduce).
-S|--select String
Select objects for processing and reporting based on specified criteria. The criteria syntax is
described by --select help and lvmreport(7). For reporting commands, one row is displayed for
each object matching the criteria. See --options help for selectable object fields. Rows can be
displayed with an additional "selected" field (-o selected) showing 1 if the row matches the se‐
lection and 0 otherwise. For non-reporting commands which process LVM entities, the selection is
used to choose items to process.
--setautoactivation y|n
Set the autoactivation property on a VG or LV. Display the property with vgs or lvs "-o autoacti‐
vation". When the autoactivation property is disabled, the VG or LV will not be activated by a
command doing autoactivation (vgchange, lvchange, or pvscan using -aay.) If autoactivation is
disabled on a VG, no LVs will be autoactivated in that VG, and the LV autoactivation property has
no effect. If autoactivation is enabled on a VG, autoactivation can be disabled for individual
LVs.
--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 shortcut which selects an appropriate set of op‐
tions. Currently, this is equivalent to using --ignorelockingfailure, --ignoremonitoring, --poll
n, and setting env var LVM_SUPPRESS_LOCKING_FAILURE_MESSAGES. vgchange/lvchange skip autoactiva‐
tion, and defer to pvscan autoactivation.
--systemid String
Changes the system ID of the VG. Using this option requires caution because the VG may become
foreign to the host running the command, leaving the host unable to access it. See lvmsystemid(7)
for more information.
-t|--test
Run in test mode. Commands will not update metadata. This is implemented by disabling all metada‐
ta writing but nevertheless returning success to the calling function. This may lead to unusual
error messages in multi-stage operations if a tool relies on reading back metadata it believes has
changed but hasn't.
-u|--uuid
Generate new random UUID for specified VGs.
-v|--verbose ...
Set verbose level. Repeat from 1 to 4 times to increase the detail of messages sent to stdout and
stderr.
--version
Display version information.
--[vg]metadatacopies all|unmanaged|Number
Number of copies of the VG metadata that are kept. VG metadata is kept in VG metadata areas on
PVs in the VG, i.e. reserved space at the start and/or end of the PVs. Keeping a copy of the VG
metadata on every PV can reduce performance in VGs containing a large number of PVs. When this
number is set to a non-zero value, LVM will automatically choose PVs on which to store metadata,
using the metadataignore flags on PVs to achieve the specified number. The number can also be re‐
placed with special string values: unmanaged causes LVM to not automatically manage the PV meta‐
dataignore flags. all causes LVM to first clear the metadataignore flags on all PVs, and then to
become unmanaged.
-y|--yes
Do not prompt for confirmation interactively but always assume the answer yes. Use with extreme
caution. (For automatic no, see -qq.)
VARIABLES
VG Volume Group name. See lvm(8) for valid names.
Tag Tag name. See lvm(8) for information about tag names and using tags in place of a VG, LV or PV.
Select Select indicates that a required positional parameter can be omitted if the --select option is
used. No arg appears in this position.
String See 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 capitalization, e.g. 'k' and 'K' both refer to 1024. The default input unit
is specified by letter, followed by |UNIT. UNIT represents other possible input units: b|B is
bytes, s|S is sectors of 512 bytes, k|K is KiB, m|M is MiB, g|G is GiB, t|T is TiB, p|P is PiB,
e|E is EiB. (This should not be confused with the output control --units, where capital letters
mean multiple of 1000.)
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
See lvm(8) for information about environment variables used by lvm. For example, LVM_VG_NAME can gener‐
ally be substituted for a required VG parameter.
NOTES
If vgchange recognizes COW snapshot LVs that were dropped because they ran out of space, it displays a
message informing the administrator that the snapshots should be removed.
EXAMPLES
Activate all LVs in all VGs on all existing devices.
vgchange -a y
Change the maximum number of LVs for an inactive VG.
vgchange -l 128 vg00
SEE ALSO
lvm(8), lvm.conf(5), lvmconfig(8), lvmdevices(8),
pvchange(8), pvck(8), pvcreate(8), pvdisplay(8), pvmove(8), pvremove(8), pvresize(8), pvs(8), pvscan(8),
vgcfgbackup(8), vgcfgrestore(8), vgchange(8), vgck(8), vgcreate(8), vgconvert(8), vgdisplay(8),
vgexport(8), vgextend(8), vgimport(8), vgimportclone(8), vgimportdevices(8), vgmerge(8), vgmknodes(8),
vgreduce(8), vgremove(8), vgrename(8), vgs(8), vgscan(8), vgsplit(8),
lvcreate(8), lvchange(8), lvconvert(8), lvdisplay(8), lvextend(8), lvreduce(8), lvremove(8), lvrename(8),
lvresize(8), lvs(8), lvscan(8),
lvm-fullreport(8), lvm-lvpoll(8), blkdeactivate(8), lvmdump(8),
dmeventd(8), lvmpolld(8), lvmlockd(8), lvmlockctl(8), cmirrord(8), lvmdbusd(8), fsadm(8),
lvmsystemid(7), lvmreport(7), lvmraid(7), lvmthin(7), lvmcache(7)
Red Hat, Inc. LVM TOOLS 2.03.16(2) (2022-05-18) VGCHANGE(8)