pve-storage-lvm.adoc

   1 LVM Backend
   2 -----------
   3 include::attributes.txt[]
   4
   5 Storage pool type: `lvm`
   6
   7 LVM is a thin software layer on top of hard disks and partitions. It
   8 can be used to split available disk space into smaller logical
   9 volumes. LVM is widely used on Linux and makes managing hard drives
  10 easier.
  11
  12 Another use case is to put LVM on top of a big iSCSI LUN. That way you
  13 can easily manage space on that iSCSI LUN, which would not be possible
  14 otherwise, because the iSCSI specification does not define a
  15 management interface for space allocation.
  16
  17 Configuration
  18 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  19
  20 The LVM backend supports the common storage properties `content`, `nodes`,
  21 `disable`, and the following LVM specific properties:
  22
  23 `vgname`::
  24
  25 LVM volume group name. This must point to an existing volume group.
  26
  27 `base`::
  28
  29 Base volume. This volume is automatically activated before accessing
  30 the storage. This is mostly useful when the LVM volume group resides
  31 on a remote iSCSI server.
  32
  33 `saferemove`::
  34
  35 Zero-out data when removing LVs. When removing a volume, this makes
  36 sure that all data gets erased.
  37
  38 `saferemove_throughput`::
  39
  40 Wipe throughput ('cstream -t' parameter value).
  41
  42 .Configuration Example ('/etc/pve/storage.cfg')
  43 ----
  44 lvm: myspace
  45         vgname myspace
  46         content rootdir,images
  47 ----
  48
  49 File naming conventions
  50 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  51
  52 The backend use basically the same naming conventions as the ZFS pool
  53 backend.
  54
  55  vm-<VMID>-<NAME>      // normal VM images
  56
  57 Storage Features
  58 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  59
  60 LVM is a typical block storage, but this backend does not support
  61 snapshot and clones. Unfortunately, normal LVM snapshots are quite
  62 inefficient, because they interfere all writes on the whole volume
  63 group during snapshot time.
  64
  65 One big advantage is that you can use it on top of a shared storage,
  66 for example an iSCSI LUN. The backend itself implement proper cluster
  67 wide locking.
  68
  69 TIP: The newer LVM-thin backend allows snapshot and clones, but does
  70 not support shared storage.
  71
  72
  73 .Storage features for backend `lvm`
  74 [width="100%",cols="m,m,3*d",options="header"]
  75 |==============================================================================
  76 |Content types  |Image formats  |Shared   |Snapshots |Clones
  77 |images rootdir |raw            |possible |no        |no
  78 |==============================================================================
  79
  80 Examples
  81 ~~~~~~~~
  82
  83 List available volume groups:
  84
  85  # pvesm lvmscan
  86
  87 ifdef::wiki[]
  88
  89 See Also
  90 ~~~~~~~~
  91
  92 * link:/wiki/Storage[Storage]
  93
  94 endif::wiki[]
  95
  96