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    Introduction To LVM

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    Bes Ali
    LVM allows disk space to be managed more flexibly than traditional partitioning by breaking disks into extents that can be allocated to logical volumes. This avoids issues like fragmentation and allows logical volumes to be resized or moved by adding or removing extents. Physical volumes from multiple disks can be combined into volume groups and logical volumes assembled from extents within these groups for improved management compared to rigid partitions.

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    Introduction To LVM

    Uploaded by

    Bes Ali
    17 views14 pages
    LVM allows disk space to be managed more flexibly than traditional partitioning by breaking disks into extents that can be allocated to logical volumes. This avoids issues like fragmentation and allows logical volumes to be resized or moved by adding or removing extents. Physical volumes from multiple disks can be combined into volume groups and logical volumes assembled from extents within these groups for improved management compared to rigid partitions.

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    LVM allows disk space to be managed more flexibly than traditional partitioning by breaking disks into extents that can be allocated to logical volumes. This avoids issues like fragmentation and allows logical volumes to be resized or moved by adding or removing extents. Physical volumes from multiple disks can be combined into volume groups and logical volumes assembled from extents within these groups for improved management compared to rigid partitions.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    17 views14 pages

    Introduction To LVM

    Uploaded by

    Bes Ali
    LVM allows disk space to be managed more flexibly than traditional partitioning by breaking disks into extents that can be allocated to logical volumes. This avoids issues like fragmentation and allows logical volumes to be resized or moved by adding or removing extents. Physical volumes from multiple disks can be combined into volume groups and logical volumes assembled from extents within these groups for improved management compared to rigid partitions.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
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    Download as pdf or txt
    of 14

    Introduction to LVM

    NSRC
    Problems with disk image files
    ●
    1. Overhead of passing through filesystem
    layers just to read/write blocks to disk
    ●
    2. Possible unnecessary caching in host VFS
    ●
    3. Risk of fragmentation of the host filesystem
    – leads to many more disk seeks and thus much
    worse performance
    ●
    Direct-to-disk access would give us better
    performance
    Could we just use partitions?

    host OS guest
    500GB 1 guest 2

    Partition table Spare space

    ●
    Certainly possible, but:
    – Partitions are a pain to manage / move
    – Partitions cannot span across drives
    Solution: Logical Volume Manager
    Logical
    Volumes A B C

    Extent
    Mapping

    Volume Extents
    Group

    Physical
    disk 1 disk 2
    Volumes
    About LVM
    ●
    LVM stores data on "physical volumes"
    – Combined into "volume groups"
    ●
    Physical volumes divided into "extents"
    – usually 4MB
    ●
    Logical volume is a collection of extents
    ●
    You can grow a logical volume by adding
    extents
    ●
    When you remove a LV, its extents are freed
    and can be used for other LVs
    About LVM
    ●
    LVM stores a small amount of metadata
    – small table of mappings from logical vols to extents
    – IDs to allow the physical volumes to be recognised
    and assembled into volume groups
    ●
    Extent mapping is very quick
    ●
    No need to move any data when adding,
    removing or resizing volume groups
    ●
    Can add new physical volumes to a vol group
    Accessing logical volumes
    ●
    Logical volumes appear as block devices
    – /dev/VOLGROUP/VOLUME or
    – /dev/mapper/VOLGROUP-VOLUME
    ●
    CLI tools in the "lvm2" package
    – pvscan # list all physical vols
    – lvscan # list all logical vols
    – lvdisplay # more detail
    – lvcreate --size 1G --name foo myvg
    – lvextend --size +512M /dev/myvg/foo
    – lvremove /dev/myvg/foo
    Note on physical volumes
    ●
    An LVM "physical volume" need not be an
    entire disk
    ●
    It can just be a partition
    ●
    Hence you can mix LVM and non-LVM on the
    same disk
    ●
    This is important if you don't have a separate
    boot disk
    Partitioning and LVM

    /boot
    ext2 LVM PV

    Logical volumes for Space for more


    Partition table root, swap etc logical volumes

    ●
    Partition table includes Master Boot Record
    ●
    sda1 (e.g. 1GB) partition for /boot filesystem
    ●
    sda2 (rest of disk) is LVM physical volume
    Systems with grub2
    ● The kernel and initrd are stored under /boot
    ●
    grub2 is able to read the kernel from inside LVM
    ●
    So newer systems don't need a /boot partition
    ●
    Still need a partition for LVM though
    – grub2 is installed in the MBR and the blocks
    following it
    – first partition should start at offset 2048
    Partitioning and LVM (grub2)

    LVM PV

    Logical volumes for Space for more


    MBR + root, swap etc logical volumes
    grub2
    ●
    blocks 0-2047 for MBR and grub2
    ●
    sda1 is LVM "physical volume"
    Whole disk LVM
    ●
    Other boot options are possible
    – Separate bootable OS disk
    – Boot kernel from USB stick
    – Boot kernel over network (PXEboot)
    ●
    In these cases, you could make the whole data
    disk be a physical volume (no partition table)
    ●
    Simpler? You decide
    Take care!
    ●
    Dealing with logical volumes like dealing with
    raw partitions, with the same dangers
    ●
    Easy to write to the wrong volume device!
    – especially if LVs have auto-assigned names
    ●
    Don't mount the same LV on the host and in a
    virtual machine, or in multiple VMs
    – Filesystem corruption is guaranteed *

    * Unless you are using an esoteric cluster filesystem e.g. GFS, OCFS2
    Summary
    ●
    LVM breaks disk space into 4MB extents
    ●
    Logical Volumes can be assembled out of any
    extents in a Volume Group
    ●
    A Volume Group can span multiple Physical
    Volumes
    ●
    Gives the speed of direct-to-disk access without
    the inflexibility of partitioning

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