Linux LVM provides a different way of looking at storage.  On the server side this provides much more flexibility than standard disks with partitions.  It allows us to migrate from old to new storage as well as expand the available storage to a particular file system easily (assuming that there is free space available).

Basically LVM abstracts the physical storage by creating Physical Volumes (PV), and each PV is divided into Physical Extents (PE) which are a consistent size.  Physical Volumes are then added to a Volume Group (VG) which essentially pools all of the PE on all member PV.  Once you have a VG you can then create a Logical Volume (LV) which can be formatted and used as if it were a physical disk, the difference is that the LV can be expanded as many times as needed up until all PE have been allocated within the VG.  In this event you could then simply add another PV to the VG, which would make available additional PE to be added to a LV.

Expanding your storage to meet the requirements of your system is a great benefit and if that were the only thing that you got from LVM2 it would still be worth it…  But there is more, snapshots and the ability to move a logical volume to a specific Physical Volume, as you would want to in the event of a disk failure or migration to new hardware.

Below I have outlined some of the commands you will need to effectively manage your LVM environment.  In my test environment I have hardware RAID which presents a single PV to LVM.  If you did not have hardware RAID you would see multiple PV.  It is also important to note that LVM does not provide RAID, as such if your data needs the protection of RAID you must ensure you have RAID in addition to LVM.

Display Physical Volume Information

bash 
pvs

PV         VG       Fmt  Attr PSize PFree
/dev/sda5  testserver_vg lvm2 a-   1.23t 597.86g
bash 
pvdisplay

--- Physical volume ---
PV Name               /dev/sda5
VG Name               testserver_vg
PV Size               1.23 TiB / not usable 2.00 MiB
Allocatable           yes
PE Size               4.00 MiB
Total PE              321442
Free PE               153052
Allocated PE          168390
PV UUID               pR7PKf-5Sjy-3Zcf-ksZc-o5f6-eoIC-G1dZex

Display Volume Group Information

bash 
vgs

VG       #PV #LV #SN Attr   VSize VFree
testserver_vg   1   4   0 wz--n- 1.23t 597.86g
bash 
vgdisplay

--- Volume group ---
VG Name               testserver_vg
System ID
Format                lvm2
Metadata Areas        1
Metadata Sequence No  9
VG Access             read/write
VG Status             resizable
MAX LV                0
Cur LV                4
Open LV               3
Max PV                0
Cur PV                1
Act PV                1
VG Size               1.23 TiB
PE Size               4.00 MiB
Total PE              321442
Alloc PE / Size       168390 / 657.77 GiB
Free  PE / Size       153052 / 597.86 GiB
VG UUID               oel9Qw-17dO-dDce-63Lq-jRde-ooTx-qhmdhz

Display Logical Volume Information

bash 
lvs

LV     VG       Attr   LSize   Origin Snap%  Move Log Copy%  Convert
kvm    testserver_vg -wi-ao 372.53g
root   testserver_vg -wi-ao 186.26g
swap_1 testserver_vg -wi-ao  48.98g
testvm testserver_vg -wi-a-  50.00g
bash 
lvdisplay

--- Logical volume ---
LV Name                /dev/testserver_vg/swap_1
VG Name                testserver_vg
LV UUID                k0aHZW-CCpo-GS53-GodT-7tTH-9gw7-QXoRxT
LV Write Access        read/write
LV Status              available
open                 1
LV Size                48.98 GiB
Current LE             12540
Segments               1
Allocation             inherit
Read ahead sectors     auto
- currently set to     256
Block device           251:0

--- Logical volume ---
LV Name                /dev/testserver_vg/kvm
VG Name                testserver_vg
LV UUID                Kmm4WS-joP4-5Em4-Xvmj-CxEJ-pBD3-BPmCFl
LV Write Access        read/write
LV Status              available
open                 1
LV Size                372.53 GiB
Current LE             95367
Segments               1
Allocation             inherit
Read ahead sectors     auto
- currently set to     256
Block device           251:1

--- Logical volume ---
LV Name                /dev/testserver_vg/root
VG Name                testserver_vg
LV UUID                UQs2ai-8qyN-32Yv-6VEL-tCde-OdFD-XA5BAh
LV Write Access        read/write
LV Status              available
open                 1
LV Size                186.26 GiB
Current LE             47683
Segments               1
Allocation             inherit
Read ahead sectors     auto
- currently set to     256
Block device           251:2

--- Logical volume ---
LV Name                /dev/testserver_vg/testvm
VG Name                testserver_vg
LV UUID                C2Oxdf-QBbr-PRKI-Bk9B-y4EE-Qf4B-7DXZd4
LV Write Access        read/write
LV Status              available
open                 0
LV Size                50.00 GiB
Current LE             12800
Segments               1
Allocation             inherit
Read ahead sectors     auto
- currently set to     256
Block device           251:3

Create a Logical Volume

bash 
lvcreate -L10G -n testvm testserver_vg
Logical volume "testvm" created

Extend a Logical Volume

Extending a LV is a three step process (1) Confirm free space in the VG (2) Extend the LV (3) Resize the file system.

bash 
lvs
VG       #PV #LV #SN Attr   VSize VFree
testserver_vg   1   4   0 wz--n- 1.23t 597.86g
bash 
lvextend -L60G /dev/testserver_vg/testvm
or
lvextend -L+10G /dev/testserver_vg/testvm
Extending logical volume testvm to 60.00 GiB
Logical volume testvm successfully resized
bash 
resize2fs /dev/testserver_vg/testvm

Create a Logical Volume Snapshot

When you create a snapshot you are essentially creating a second volume, and then all changes to the first volume are written to the second volume, leaving the first volume as a point in time snap.

bash 
lvcreate -L1G -s -n testsnap /dev/testserver_vg/testvm
bash 
lvremove /dev/testserver_vg/testsnap

Scan for Changes in Disk Layout

This can be helpful if you are moving disks from one machine to the other in the event of data migrations.

bash 
pvscan

vgscan

lvscan

Prepare and Add Physical Disks to a Volume Group

Create a partition on the new disk and set its type to 8e so that it can be used by LVM.

bash 
fdisk /dev/sdb

pvcreate /dev/sdb1

vgextend testserver_vg /dev/sdb1

This will of course mean that by adding the PV you are gaining all of the PE which are contained therein and you would then be able to extend an LV if you were so inclined.  You could also use this process to migrate data to a new replacement disk.

Move the Physical Extents to a New Physical Volume

LVM allows us to shift the locations of the PE.  We can do this in two ways, we can either distribute all of the extents over the remaining PV or we can specify the PV we want it to use.

bash 
pvmove /dev/sda
or
pvmode /dev/sda /dev/sdb

Remove the Physical Volume from the Volume Group

bash 
vgreduce testserver_vg /dev/sda