List Physical Volumes

The lvmdiskscan command is a powerful utility in Linux for identifying and listing devices that can be used as physical volumes (PVs) for Logical Volume Management (LVM). It scans your system's block devices to detect potential LVM metadata, helping you understand your storage landscape and prepare for LVM configuration.

Understanding LVM Physical Volumes

Physical Volumes are the fundamental building blocks of LVM. They are typically hard drives, partitions, or other block devices that LVM uses to create Volume Groups (VGs) and Logical Volumes (LVs). lvmdiskscan helps you discover these potential PVs before you start creating VGs.

Common LVM Disk Scan Operations

Here are some common ways to use the lvmdiskscan command:

Basic Usage

To list all devices that may be used as physical volumes, simply run:

lvmdiskscan

Detailed Information

For more detailed output, including information about each detected device, use the --verbose option:

lvmdiskscan --verbose

Configuration Output

To output the results in a format suitable for seeding an LVM configuration file, use the --dumpconfig option:

lvmdiskscan --dumpconfig

Ignoring Locking Failures

If you encounter issues with device locking, you can use the --ignorelockingfailure option:

lvmdiskscan --ignorelockingfailure

Displaying Version

To check the version of the lvmdiskscan command installed on your system, use:

lvmdiskscan --version

External Resources

• Red Hat LVM Physical Volume Management
• LVMDiskScan Man Page
• Linux Device Drivers