[K12OSN] LVM - is anyone using this?

[Les Bell]

Bert Rolston <bert.rolston at clear.net.nz> wrote:

>>
In Netware I could install a new drive in the machine then add some /
all of it's capacity to an existing volume. Is that a rough description
of LVM on linux?
<<

Yes, that's how it works. You'd slip in the new drive (hot-swap if your
hardware supports it), then format the drive (or a partition on it) as a
physical volume (fdisk & pvcreate) then add it to an existing volume group
(vgextend). From there, it's a matter of using lvcreate or lvextend to
either create a new logical volume or increase the size of an existing one.
If you resize an existing one, bear in mind that you'll also have to
increase the size of the filesystem inside the logical volume - for ext2/3
use resize2fs. See the man pages for details.

Most of this has to be done in single-user maintenance mode, of course, but
down-time is minimal when compared with backing up and restoring without
LVM.

Best,

--- Les Bell, RHCE, CISSP
[http://www.lesbell.com.au]