[linux-lvm] Can't get rid of INACTIVE read/write snapshot

[Marcel Gsteiger]

Hi all

I'm using lvm2-2.01.08-2.1 on fc4, kernel 2.6.16-1 with linux-vserver patches.

A while ago, I mistakenly created a 39GB read-write snapshot of my /vservers partition (which, btw, seemed to work). But after some time this partition got to an overflow and since then I can't get rid of it anymore. See the lvdisplay output below.

lvchange -an or --refresh gives me a message "Can't change snapshot logical volume "vservers_snapshot"".

lvremove lets me wait, then "top" shows 100% IO-Wait but does not come to an end (at least after an hour). I don't know how much patience I would need, this box is rather fast otherwise (dual xeon 2.8GHz w/ SATA drives).

Rebooting does not help anything.

Is there a safe way to simply get rid of this snapshot? Any help would much be appreciated.

Regards
--Marcel

 --- Logical volume ---
  LV Name                /dev/vg00/lv00_vservers
  VG Name                vg00
  LV UUID                9oELP3-2l7d-gTML-2xg2-unTu-znP0-qVd3Mc
  LV Write Access        read/write
  LV snapshot status     source of
                         /dev/vg00/vservers_snapshot [INACTIVE]
  LV Status              available
  # open                 1
  LV Size                39,06 GB
  Current LE             625
  Segments               1
  Allocation             contiguous
  Read ahead sectors     0
  Block device           253:9
   
  --- Logical volume ---
  LV Name                /dev/vg00/vservers_snapshot
  VG Name                vg00
  LV UUID                cQEj3z-V2jD-QOCl-3Yea-ETQZ-Egj9-2B7nd2
  LV Write Access        read/write
  LV snapshot status     INACTIVE destination for /dev/vg00/lv00_vservers
  LV Status              available
  # open                 0
  LV Size                39,06 GB
  Current LE             625
  Segments               1
  Snapshot chunk size    4,00 KB
  Allocated to snapshot  100,00% 
  Allocation             inherit
  Read ahead sectors     0
  Block device           253:8