[linux-lvm] Is "man lvcreate" for "-Z|--zero" incorrectly worded?

[Zdenek Kabelac]

Dne 10. 01. 19 v 4:05 james harvey napsal(a):
> On lvm2 2.02.183, man lvcreate includes:
> 
> -Z|--zero y|n
>     Controls zeroing of the first 4KiB of data in the new LV.  Default
> is y.  Snapshot COW volumes are always zeroed.  LV is not zeroed if
> the read only flag is set.  Warning: trying to mount an unzeroed LV
> can cause the system to hang.
> 
> This says only the "first 4KiB" is zeroed.
> 
> Yet, when running "lvcreate --chunksize <something large>", it says:
> 
>     WARNING: Pool zeroing and ###.00 MiB large chunk size slows down
> thin provisioning.
>     WARNING: Consider disabling zeroing (-Zn) or using smaller chunk
> size (<512.00 KiB).
> 
> Which seems to indicate it's going to zero the entire newly allocated
> chunk size, rather than only the first 4KiB.
> 

Hi

With thin-pool and thin-volumes -   -Z  has slightly modified meaning.
User controls thin-pool zeroing - it's possible the information got
somewhat lost over the 'man page' rework where it's now fully generated
from the source code.

So with thin-pool --zero means whether zeroing is enabled or skipped for 
provisioned chunks.

With zeroing is skipped  (-Zn) -  there is still ALWAYS 'cleared' initial 
device header - otherwise such device would become unpredictable for the 
system - as unprovisioned chunks always return 'zero' - so i.e. udev device 
scanning may guess it's empty device and later upon write to first chunk - we 
must make sure that at least initial disk header will be zeroed.

That's why user cannot have control over traditional aka 'zeroing for linears' 
behavior here - and we 'overloaded' --zero setting to give it this meaning.

I hope this better explains it  - I'll try to enhance man page - meanwhile
check  'man lvmthin'  Zeroing.

Zdenek.