.TH LVM.CONF 5 "LVM TOOLS" "Sistina Software UK" \" -*- nroff -*-
.SH NAME
lvm.conf \- Configuration file for LVM2
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B /etc/lvm/lvm.conf
.SH DESCRIPTION
lvm.conf is loaded once, during the initialisation phase of 
\fBlvm\fP.
.LP
.SH SYNTAX
.LP
This section describes the configuration file syntax.
.LP
Whitespace is not significant unless it is within quotes. 
This provides a wide choice of acceptable indentation styles.
Comments begin with # and continue to the end of the line.
They are treated as whitespace.
.LP
Here is an informal grammar:
.TP
\fBfile = value*\fP
.br
A configuration file consists of a set of values.
.TP
\fBvalue = section | assignment\fP
.br
A value can either be a new section, or an assignment.
.TP
\fBsection = identifier '{' value* '}'\fP
.br
A section is groups associated values together.  
.br
It is denoted by a name and delimited by curly brackets.
.br
e.g.	backups {
.br
		...
.br
	}
.TP
\fBassignment = identifier '=' (array | type)\fP
.br
An assignment associates a type with an identifier.
.br
e.g.	max_backups = 42
.br
.TP
\fBarray = '[' (type ',')* type ']' | '[' ']'\fP
.br
Inhomogeneous arrays are supported. 
.br
Elements must be separated by commas.  
.br
An empty array is acceptable.
.TP
\fBtype = integer | float | string\fP
\fBinteger = [0-9]*\fP
.br
\fBfloat = [0-9]*\.[0-9]*\fP
.br
\fBstring = '"' .* '"'\fP
.IP
Strings must be enclosed in double quotes.

.SH SECTIONS
.LP
The sections that may be present in the file are:
.TP
\fBdevices\fP \(em Device settings
.IP
\fBdir\fP \(em Directory in which to create volume group device nodes.
Defaults to "/dev".
.IP
\fBscan\fP \(em List of directories to scan recursively for 
LVM physical volumes.
Devices in directories outside this hierarchy will be ignored.
Defaults to "/dev".
.IP
\fBfilter\fP \(em List of patterns to apply to devices found by a scan.
Patterns are regular expressions delimited by any character and preceded
by \fBa\fP (for accept) or \fBr\fP (for reject).  The list is traversed
in order, and the first regex that matches determines if the device
will be accepted or rejected (ignored).  Devices that don't match
any patterns are accepted.
For example, to ignore /dev/cdrom you could use:
\fBdevices { filter=["r|cdrom|"] }\fP 
.IP
\fBcache\fP \(em Persistent filter cache file.
Defaults to "/etc/lvm/.cache".
.IP
\fBwrite_cache_state\fP \(em Set to 0 to disable the writing out of the 
persistent filter cache file when \fBlvm\fP exits.
Defaults to 1.
.TP
\fBlog\fP \(em Default log settings
.IP
\fBfile\fP \(em Location of log file.  If this entry is not present, no
log file is written.
.IP
\fBoverwrite\fP \(em Set to 1 to overwrite the log file each time a tool
is invoked.  By default tools append messages to the log file.
.IP
\fBlevel\fP \(em Log level (0-9) of messages to write to the file.
9 is the most verbose; 0 should produce no output.
.IP
\fBverbose\fP \(em Default level (0-3) of messages sent to stdout or stderr.
3 is the most verbose; 0 should produce the least output.
.IP
\fBtest\fP \(em If set to 1, run tools in test mode i.e. no metadata
gets updated.
.TP
\fBbackup\fP \(em Configuration for metadata backups
.IP
\fBdir\fP \(em Directory used for automatic metadata backups.
Defaults to "/etc/lvm/backup".
.IP
\fBkeep\fP \(em Minimum number of backups to keep.
Defaults to 10.
.IP
\fBdays\fP \(em Minimum number of days to keep backup files.
Defaults to 14.
.IP
\fBauto\fP \(em Whether or not tools make automatic backups after changing
metadata.  Default is 1 (automatic backups enabled).  Set to 0 to disable.
.TP
\fBshell\fP \(em LVM2 built-in readline shell settings
.IP
\fBhistory_size\fP \(em Maximum number of lines of shell history to retain (default 100) in $HOME/.lvm_history
.SH FILES
.I /etc/lvm/lvm.conf
.br
.I $HOME/.lvm_history
.SH SEE ALSO
.BR lvm (8)