lvm2/man/lvm.conf.5

.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 during the initialisation phase of 
\fBlvm\fP (8).  This file can in turn lead to other files
being loaded - settings read in later override earlier
settings.  File timestamps are checked between commands and if 
any have changed, all the files are reloaded.  
.LP
Use \fBlvm dumpconfig\fP to check what settings are in use.
.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.	backup {
.br
		...
.br
	}
.TP
\fBassignment = identifier '=' (array | type)\fP
.br
An assignment associates a type with an identifier.
.br
e.g.	max_archives = 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".  Commands also accept this as a prefix on volume 
group names.
.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. If you want to reject patterns that
don't match, end the list with "r/.*/".
If there are several names for the same device (e.g. symbolic links
in /dev), if any name matches any \fBa\fP pattern, the
device is accepted; otherwise if any name matches any \fBr\fP
pattern it is rejected; otherwise it is accepted.
As an 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.
.IP
\fBtypes\fP \(em List of pairs of additional acceptable block device types
found in /proc/devices together with maximum (non-zero) number of
partitions (normally 16).  By default, LVM2 supports ide, sd, md, loop, 
dasd, dac960, nbd, ida, cciss, ubd, ataraid, drbd, power2, i2o_block
and iseries/vd.  Block devices with major
numbers of different types are ignored by LVM2.  
Example: \fBtypes = ["fd", 16]\fP.
To create physical volumes on device-mapper volumes
created outside LVM2, perhaps encrypted ones from \fBcryptsetup\fP,
you'll need \fBtypes = ["device-mapper", 16]\fP.  But if you do this,
be careful to avoid recursion within LVM2.  The figure for number 
of partitions is not currently used in LVM2 - and might never be.
.IP
\fBsysfs_scan\fP (em If set to 1 and your kernel supports sysfs and 
it is mounted, sysfs will be used as a quick way of filtering out
block devices that are not present.
.IP
\fBmd_component_detection\fP (em If set to 1, LVM2 will ignore devices
used as components of software RAID (md) devices by looking for md
superblocks. This doesn't always work satisfactorily e.g. if a device 
has been reused without wiping the md superblocks first.
.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
\fBsyslog\fP \(em Set to 1 (the default) to send log messages through syslog.
Turn off by setting to 0.  If you set to an integer greater than one,
this is used - unvalidated - as the facility.  The default is LOG_USER.  
See /usr/include/sys/syslog.h for safe facility values to use.
For example, LOG_LOCAL0 might be 128.
.IP
\fBindent\fP \(em When set to 1 (the default) messages are indented 
according to their severity, two spaces per level.  
Set to 0 to turn off indentation.
.IP
\fBcommand_names\fP \(em When set to 1, the command name is used as a
prefix for each message.
Default is 0 (off).
.IP
\fBprefix\fP \(em Prefix used for all messages (after the command name).
Default is two spaces.
.IP
\fBactivation\fP \(em Set to 1 to log messages while
devices are suspended during activation.  
Only set this temporarily while debugging a problem because
in low memory situations this setting can cause your machine to lock up.
.TP
\fBbackup\fP \(em Configuration for metadata backups.
.IP
\fBarchive_dir\fP \(em Directory used for automatic metadata archives.
Backup copies of former metadata for each volume group are archived here.
Defaults to "/etc/lvm/archive".
.IP
\fBbackup_dir\fP \(em Directory used for automatic metadata backups.
A single backup copy of the current metadata for each volume group 
is stored here.
Defaults to "/etc/lvm/backup".
.IP
\fBarchive\fP \(em Whether or not tools automatically archive existing
metadata into \fBarchive_dir\fP before making changes to it.
Default is 1 (automatic archives enabled).  
Set to 0 to disable.  
Disabling this might make metadata recovery difficult or impossible 
if something goes wrong.
.IP
\fBbackup\fP \(em Whether or not tools make an automatic backup 
into \fBbackup_dir\fP after changing metadata.  
Default is 1 (automatic backups enabled).  Set to 0 to disable.
Disabling this might make metadata recovery difficult or impossible 
if something goes wrong.
.IP
\fBretain_min\fP \(em Minimum number of archives to keep.
Defaults to 10.
.IP
\fBretain_days\fP \(em Minimum number of days to keep archive files.
Defaults to 30.
.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
.TP
\fBglobal\fP \(em Global settings
.IP
\fBtest\fP \(em If set to 1, run tools in test mode i.e. no changes to
the on-disk metadata will get made.  It's equivalent to having the
-t option on every command.
.IP
\fBactivation\fP \(em Set to 0 to turn off all communication with
the device-mapper driver.  Useful if you want to manipulate logical
volumes while device-mapper is not present in your kernel.
.IP
\fBproc\fP \(em Mount point of proc filesystem.
Defaults to /proc.
.IP
\fBumask\fP \(em File creation mask for any files and directories created.
Interpreted as octal if the first digit is zero.
Defaults to 077.  
Use 022 to allow other users to read the files by default.
.IP
\fBformat\fP \(em The default value of \fB--metadatatype\fP used
to determine which format of metadata to use when creating new 
physical volumes and volume groups. \fBlvm1\fP or \fBlvm2\fP.
.IP
\fBfallback_to_lvm1\fP \(em Set this to 1 if you need to 
be able to switch between 2.4 kernels using LVM1 and kernels
including device-mapper.
The LVM2 tools should be installed as normal and
the LVM1 tools should be installed with a .lvm1 suffix e.g.
vgscan.lvm1.  
If an LVM2 tool is then run but unable to communicate
with device-mapper, it will automatically invoke the equivalent LVM1 
version of the tool.  Note that for LVM1 tools to 
manipulate physical volumes and volume groups created by LVM2 you 
must use \fB--metadataformat lvm1\fP when creating them.
.IP
\fBlibrary_dir\fP \(em A directory searched for LVM2's shared libraries
ahead of the places \fBdlopen\fP (3) searches.
.IP
\fBformat_libraries\fP \(em A list of shared libraries to load that contain
code to process different formats of metadata. For example, liblvm2formatpool.so
is needed to read GFS pool metadata if LVM2 was configured \fB--with-pool=shared\fP.
.IP
\fBlocking_type\fP \(em What type of locking to use.
1 is the default, which use flocks on files in \fBlocking_dir\fP
(see below) to
avoid conflicting LVM2 commands running concurrently on a single
machine. 0 disables locking and risks corrupting your metadata.
If set to 2, the tools will load the external \fBlocking_library\fP
(see below).
If the tools were configured \fB--with-cluster=internal\fP 
(the default) then 3 means to use built-in cluster-wide locking.
All changes to logical volumes and their states are communicated
using locks.
.IP
\fBlocking_dir\fP \(em The directory LVM2 places its file locks
if \fBlocking_type\fP is set to 1.  The default is \fB/var/lock/lvm\fP.
.IP
\fBlocking_library\fP \(em The name of the external locking
library to load if \fBlocking_type\fP is set to 2.
The default is \fBlvm2_locking.so\fP.  If you need to write
such a library, look at the lib/locking source code directory.
.TP
\fBtags\fP \(em Host tag settings
.IP
\fBhosttags\fP \(em If set to 1, create a host tag with the machine name.
Setting this to 0 does nothing, neither creating nor destroying any tag.
The machine name used is the nodename as returned by \fBuname\fP (2).
.IP
Additional host tags to be set can be listed here as subsections. 
The @ prefix for tags is optional.
Each of these host tag subsections can contain a \fBhost_list\fP 
array of host names. If any one of these entries matches the machine 
name exactly then the host tag gets defined on this particular host, 
otherwise it doesn't.
.IP
After lvm.conf has been processed, LVM2 works through each host
tag that has been defined in turn, and if there is a configuration
file called lvm_\fB<host_tag>\fP.conf it attempts to load it.
Any settings read in override settings found in earlier files.
Any additional host tags defined get appended to the search list,
so in turn they can lead to further configuration files being processed.
Use \fBlvm dumpconfig\fP to check the result of config
file processing.
.IP
The following example always sets host tags \fBtag1\fP and
sets \fBtag2\fP on machines fs1 and fs2:
.IP
tags { tag1 { } tag2 { host_list = [ "fs1", "fs2" ] } }
.IP
These options are useful if you are replicating configuration files
around a cluster.  Use of \fBhosttags = 1\fP means every machine
can have static and identical local configuration files yet use 
different settings and activate different logical volumes by
default.  See also \fBvolume_list\fP below and \fB--addtag\fP 
in \fBlvm\fP (8).
.TP
\fBactivation\fP \(em Settings affecting device-mapper activation
.IP
\fBmissing_stripe_filler\fP \(em When activating an incomplete
logical volume in partial mode, this missing data is replaced
with this device.  It could perhaps be a block device that always
returns an error when it is accessed, or one that always
returns zeros.  See \fBlvcreate\fP (8) for how to create
such devices.
.IP
\fBmirror_region_size\fP \(em Unit size in KB for copy operations
when mirroring.
.IP
\fBreserved_memory\fP, \fBreserved_stack\fP \(em How many KB to reserve 
for LVM2 to use while logical volumes are suspended.  If insufficient 
memory is reserved before suspension, there is a risk of machine deadlock.
.IP
\fBprocess_priority\fP \(em The nice value to use while devices are
suspended.  This is set to a high priority so that logical volumes
are suspended (with I/O generated by other processes to those
logical volumes getting queued) for the shortest possible time.
.IP
\fBvolume_list\fP \(em This acts as a filter through which
all requests to activate a logical volume on this machine
are passed.  A logical volume is only activated if it matches
an item in the list.  Tags must be preceded by @ and are checked
against all tags defined in the logical volume and volume group 
metadata for a match.
@* is short-hand to check every tag set on the host machine (see
\fBtags\fP above).
Logical volume and volume groups can also be included in the list
by name e.g. vg00, vg00/lvol1.
.TP
\fBmetadata\fP \(em Advanced metadata settings
.IP
\fBpvmetadatacopies\fP \(em When creating a physical volume using the
LVM2 metadata format, this is the default number of copies of metadata
to store on each physical volume.  
Currently it can be set to 0, 1 or 2.  The default is 1.  
If set to 2, one copy is placed at the beginning of the disk
and the other is placed at the end.
It can be overridden on the command line with \fB--metadatacopies\fP.
If creating a volume group with just one physical volume, it's a
good idea to have 2 copies.  If creating a large volume group with
many physical volumes, you may decide that 3 copies of the metadata
is sufficient, i.e. setting it to 1 on three of the physical volumes,
and 0 on the rest.  Every volume group must contain at least one 
physical volume with at least 1 copy of the metadata (unless using
the text files described below).  The disadvantage of having lots
of copies is that every time the tools access the volume group, every
copy of the metadata has to be accessed, and this slows down the
tools.
.IP
\fBpvmetadatasize\fP \(em Approximate number of sectors to set aside
for each copy of the metadata. Volume groups with large numbers of
physical or logical volumes, or volumes groups containing complex 
logical volume structures will need additional space for their metadata.
The metadata areas are treated as circular buffers, so
unused space becomes filled with an archive of the most recent
previous versions of the metadata.
.IP
\fBdirs\fP \(em List of directories holding live copies of LVM2
metadata as text files.  These directories must not be on logical
volumes.  It is possible to use LVM2 with a couple of directories
here, preferably on different (non-logical-volume) filesystems
and with no other on-disk metadata, \fBpvmetadatacopies = 0\fP.
Alternatively these directories can be in addition to the
on-disk metadata areas.  This feature was created during the
development of the LVM2 metadata before the new on-disk metadata
areas were designed and no longer gets tested.  
It is not supported under low-memory conditions, and it is 
important never to edit these metadata files unless you fully 
understand how things work: to make changes you should always use 
the tools as normal, or else vgcfgbackup, edit backup, vgcfgrestore.
.SH FILES
.I /etc/lvm/lvm.conf
.I /etc/lvm/.cache
.I /etc/lvm/archive
.I /etc/lvm/backup
.I /var/lock/lvm
.SH SEE ALSO
.BR lvm (8),
.BR umask (2),
.BR uname (2),
.BR dlopen (3),
.BR syslog (3),
.BR syslog.conf (5)