$ Linux Command

Disk

lvcreate

Create a logical volume in LVM.

lvmlogical-volumediskstoragevolume

Additional Notes

lvcreate creates a new logical volume in an LVM (Logical Volume Manager) volume group. Logical volumes are the virtual block devices that LVM provides, which can be resized, snapshotted, and moved across physical disks.

A logical volume is created from the free physical extents in a volume group. It can be formatted with a filesystem and mounted like a regular partition. LVM provides flexibility by decoupling the logical storage layout from the physical disk layout.

Syntax

lvcreate [options] volume-group

Parameters

  • volume-group: The name of the volume group in which to create the logical volume.

Common Options

  • -n name, --name name: Set the name of the new logical volume.
  • -L size, --size size: Set the size (e.g., 10G, 500M, 1T).
  • -l extents, --extents extents: Set the size in number of physical extents.
  • -s, --snapshot: Create a snapshot of an existing logical volume.
  • -p perm, --permission perm: Set read/write permissions (r for read-only, rw for read-write).
  • -C y|n, --contiguous y|n: Require contiguous allocation.
  • -i stripes, --stripes stripes: Number of stripes for striping.
  • -I stripe_size, --stripesize stripe_size: Size of each stripe.
  • -Z y|n, --zero y|n: Control zeroing of the first KB of data.
  • -W y|n, --wipesignatures y|n: Control wiping of filesystem signatures.

Examples

lvcreate -n myvolume -L 10G myvg

Create a 10 GB logical volume named myvolume in volume group myvg.

lvcreate -n data -l 100%FREE datavg

Create a logical volume data using all remaining free space in datavg.

lvcreate -s -n snap -L 5G myvg/myvolume

Create a 5 GB snapshot named snap of the existing logical volume myvolume.

lvcreate -n striped_vol -L 50G -i 2 -I 64 vg0

Create a 50 GB striped logical volume with 2 stripes and 64 KB stripe size.

Practical Notes

  • After creating a logical volume, format it with mkfs.ext4 /dev/vgname/lvname before mounting.
  • The device path for a logical volume is /dev/<vg-name>/<lv-name>.
  • Snapshots use copy-on-write and consume space only as changes are made to the source volume.
  • Use lvdisplay and vgs to check available space before creating a volume.