pvscan - Man Page

• List all physical volumes: pvscan
• Show the volume group that uses a specific physical volume: pvscan --cache --listvg /dev/sdX
• Show logical volumes that use a specific physical volume: pvscan --cache --listlvs /dev/sdX
• Display detailed information in JSON format: pvscan --reportformat json

tldr.sh

pvscan option_args position_args
   [ option_args ]
   [ position_args ]

-a|--activate y|n|ay
-A|--allpvs
   --autoactivation String
   --cache
   --checkcomplete
   --commandprofile String
   --config String
-d|--debug
   --devices PV
   --devicesfile String
   --driverloaded y|n
-e|--exported
-h|--help
   --ignorelockingfailure
   --journal String
   --listlvs
   --listvg
   --lockopt String
   --longhelp
-j|--major Number
   --minor Number
   --nohints
   --nolocking
   --noudevsync
-n|--novolumegroup
   --profile String
-q|--quiet
   --reportformat basic|json|json_std
-s|--short
-t|--test
   --udevoutput
-u|--uuid
-v|--verbose
   --version
   --vgonline
-y|--yes

When called without the --cache option, pvscan lists PVs on the system, like pvs(8) or pvdisplay(8).

When --cache is used, pvscan updates runtime lvm state on the system, or with -aay performs autoactivation.

pvscan --cache device

If device is present, lvm records that the PV on device is online. If device is not present, lvm removes the online record for the PV. pvscan only reads the named device.

pvscan --cache

Updates the runtime state for all lvm devices.

pvscan --cache -aay device

Performs the --cache steps for the device, then checks if the VG using the device is complete.  If so, LVs in the VG are autoactivated, the same as vgchange -aay vgname would do.  (A device name may be replaced with major and minor numbers.)

pvscan --cache -aay

Performs the --cache steps for all devices, then autoactivates any complete VGs.

pvscan --cache --listvg|--listlvs device

Performs the --cache steps for the device, then prints the name of the VG using the device, or the names of LVs using the device.  --checkcomplete is usually included to check if all PVs for the VG or LVs are online. When this command is called by a udev rule, the output must conform to udev rule specifications (see --udevoutput.)  The udev rule will use the results to perform autoactivation.

Autoactivation of VGs or LVs can be enabled/disabled using vgchange or lvchange with --setautoactivation y|n, or by adding names to lvm.conf(5) activation/auto_activation_volume_list

See lvmautoactivation(7) for more information about how pvscan is used for autoactivation.

Display PV information.

pvscan

—

Record that a PV is online or offline.

pvscan --cache

—

Record that a PV is online and autoactivate the VG if complete.

pvscan --cache -a|--activate ay

—

Record that a PV is online and list the VG using the PV.

pvscan --cache --listvg PV

—

Record that a PV is online and list LVs using the PV.

pvscan --cache --listlvs PV

—

List LVs using the PV.

pvscan --listlvs PV

—

List the VG using the PV.

pvscan --listvg PV

—

Common options for lvm:

-a|--activate y|n|ay

Auto-activate LVs in a VG when the PVs scanned have completed the VG. (Only ay is applicable.)

-A|--allpvs

Show information about PVs outside the devices file. Displays the device ID for PVs included in the devices file.

--autoactivation String

Specify if autoactivation is being used from an event. This allows the command to apply settings that are specific to event activation, such as device scanning optimizations using pvs_online files created by event-based pvscans.

--cache

Scan one or more devices and record that they are online.

--checkcomplete

Check if all the devices used by a VG or LV are present, and print "complete" or "incomplete" for each listed VG or LV.  This option is used as a part of event-based autoactivation, so pvscan will do nothing if this option is set and event_activation=0 in the config settings.

--commandprofile String

The command profile to use for command configuration. See lvm.conf(5) for more information about profiles.

--config String

Config settings for the command. These override lvm.conf(5) settings. The String arg uses the same format as lvm.conf(5), or may use section/field syntax. See lvm.conf(5) for more information about config.

-d|--debug ...

Set debug level. Repeat from 1 to 6 times to increase the detail of messages sent to the log file and/or syslog (if configured).

--devices PV

Restricts the devices that are visible and accessible to the command. Devices not listed will appear to be missing. This option can be repeated, or accepts a comma separated list of devices. This overrides the devices file.

--devicesfile String

A file listing devices that LVM should use. The file must exist in /etc/lvm/devices/ and is managed with the lvmdevices(8) command. This overrides the lvm.conf(5) devices/devicesfile and devices/use_devicesfile settings.

--driverloaded y|n

If set to no, the command will not attempt to use device-mapper. For testing and debugging.

-e|--exported

Only show PVs belonging to exported VGs.

-h|--help

Display help text.

--ignorelockingfailure

Allows a command to continue with read-only metadata operations after locking failures.

--journal String

Record information in the systemd journal. This information is in addition to information enabled by the lvm.conf log/journal setting. command: record information about the command. output: record the default command output. debug: record full command debugging.

--listlvs

Print a list of LVs that use the device.

--listvg

Print the VG that uses the device.

--lockopt String

Used to pass options for special cases to lvmlockd. See lvmlockd(8) for more information.

--longhelp

Display long help text.

-j|--major Number

The major number of a device.

--minor Number

The minor number of a device.

--nohints

Do not use the hints file to locate devices for PVs. A command may read more devices to find PVs when hints are not used. The command will still perform standard hint file invalidation where appropriate.

--nolocking

Disable locking. Use with caution, concurrent commands may produce incorrect results.

--noudevsync

Disables udev synchronization. The process will not wait for notification from udev. It will continue irrespective of any possible udev processing in the background. Only use this if udev is not running or has rules that ignore the devices LVM creates.

-n|--novolumegroup

Only show PVs not belonging to any VG.

--profile String

An alias for --commandprofile or --metadataprofile, depending on the command.

-q|--quiet ...

Suppress output and log messages. Overrides --debug and --verbose. Repeat once to also suppress any prompts with answer 'no'.

--reportformat basic|json|json_std

Overrides current output format for reports which is defined globally by the report/output_format setting in lvm.conf(5). basic is the original format with columns and rows. If there is more than one report per command, each report is prefixed with the report name for identification. json produces report output in JSON format. json_std produces report output in JSON format which is more compliant with JSON standard. See lvmreport(7) for more information.

-s|--short

Short listing format.

-t|--test

Run in test mode. Commands will not update metadata. This is implemented by disabling all metadata writing but nevertheless returning success to the calling function. This may lead to unusual error messages in multi-stage operations if a tool relies on reading back metadata it believes has changed but hasn't.

--udevoutput

Command output is modified to be imported from a udev rule.

-u|--uuid

Show UUIDs in addition to device names.

-v|--verbose ...

Set verbose level. Repeat from 1 to 4 times to increase the detail of messages sent to stdout and stderr.

--version

Display version information.

--vgonline

The first command to see a complete VG will report it uniquely. Other commands to see the complete VG will report it differently.

-y|--yes

Do not prompt for confirmation interactively but always assume the answer yes. Use with extreme caution. (For automatic no, see -qq.)

PV

Physical Volume name, a device path under /dev. For commands managing physical extents, a PV positional arg generally accepts a suffix indicating a range (or multiple ranges) of physical extents (PEs). When the first PE is omitted, it defaults to the start of the device, and when the last PE is omitted it defaults to end. Start and end range (inclusive): PV[:PE-PE]... Start and length range (counting from 0): PV[:PE+PE]...

String

See the option description for information about the string content.

Size[UNIT]

Size is an input number that accepts an optional unit. Input units are always treated as base two values, regardless of capitalization, e.g. 'k' and 'K' both refer to 1024. The default input unit is specified by letter, followed by |UNIT. UNIT represents other possible input units: b|B is bytes, s|S is sectors of 512 bytes, k|K is KiB, m|M is MiB, g|G is GiB, t|T is TiB, p|P is PiB, e|E is EiB. (This should not be confused with the output control --units, where capital letters mean multiple of 1000.)

See lvm(8) for information about environment variables used by lvm. For example, LVM_VG_NAME can generally be substituted for a required VG parameter.

lvm(8), lvm.conf(5), lvmconfig(8), lvmdevices(8),

pvchange(8), pvck(8), pvcreate(8), pvdisplay(8), pvmove(8), pvremove(8), pvresize(8), pvs(8), pvscan(8),

vgcfgbackup(8), vgcfgrestore(8), vgchange(8), vgck(8), vgcreate(8), vgconvert(8), vgdisplay(8), vgexport(8), vgextend(8), vgimport(8), vgimportclone(8), vgimportdevices(8), vgmerge(8), vgmknodes(8), vgreduce(8), vgremove(8), vgrename(8), vgs(8), vgscan(8), vgsplit(8),

lvcreate(8), lvchange(8), lvconvert(8), lvdisplay(8), lvextend(8), lvreduce(8), lvremove(8), lvrename(8), lvresize(8), lvs(8), lvscan(8),

lvm-fullreport(8), lvm-lvpoll(8), blkdeactivate(8), lvmdump(8),

dmeventd(8), lvmpolld(8), lvmlockd(8), lvmlockctl(8), cmirrord(8), lvmdbusd(8), fsadm(8),

lvmsystemid(7), lvmreport(7), lvmcache(7), lvmraid(7), lvmthin(7), lvmvdo(7), lvmautoactivation(7)

lvchange(8), lvconvert(8), lvcreate(8), lvdisplay(8), lvextend(8), lvm(8), lvmconfig(8), lvmdevices(8), lvmdiskscan(8), lvm-fullreport(8), lvm-lvpoll(8), lvreduce(8), lvremove(8), lvrename(8), lvresize(8), lvs(8), lvscan(8), pvchange(8), pvck(8), pvcreate(8), pvdisplay(8), pvmove(8), pvremove(8), pvresize(8), pvs(8), vgcfgbackup(8), vgcfgrestore(8), vgchange(8), vgck(8), vgconvert(8), vgcreate(8), vgdisplay(8), vgexport(8), vgextend(8), vgimport(8), vgimportclone(8), vgimportdevices(8), vgmerge(8), vgmknodes(8), vgreduce(8), vgremove(8), vgrename(8), vgs(8), vgscan(8), vgsplit(8).