What is logical partition management LVM and how to use it in Ubuntu?

Logical partition management (LVM) is a disk management option included in every mainstream Linux release. Whether you need to set a storage pool or just want to dynamically create partitions, LVM is what you are looking. What is LVM? Logical partition management is an abstraction layer between disks, partitions, and operating systems. In traditional disk management, your operating system looks for available disks (/dev/sda,/dev/sdb, etc ), which partitions are available for these disks (such as/dev/sda1 and/d )?

Logical partition management (LVM) is a disk management option included in every mainstream Linux release. Whether you need to set a storage pool or just want to dynamically create partitions, LVM is what you are looking.

 

What is LVM?

Logical partition management is an abstraction layer between disks, partitions, and operating systems. In traditional disk management, your operating system looks for available disks (/dev/sda,/dev/sdb, etc ), which partitions are available for these disks (such as/dev/sda1,/dev/sda2, and so on ).

In LVM, disks and partitions can be abstracted into a device with multiple disks and partitions. Your operating system will not know these differences, because LVM will only show the operating system the volume group (Disk) and logical volume (partition) You Set)

Because volume groups and logical volumes do not physically correspond to movies, it is easy to dynamically adjust and create new disks and partitions. In addition, LVM provides features not available in your file system. For example, ext3 does not support real-time snapshots, but if you are using LVM, you can create a logical volume snapshot without detaching the disk.

 

When should you use LVM?

Before using LVM, you must first consider what to do with your disk and partition. Note that some releases such as Fedora have installed LVM by default.

If you are using an Ubuntu laptop with only one disk and you do not need extended features such as real-time snapshots, you may not need LVM. If you want to easily expand or make multiple disks into a storage pool, LVM may be exactly what you are looking.

 

Set LVM in Ubuntu

One of the first things to understand when using LVM is that there is no simple way to convert existing traditional partitions into logical volumes. Data can be moved to a new partition using LVM, but this is not mentioned in this Article; here, we will install a new Ubuntu 10.10 to set LVM. (LCTT Note: This article is intended for older versions, and the new version does not need to be so troublesome)

To use LVM to install Ubuntu, you need to use another installation CD. Download from the following link and burn it to CD or use unetbootin to create a USB disk.

UNetbootin for Windows Download http://www.linuxidc.com/Linux/2009-04/19610.htm

UNetbootin made U disk boot installation Ubuntu11.04 http://www.linuxidc.com/Linux/2011-05/35323.htm

Start your computer from the installation disk, select the entire disk on the disk selection page, and set LVM.

Note: This will format your entire disk. Therefore, if you are trying a dual-boot or other installation options, select manual.

Select the primary disk you want to use. The most typical scenario is to use your largest disk and proceed to the next step.

You will immediately change the data written to the disk, so make sure that you select the correct disk before writing the settings.

Select the size of the first logical volume and continue.

Confirm your disk partition and continue the installation.

The last step is to write the GRUB bootloader to the disk. Note that GRUB cannot be used as an LVM partition because the computer BIOS cannot directly read data from the logical volume. Ubuntu automatically creates a MB ext2 partition for bootloder.

After installation is complete. Restart your computer and enter Ubuntu as usual. After installation, you will not be able to see the difference between LVM and traditional disk management.

To use all the features of LVM, wait for our next article on LVM management.

• Use LVM to create elastic disk storage-Part 1 http://www.linuxidc.com/Linux/2014-10/107697.htm
• Extend/Contract LVM (Part 2) http://www.linuxidc.com/Linux/2014-10/107786.htm in Linux
• Recording logical volume snapshot in LVM and restoring (part 3) http://www.linuxidc.com/Linux/2014-11/108867.htm
• Set up a thin provisioning volume (part 4) http://www.linuxidc.com/Linux/2014-11/109757.htm in LVM
• Managing multiple LVM disks with striped I/O (Part 5) http://www.linuxidc.com/Linux/2014-12/110532.htm

For more information about Ubuntu, see Ubuntu special page http://www.linuxidc.com/topicnews.aspx? Tid = 2

Via: What is Logical Volume Management and How Do You Enable It in Ubuntu?

Author: How-To Geek Translator: geekpi Proofreader: wxy

This article was originally translated by LCTT and launched with the Linux honor in China

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