PVSCAN(8) System Manager's Manual PVSCAN(8)
NAME
pvscan - List all physical volumes
SYNOPSIS
pvscan option_args
[ option_args ]
[ position_args ]
DESCRIPTION
When called without the --cache option, pvscan lists PVs on the system, like pvs(8) or
pvdisplay(8).
When the --cache and -aay options are used, pvscan records which PVs are available on the
system, and activates LVs in completed VGs. A VG is complete when pvscan sees that the
final PV in the VG has appeared. This is used by event-based system startup (systemd,
udev) to activate LVs.
The four main variations of this are:
pvscan --cache device
If device is present, lvm adds a record that the PV on device is online. If device is not
present, lvm removes the online record for the PV. In most cases, the pvscan will only
read the named devices.
pvscan --cache -aay device...
This begins by performing the same steps as above. Afterward, if the VG for the specified
PV is complete, then pvscan will activate LVs in the VG (the same as vgchange -aay vgname
would do.)
pvscan --cache
This first clears all existing PV online records, then scans all devices on the system,
adding PV online records for any PVs that are found.
pvscan --cache -aay
This begins by performing the same steps as pvscan --cache. Afterward, it activates LVs
in any complete VGs.
To prevent devices from being scanned by pvscan --cache, add them to lvm.conf(5) de-
vices/global_filter. For more information, see:
lvmconfig --withcomments devices/global_filter
Auto-activation of VGs or LVs can be enabled/disabled using:
lvm.conf(5) activation/auto_activation_volume_list
For more information, see:
lvmconfig --withcomments activation/auto_activation_volume_list
To disable auto-activation, explicitly set this list to an empty list, i.e. auto_activa-
tion_volume_list = [ ].
When this setting is undefined (e.g. commented), then all LVs are auto-activated.
USAGE
Display PV information.
pvscan
[ -e|--exported ]
[ -n|--novolumegroup ]
[ -s|--short ]
[ -u|--uuid ]
[ COMMON_OPTIONS ]
Autoactivate a VG when all PVs are online.
pvscan --cache
[ -a|--activate ay ]
[ -j|--major Number ]
[ --minor Number ]
[ --noudevsync ]
[ COMMON_OPTIONS ]
[ String|PV ... ]
Common options for command:
[ --ignorelockingfailure ]
[ --reportformat basic|json ]
Common options for lvm:
[ -d|--debug ]
[ -h|--help ]
[ -q|--quiet ]
[ -t|--test ]
[ -v|--verbose ]
[ -y|--yes ]
[ --commandprofile String ]
[ --config String ]
[ --driverloaded y|n ]
[ --lockopt String ]
[ --longhelp ]
[ --nolocking ]
[ --profile String ]
[ --version ]
OPTIONS
-a|--activate y|n|ay
Auto-activate LVs in a VG when the PVs scanned have completed the VG. (Only ay is
applicable.)
--cache
Scan one or more devices and record that they are online.
--commandprofile String
The command profile to use for command configuration. See lvm.conf(5) for more in-
formation about profiles.
--config String
Config settings for the command. These override lvm.conf settings. The String arg
uses the same format as lvm.conf, 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).
--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 fail-
ures.
--lockopt String
Used to pass options for special cases to lvmlockd. See lvmlockd(8) for more in-
formation.
--longhelp
Display long help text.
-j|--major Number
The major number of a device.
--minor Number
The minor number of a device.
--nolocking
Disable locking.
--noudevsync
Disables udev synchronisation. The process will not wait for notification from
udev. It will continue irrespective of any possible udev processing in the back-
ground. 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
Overrides current output format for reports which is defined globally by the re-
port/output_format setting in lvm.conf. 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 for-
mat. 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 dis-
abling all metadata writing but nevertheless returning success to the calling func-
tion. 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.
-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.
-y|--yes
Do not prompt for confirmation interactively but always assume the answer yes. Use
with extreme caution. (For automatic no, see -qq.)
VARIABLES
PV
Physical Volume name, a device path under /dev. For commands managing physical ex-
tents, a PV positional arg generally accepts a suffix indicating a range (or multi-
ple 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 re-
fer to 1024. The default input unit is specified by letter, followed by |UNIT.
UNIT represents other possible input units: bBsSkKmMgGtTpPeE. 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.)
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
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.
SEE ALSO
lvm(8) lvm.conf(5) lvmconfig(8)
pvchange(8) pvck(8) pvcreate(8) pvdisplay(8) pvmove(8) pvremove(8) pvresize(8) pvs(8) pvs-
can(8)
vgcfgbackup(8) vgcfgrestore(8) vgchange(8) vgck(8) vgcreate(8) vgconvert(8) vgdisplay(8)
vgexport(8) vgextend(8) vgimport(8) vgimportclone(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) lvm2-activation-generator(8) blkdeactivate(8) lvmdump(8)
dmeventd(8) lvmpolld(8) lvmlockd(8) lvmlockctl(8) cmirrord(8) lvmdbusd(8)
lvmsystemid(7) lvmreport(7) lvmraid(7) lvmthin(7) lvmcache(7)
Red Hat, Inc. LVM TOOLS 2.03.11(2) (2021-01-08) PVSCAN(8)
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