Table of Contents
Advertisement
LVM Configuration
4
This section briefly describes the principles behind Logical Volume Manager (LVM) and its basic
features that make it useful under many circumstances. The YaST LVM configuration can be
reached from the YaST Expert Partitioner. This partitioning tool enables you to edit and delete
existing partitions and create new ones that should be used with LVM.
WARNING: Using LVM might be associated with increased risk, such as data loss. Risks also
include application crashes, power failures, and faulty commands. Save your data before
implementing LVM or reconfiguring volumes. Never work without a backup.
4.1 Understanding the Logical Volume Manager
LVM enables flexible distribution of hard disk space over several file systems. It was developed
because the need to change the segmentation of hard disk space might arise only after the initial
partitioning has already been done during installation. Because it is difficult to modify partitions on
a running system, LVM provides a virtual pool (volume group or VG) of memory space from which
logical volumes (LVs) can be created as needed. The operating system accesses these LVs instead of
the physical partitions. Volume groups can span more than one disk, so that several disks or parts of
them can constitute one single VG. In this way, LVM provides a kind of abstraction from the
physical disk space that allows its segmentation to be changed in a much easier and safer way than
through physical repartitioning.
Physical Partitioning versus LVM
Figure 4-1
4
27
Advertisement
Chapters
Table of Contents
Troubleshooting
