Novell LINUX ENTERPRISE DESKTOP 11 - DEPLOYMENT GUIDE 17-03-2009 Deployment Manual page 175

• The snapshot feature enables consistent backups (especially for servers) in the
running system.
With these features, using LVM already makes sense for heavily used home PCs or
small servers. If you have a growing data stock, as in the case of databases, music
archives, or user directories, LVM is just the right thing for you. This would allow file
systems that are larger than the physical hard disk. Another advantage of LVM is that
up to 256 LVs can be added. However, keep in mind that working with LVM is different
from working with conventional partitions. Instructions and further information about
configuring LVM is available in the official LVM HOWTO at
HOWTO/LVM-HOWTO/.
Starting from kernel version 2.6, LVM version 2 is available, which is downward-
compatible with the previous LVM and enables the continued management of old volume
groups. When creating new volume groups, decide whether to use the new format or
the downward-compatible version. LVM 2 does not require any kernel patches. It makes
use of the device mapper integrated in kernel 2.6. This kernel only supports LVM ver-
sion 2. Therefore, when talking about LVM, this section always refers to LVM version 2.
12.2.2 LVM Configuration with YaST
The YaST LVM configuration can be reached from the YaST Expert Partitioner (see
Section 12.1, "Using the YaST Partitioner"
The Expert Partitioner allows you to edit and delete existing partitions and also create
new ones that should be used with LVM. The first task is to create PVs that provide
space to a volume group:
1 Select a hard disk from Hard Disks.
2 Change to the Partitions tab.
3 Click Add and enter the desired size of the PV on this disk.
4 Use Do not Format the Partition and change the File System ID to 0x8E Linux
LVM. Do not mount this partition.
5 Repeat this procedure until you defined all the desired physical volumes on the
available disks.
http://tldp.org/
(page 155)) below Volume Management.
Advanced Disk Setup 165