VGCREATE(8)VGCREATE(8)NAMEvgcreate - create a volume group
SYNOPSISvgcreate [--addtag Tag] [--alloc AllocationPolicy] [-A|--autobackup
{y|n}] [-d|--debug] [-h|--help] [-l|--maxlogicalvolumes MaxLogicalVol‐
umes] [-M|--metadatatypetype] [-p|--maxphysicalvolumes MaxPhysicalVol‐
umes] [-s|--physicalextentsize PhysicalExtentSize[kKmMgGtT]]
[-t|--test] [-v|--verbose] [--version] VolumeGroupName PhysicalVol‐
umePath [PhysicalVolumePath...]
DESCRIPTIONvgcreate creates a new volume group called VolumeGroupName using the
block special device PhysicalVolumePath previously configured for LVM
with pvcreate(8).
OPTIONS
See lvm for common options.
-l, --maxlogicalvolumes MaxLogicalVolumes
Sets the maximum number of logical volumes allowed in this vol‐
ume group. The setting can be changed with vgchange. For vol‐
ume groups with metadata in lvm1 format, the limit and default
value is 255. If the metadata uses lvm2 format, the default
value is 0 which removes this restriction: there is then no
limit.
-p, --maxphysicalvolumes MaxPhysicalVolumes
Sets the maximum number of physical volumes that can belong to
this volume group. The setting can be changed with vgchange.
For volume groups with metadata in lvm1 format, the limit and
default value is 255. If the metadata uses lvm2 format, the
default value is 0 which removes this restriction: there is then
no limit. If you have a large number of physical volumes in a
volume group with metadata in lvm2 format, for tool performance
reasons, you should consider some use of --metadatacopies 0 as
described in pvcreate(8).
-s, --physicalextentsize PhysicalExtentSize[kKmMgGtT]
Sets the physical extent size on physical volumes of this volume
group. A size suffix (k for kilobytes up to t for terabytes) is
optional, megabytes is the default if no suffix is present.
Values can be from 8 KB to 16 GB in powers of 2. The default is
4 MB. Once this value has been set, it is difficult to change
it without recreating the volume group which would involve back‐
ing up and restoring data on any logical volumes. If the volume
group metadata uses lvm1 format, there is a limit of 65534
extents in each logical volume, so the default of 4 MB leads to
a maximum logical volume size of around 256GB. If the volume
group metadata uses lvm2 format there is no such restriction,
although having a large number of extents will slow down the
tools but have no impact on I/O performance to the logical vol‐
ume. The 2.4 kernel has a limitation of 2TB per block device.
EXAMPLES
To create a volume group named test_vg using physical volumes
/dev/hdk1, and /dev/hdl1 with default physical extent size of 4MB:
vgcreate test_vg /dev/sdk1 /dev/sdl1
SEE ALSOlvm(8), pvdisplay(8), pvcreate(8), vgdisplay(8), vgextend(8), vgre‐
duce(8), lvcreate(8), lvdisplay(8), lvextend(8), lvreduce(8)Sistina Software UK LVM TOOLS VGCREATE(8)
