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5.4. Logical Volume Administration

This section describes the commands that perform the various aspects of logical volume administration.

5.4.1. Creating Logical Volumes

To create a logical volume, use the lvcreate command. You can create linear volumes, striped volumes, and mirrored volumes, as described in the following subsections.
If you do not specify a name for the logical volume, the default name lvol# is used where # is the internal number of the logical volume.
The following sections provide examples of logical volume creation for the three types of logical volumes you can create with LVM.

5.4.1.1. Creating Linear Volumes

When you create a logical volume, the logical volume is carved from a volume group using the free extents on the physical volumes that make up the volume group. Normally logical volumes use up any space available on the underlying physical volumes on a next-free basis. Modifying the logical volume frees and reallocates space in the physical volumes.
The following command creates a logical volume 10 gigabytes in size in the volume group vg1. 
# lvcreate -L 10G vg1
The following command creates a 1500 MB linear logical volume named testlv in the volume group testvg, creating the block device /dev/testvg/testlv. 
# lvcreate -L1500 -n testlv testvg
The following command creates a 50 gigabyte logical volume named gfslv from the free extents in volume group vg0. 
# lvcreate -L 50G -n gfslv vg0
You can use the -l argument of the lvcreate command to specify the size of the logical volume in extents. You can also use this argument to specify the percentage of the volume group to use for the logical volume. The following command creates a logical volume called mylv that uses 60% of the total space in volume group testvg. 
# lvcreate -l 60%VG -n mylv testvg
You can also use the -l argument of the lvcreate command to specify the percentage of the remaining free space in a volume group as the size of the logical volume. The following command creates a logical volume called yourlv that uses all of the unallocated space in the volume group testvg. 
# lvcreate -l 100%FREE -n yourlv testvg
You can use -l argument of the lvcreate command to create a logical volume that uses the entire volume group. Another way to create a logical volume that uses the entire volume group is to use the vgdisplay command to find the "Total PE" size and to use those results as input to the lvcreate command.
The following commands create a logical volume called mylv that fills the volume group named testvg. 
# vgdisplay testvg | grep "Total PE"
Total PE              10230
# lvcreate -l 10230 testvg -n mylv
The underlying physical volumes used to create a logical volume can be important if the physical volume needs to be removed, so you may need to consider this possibility when you create the logical volume. For information on removing a physical volume from a volume group, see Section 5.3.7, “Removing Physical Volumes from a Volume Group”.
To create a logical volume to be allocated from a specific physical volume in the volume group, specify the physical volume or volumes at the end at the lvcreate command line. The following command creates a logical volume named testlv in volume group testvg allocated from the physical volume /dev/sdg1, 
# lvcreate -L 1500 -ntestlv testvg /dev/sdg1
You can specify which extents of a physical volume are to be used for a logical volume. The following example creates a linear logical volume out of extents 0 through 24 of physical volume /dev/sda1 and extents 50 through 124 of physical volume /dev/sdb1 in volume group testvg. 
# lvcreate -l 100 -n testlv testvg /dev/sda1:0-24 /dev/sdb1:50-124
The following example creates a linear logical volume out of extents 0 through 24 of physical volume /dev/sda1 and then continues laying out the logical volume at extent 100. 
# lvcreate -l 100 -n testlv testvg /dev/sda1:0-24:100-
The default policy for how the extents of a logical volume are allocated is inherit, which applies the same policy as for the volume group. These policies can be changed using the lvchange command. For information on allocation policies, see Section 5.3.1, “Creating Volume Groups”.

5.4.1.2. Creating Striped Volumes

For large sequential reads and writes, creating a striped logical volume can improve the efficiency of the data I/O. For general information about striped volumes, see Section 3.3.2, “Striped Logical Volumes”.
When you create a striped logical volume, you specify the number of stripes with the -i argument of the lvcreate command. This determines over how many physical volumes the logical volume will be striped. The number of stripes cannot be greater than the number of physical volumes in the volume group (unless the --alloc anywhere argument is used).
If the underlying physical devices that make up a striped logical volume are different sizes, the maximum size of the striped volume is determined by the smallest underlying device. For example, in a two-legged stripe, the maximum size is twice the size of the smaller device. In a three-legged stripe, the maximum size is three times the size of the smallest device.
The following command creates a striped logical volume across 2 physical volumes with a stripe of 64kB. The logical volume is 50 gigabytes in size, is named gfslv, and is carved out of volume group vg0. 
# lvcreate -L 50G -i2 -I64 -n gfslv vg0
As with linear volumes, you can specify the extents of the physical volume that you are using for the stripe. The following command creates a striped volume 100 extents in size that stripes across two physical volumes, is named stripelv and is in volume group testvg. The stripe will use sectors 0-49 of /dev/sda1 and sectors 50-99 of /dev/sdb1. 
# lvcreate -l 100 -i2 -nstripelv testvg /dev/sda1:0-49 /dev/sdb1:50-99
  Using default stripesize 64.00 KB
  Logical volume "stripelv" created

5.4.1.3. Creating Mirrored Volumes

Note

As of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.3 release, mirrored logical volumes are supported in a cluster. Creating a mirrored LVM logical volume in a cluster requires the same commands and procedures as creating a mirrored LVM logical volume on a single node. However, in order to create a mirrored LVM volume in a cluster the cluster and cluster mirror infrastructure must be running, the cluster must be quorate, and the locking type in the lvm.conf file must be set correctly to enable cluster locking. For an example of creating a mirrored volume in a cluster, see Section 6.5, “Creating a Mirrored LVM Logical Volume in a Cluster”.
When you create a mirrored volume, you specify the number of copies of the data to make with the -m argument of the lvcreate command. Specifying -m1 creates one mirror, which yields two copies of the file system: a linear logical volume plus one copy. Similarly, specifying -m2 creates two mirrors, yielding three copies of the file system.
The following command creates a mirrored logical volume with a single mirror. The volume is 50 gigabytes in size, is named mirrorlv, and is carved out of volume group vg0: 
# lvcreate -L 50G -m1 -n mirrorlv vg0
An LVM mirror divides the device being copied into regions that, by default, are 512KB in size. You can use the -R argument of the lvcreate command to specify the region size in megabytes. You can also change the default region size by editing the mirror_region_size setting in the lvm.conf file.

Note

Due to limitations in the cluster infrastructure, cluster mirrors greater than 1.5TB cannot be created with the default region size of 512KB. Users that require larger mirrors should increase the region size from its default to something larger. Failure to increase the region size will cause LVM creation to hang and may hang other LVM commands as well.
As a general guideline for specifying the region size for mirrors that are larger than 1.5TB, you could take your mirror size in terabytes and round up that number to the next power of 2, using that number as the -R argument to the lvcreate command. For example, if your mirror size is 1.5TB, you could specify -R 2. If your mirror size is 3TB, you could specify -R 4. For a mirror size of 5TB, you could specify -R 8.
The following command creates a mirrored logical volume with a region size of 2 MB: 
        # lvcreate -m1 -L 2T -R 2 -n mirror vol_group
When a mirror is created, the mirror regions are synchronized. For large mirror components, the sync process may take a long time. When you are creating a new mirror that does not need to be revived, you can specify the --nosync argument to indicate that an initial synchronization from the first device is not required.
LVM maintains a small log which it uses to keep track of which regions are in sync with the mirror or mirrors. By default, this log is kept on disk, which keeps it persistent across reboots. You can specify instead that this log be kept in memory with the --corelog argument; this eliminates the need for an extra log device, but it requires that the entire mirror be resynchronized at every reboot.
The following command creates a mirrored logical volume from the volume group bigvg. The logical is named ondiskmirvol and has a single mirror. The volume is 12 MB in size and keeps the mirror log in memory. 
# lvcreate -L 12MB -m1 --corelog -n ondiskmirvol bigvg
  Logical volume "ondiskmirvol" created
The mirror log is created on a separate device from the devices on which any of the mirror legs are created. It is possible, however, to create the mirror log on the same device as one of the mirror legs by using the --alloc anywhere argument of the vgcreate command. This may degrade performance, but it allows you to create a mirror even if you have only two underlying devices.
The following command creates a mirrored logical volume with a single mirror for which the mirror log is on the same device as one of the mirror legs. In this example, the volume group vg0 consists of only two devices. This command creates a 500 MB volume named mirrorlv in the vg0 volume group. 
# lvcreate -L 500M -m1 -n mirrorlv -alloc anywhere vg0

Note

As of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.7 release, you can combine RAID0 (striping) and RAID1 (mirroring) in a single logical volume. Creating a logical volume while simultaneously specifying the number of mirrors (--mirrors X) and the number of stripes (--stripes Y) results in a mirror device whose constituent devices are striped.

Note

With clustered mirrors, the mirror log management is completely the responsibility of the cluster node with the currently lowest cluster ID. Therefore, when the device holding the cluster mirror log becomes unavailable on a subset of the cluster, the clustered mirror can continue operating without any impact, as long as the cluster node with lowest ID retains access to the mirror log. Since the mirror is undisturbed, no automatic corrective action (repair) is issued, either. When the lowest-ID cluster node loses access to the mirror log, however, automatic action will kick in (regardless of accessibility of the log from other nodes).
5.4.1.3.1. Mirroring the Mirror Log
To create a mirror log that is itself mirrored, you can specify the --mirrorlog mirrored argument. The following command creates a mirrored logical volume from the volume group bigvg. The logical volume is named twologvol and has a single mirror. The volume is 12 MB in size and the mirror log is mirrored, with each log kept on a separate device. 
# lvcreate -L 12MB -m1 --mirrorlog mirrored -n twologvol bigvg
  Logical volume "twologvol" created
Just as with a standard mirror log, it is possible to create the redundant mirror logs on the same device as the mirror legs by using the --alloc anywhere argument of the vgcreate command. This may degrade performance, but it allows you to create a redundant mirror log even if you do not have sufficient underlying devices for each log to be kept on a separate device than the mirror legs.
5.4.1.3.2. Specifying Devices for Mirror Components
You can specify which devices to use for the mirror legs and log, and which extents of the devices to use. To force the log onto a particular disk, specify exactly one extent on the disk on which it will be placed. LVM does not necessary respect the order in which devices are listed in the command line. If any physical volumes are listed that is the only space on which allocation will take place. Any physical extents included in the list that are already allocated will get ignored.
The following command creates a mirrored logical volume with a single mirror. The volume is 500 MB in size, it is named mirrorlv, and it is carved out of volume group vg0. The first leg of the mirror is on device /dev/sda1, the second leg of the mirror is on device /dev/sdb1, and the mirror log is on /dev/sdc1. 
# lvcreate -L 500M -m1 -n mirrorlv vg0 /dev/sda1 /dev/sdb1 /dev/sdc1
The following command creates a mirrored logical volume with a single mirror. The volume is 500 MB in size, it is named mirrorlv, and it is carved out of volume group vg0. The first leg of the mirror is on extents 0 through 499 of device /dev/sda1, the second leg of the mirror is on extents 0 through 499 of device /dev/sdb1, and the mirror log starts on extent 0 of device /dev/sdc1. These are 1 MB extents. If any of the specified extents have already been allocated, they will be ignored. 
# lvcreate -L 500M -m1 -n mirrorlv vg0 /dev/sda1:0-499 /dev/sdb1:0-499 /dev/sdc1:0
5.4.1.3.3. Splitting Off a Redundant Image of a Mirrored Logical Volume
You can split off a redundant image of a mirrored logical volume to form a new logical volume. To split off an image, you use the --splitmirrors argument of the lvconvert command, specifying the number of redundant images to split off. You must use the --name argument of the command to specify a name for the newly-split-off logical volume.
The following command splits off a new logical volume named copy from the mirrored logical volume vg/lv. The new logical volume contains two mirror legs. In this example, LVM selects which devices to split off. 
# lvconvert --splitmirrors 2 --name copy vg/lv
You can specify which devices to split off. The following command splits off a new logical volume named copy from the mirrored logical volume vg/lv. The new logical volume contains two mirror legs consisting of devices /dev/sdc1 and /dev/sde1. 
# lvconvert --splitmirrors 2 --name copy vg/lv /dev/sd[ce]1

5.4.1.4. Changing Mirrored Volume Configuration

You can convert a logical volume from a mirrored volume to a linear volume or from a linear volume to a mirrored volume with the lvconvert command. You can also use this command to reconfigure other mirror parameters of an existing logical volume, such as corelog.
When you convert a logical volume to a mirrored volume, you are basically creating mirror legs for an existing volume. This means that your volume group must contain the devices and space for the mirror legs and for the mirror log.
If you lose a leg of a mirror, LVM converts the volume to a linear volume so that you still have access to the volume, without the mirror redundancy. After you replace the leg, you can use the lvconvert command to restore the mirror. This procedure is provided in Section 7.3, “Recovering from LVM Mirror Failure”.
The following command converts the linear logical volume vg00/lvol1 to a mirrored logical volume. 
# lvconvert -m1 vg00/lvol1
The following command converts the mirrored logical volume vg00/lvol1 to a linear logical volume, removing the mirror leg. 
# lvconvert -m0 vg00/lvol1

5.4.2. Persistent Device Numbers

Major and minor device numbers are allocated dynamically at module load. Some applications work best if the block device always is activated with the same device minor number. You can specify this with the lvcreate and the lvchange commands by using the following arguments: 
--persistent y --minor minor
Use a large minor number to be sure that it has not already been allocated to another device dynamically.
If you are exporting a file system using NFS, specifying the fsid parameter in the exports file may avoid the need to set a persistent device number within LVM.

Note

Prior to the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.11 release, it was necessary to specify a major number when using the --persistent option. This had no effect on the major number, which the kernel assigned dynamically.

5.4.3. Resizing Logical Volumes

To reduce the size of a logical volume, use the lvreduce command. If the logical volume contains a file system, be sure to reduce the file system first (or use the LVM GUI) so that the logical volume is always at least as large as the file system expects it to be.
The following command reduces the size of logical volume lvol1 in volume group vg00 by 3 logical extents. 
# lvreduce -l -3 vg00/lvol1

5.4.4. Changing the Parameters of a Logical Volume Group

To change the parameters of a logical volume, use the lvchange command. For a listing of the parameters you can change, see the lvchange(8) man page.
You can use the lvchange command to activate and deactivate logical volumes. To activate and deactivate all the logical volumes in a volume group at the same time, use the vgchange command, as described in Section 5.3.8, “Changing the Parameters of a Volume Group”.
The following command changes the permission on volume lvol1 in volume group vg00 to be read-only. 
# lvchange -pr vg00/lvol1

5.4.5. Renaming Logical Volumes

To rename an existing logical volume, use the lvrename command.
Either of the following commands renames logical volume lvold in volume group vg02 to lvnew. 
# lvrename /dev/vg02/lvold /dev/vg02/lvnew
# lvrename vg02 lvold lvnew
For more information on activating logical volumes on individual nodes in a cluster, see Section 5.8, “Activating Logical Volumes on Individual Nodes in a Cluster”.

5.4.6. Removing Logical Volumes

To remove an inactive logical volume, use the lvremove command. If the logical volume is currently mounted, unmount the volume before removing it. In addition, in a clustered environment you must deactivate a logical volume before it can be removed.
The following command removes the logical volume /dev/testvg/testlv. from the volume group testvg. Note that in this case the logical volume has not been deactivated. 
# lvremove /dev/testvg/testlv
Do you really want to remove active logical volume "testlv"? [y/n]: y
  Logical volume "testlv" successfully removed
You could explicitly deactivate the logical volume before removing it with the lvchange -an command, in which case you would not see the prompt verifying whether you want to remove an active logical volume.

5.4.7. Displaying Logical Volumes

There are three commands you can use to display properties of LVM logical volumes: lvs, lvdisplay, and lvscan.
The lvs command provides logical volume information in a configurable form, displaying one line per logical volume. The lvs command provides a great deal of format control, and is useful for scripting. For information on using the lvs command to customize your output, see Section 5.9, “Customized Reporting for LVM”.
The lvdisplay command displays logical volume properties (such as size, layout, and mapping) in a fixed format.
The following command shows the attributes of lvol2 in vg00. If snapshot logical volumes have been created for this original logical volume, this command shows a list of all snapshot logical volumes and their status (active or inactive) as well. 
# lvdisplay -v /dev/vg00/lvol2
The lvscan command scans for all logical volumes in the system and lists them, as in the following example. 
# lvscan
 ACTIVE                   '/dev/vg0/gfslv' [1.46 GB] inherit

5.4.8. Growing Logical Volumes

To increase the size of a logical volume, use the lvextend command.
After extending the logical volume, you will need to increase the size of the associated file system to match.
When you extend the logical volume, you can indicate how much you want to extend the volume, or how large you want it to be after you extend it.
The following command extends the logical volume /dev/myvg/homevol to 12 gigabytes. 
# lvextend -L12G /dev/myvg/homevol 
lvextend -- extending logical volume "/dev/myvg/homevol" to 12 GB
lvextend -- doing automatic backup of volume group "myvg"
lvextend -- logical volume "/dev/myvg/homevol" successfully extended
The following command adds another gigabyte to the logical volume /dev/myvg/homevol. 
# lvextend -L+1G /dev/myvg/homevol
lvextend -- extending logical volume "/dev/myvg/homevol" to 13 GB
lvextend -- doing automatic backup of volume group "myvg"
lvextend -- logical volume "/dev/myvg/homevol" successfully extended
As with the lvcreate command, you can use the -l argument of the lvextend command to specify the number of extents by which to increase the size of the logical volume. You can also use this argument to specify a percentage of the volume group, or a percentage of the remaining free space in the volume group. The following command extends the logical volume called testlv to fill all of the unallocated space in the volume group myvg. 
# lvextend -l +100%FREE /dev/myvg/testlv
  Extending logical volume testlv to 68.59 GB
  Logical volume testlv successfully resized
After you have extended the logical volume it is necessary to increase the file system size to match.
By default, most file system resizing tools will increase the size of the file system to be the size of the underlying logical volume so you do not need to worry about specifying the same size for each of the two commands.

5.4.9. Extending a Striped Volume

In order to increase the size of a striped logical volume, there must be enough free space on the underlying physical volumes that make up the volume group to support the stripe. For example, if you have a two-way stripe that that uses up an entire volume group, adding a single physical volume to the volume group will not enable you to extend the stripe. Instead, you must add at least two physical volumes to the volume group.
For example, consider a volume group vg that consists of two underlying physical volumes, as displayed with the following vgs command. 
# vgs
  VG   #PV #LV #SN Attr   VSize   VFree
  vg     2   0   0 wz--n- 271.31G 271.31G
You can create a stripe using the entire amount of space in the volume group. 
# lvcreate -n stripe1 -L 271.31G -i 2 vg
  Using default stripesize 64.00 KB
  Rounding up size to full physical extent 271.31 GB
  Logical volume "stripe1" created
# lvs -a -o +devices
  LV      VG   Attr   LSize   Origin Snap%  Move Log Copy%  Devices
  stripe1 vg   -wi-a- 271.31G                               /dev/sda1(0),/dev/sdb1(0)
Note that the volume group now has no more free space. 
# vgs
  VG   #PV #LV #SN Attr   VSize   VFree
  vg     2   1   0 wz--n- 271.31G    0
The following command adds another physical volume to the volume group, which then has 135G of additional space. 
# vgextend vg /dev/sdc1
  Volume group "vg" successfully extended
# vgs
  VG   #PV #LV #SN Attr   VSize   VFree
  vg     3   1   0 wz--n- 406.97G 135.66G
At this point you cannot extend the striped logical volume to the full size of the volume group, because two underlying devices are needed in order to stripe the data. 
# lvextend vg/stripe1 -L 406G
  Using stripesize of last segment 64.00 KB
  Extending logical volume stripe1 to 406.00 GB
  Insufficient suitable allocatable extents for logical volume stripe1: 34480 
more required
To extend the striped logical volume, add another physical volume and then extend the logical volume. In this example, having added two physical volumes to the volume group we can extend the logical volume to the full size of the volume group. 
# vgextend vg /dev/sdd1
  Volume group "vg" successfully extended
# vgs
  VG   #PV #LV #SN Attr   VSize   VFree
  vg     4   1   0 wz--n- 542.62G 271.31G
# lvextend vg/stripe1 -L 542G
  Using stripesize of last segment 64.00 KB
  Extending logical volume stripe1 to 542.00 GB
  Logical volume stripe1 successfully resized
If you do not have enough underlying physical devices to extend the striped logical volume, it is possible to extend the volume anyway if it does not matter that the extension is not striped, which may result in uneven performance. When adding space to the logical volume, the default operation is to use the same striping parameters of the last segment of the existing logical volume, but you can override those parameters. The following example extends the existing striped logical volume to use the remaining free space after the initial lvextend command fails. 
# lvextend vg/stripe1 -L 406G
  Using stripesize of last segment 64.00 KB
  Extending logical volume stripe1 to 406.00 GB
  Insufficient suitable allocatable extents for logical volume stripe1: 34480 
more required
# lvextend -i1 -l+100%FREE vg/stripe1

5.4.10. Extending a Mirrored Volume

As of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.8 release, it is possible to grow mirrored logical volumes with the lvextend command without performing a synchronization of the new mirror regions.
If you specify the --nosync option when you create a mirrored logical volume with the lvcreate command, the mirror regions are not synchronized when the mirror is created, as described in Section 5.4.1.3, “Creating Mirrored Volumes”. If you later extend a mirror that you have created with the --nosync option, the mirror extensions are not synchronized at that time, either.
You can determine whether an existing logical volume was created with the --nosync option by using the lvs command to display the volume's attributes. A logical volume will have an attribute of "M" if it is a mirrored volume that was created without an initial synchronization, and it will have an attribute of "m" if it was created with initial synchronization.
The following command displays the attributes of a mirrored logical volume named lv that was created without initial synchronization. 
# lvs vg
  LV   VG   Attr     LSize Pool Origin Snap%  Move Log     Copy%  Convert
  lv   vg   Mwi-a-m- 5.00g                         lv_mlog 100.00
If you grow this mirrored logical volume with the lvextend command, the mirror extension will not be resynchronized. For more information on displaying the attributes of logical volumes with the lvs command, refer to Table 5.3, “lvs Display Fields”.
If you created a mirrored logical volume without specifying the --nosync option of the lvcreate command, you can grow the logical volume without resynchronizing the mirror by specifying the --nosync option of the lvextend command.
The following example extends a logical volume that was created without the --nosync option, indicated that the mirror was synchronized when it was created. This example, however, specifies that the mirror not be synchronized when the volume is extended. Note that the volume has an attribute of "m", but after executing the lvextend commmand with the --nosync option the volume has an attribute of "M". 
# lvs vg
  LV   VG   Attr     LSize  Pool Origin Snap%  Move Log     Copy%  Convert
  lv   vg   mwi-a-m- 20.00m                         lv_mlog 100.00        
# lvextend -L +5G vg/lv --nosync
  Extending 2 mirror images.
  Extending logical volume lv to 5.02 GiB
  Logical volume lv successfully resized
# lvs vg
  LV   VG   Attr     LSize Pool Origin Snap%  Move Log     Copy%  Convert
  lv   vg   Mwi-a-m- 5.02g                         lv_mlog 100.00
If a mirror is inactive, it will not automatically skip synchronization when you extend the mirror, even if you create the mirror with the --nosync option specified. Instead, you will be prompted whether to do a full resync of the extended portion of the logical volume.

Note

If a mirror is performing recovery, you cannot extend the mirrored logical volume if you created or extended the volume with the --nosync option specified. If you did not specify the --nosync option, however, you can extend the mirror while it is recovering.

5.4.11. Extending a Logical Volume with the cling Allocation Policy

As of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.7 release, when extending an LVM volume, you can use the --alloc cling option of the lvextend command to specify the cling allocation policy. This policy will choose space on the same physical volumes as the last segment of the existing logical volume. If there is insufficient space on the physical volumes and a list of tags is defined in the lvm.conf file, LVM will check whether any of the tags are attached to the physical volumes and seek to match those physical volume tags between existing extents and new extents.
For example, if you have logical volumes that are mirrored between two sites within a single volume group, you can tag the physical volumes according to where they are situated by tagging the physical volumes with @site1 and @site2 tags and specify the following line in the lvm.conf file: 
cling_tag_list = [ "@site1", "@site2" ]
For information on tagging physical volumes, see Appendix C, LVM Object Tags.
In the following example, the lvm.conf file has been modified to contain the following line: 
cling_tag_list = [ "@A", "@B" ]
Also in this example, a volume group taft has been created that consists of the physical volumes /dev/sdb1, /dev/sdc1, /dev/sdd1, /dev/sde1, /dev/sdf1, /dev/sdg1, and /dev/sdh1. These physical volumes have been tagged with tags A, B, and C. The example does not use the C tag, but this will show that LVM uses the tags to select which physical volumes to use for the mirror legs. 
# pvs -a -o +pv_tags /dev/sd[bcdefgh]1
  PV         VG   Fmt  Attr PSize   PFree   PV Tags
  /dev/sdb1  taft lvm2 a-   135.66g 135.66g A
  /dev/sdc1  taft lvm2 a-   135.66g 135.66g B
  /dev/sdd1  taft lvm2 a-   135.66g 135.66g B
  /dev/sde1  taft lvm2 a-   135.66g 135.66g C
  /dev/sdf1  taft lvm2 a-   135.66g 135.66g C
  /dev/sdg1  taft lvm2 a-   135.66g 135.66g A
  /dev/sdh1  taft lvm2 a-   135.66g 135.66g A
The following command creates a 100G mirrored volume from the volume group taft. 
# lvcreate -m 1 -n mirror --nosync -L 100G taft
The following command shows which devices are used for the mirror legs and mirror log. 
# lvs -a -o +devices
  LV                VG        Attr   LSize   Log         Copy%  Devices
  mirror            taft      Mwi-a- 100.00g mirror_mlog 100.00
mirror_mimage_0(0),mirror_mimage_1(0)
  [mirror_mimage_0] taft      iwi-ao 100.00g                    /dev/sdb1(0)
  [mirror_mimage_1] taft      iwi-ao 100.00g                    /dev/sdc1(0)
  [mirror_mlog]     taft      lwi-ao   4.00m                    /dev/sdh1(0)
The following command extends the size of the mirrored volume, using the cling allocation policy to indicate that the mirror legs should be extended using physical volumes with the same tag. 
# lvextend --alloc cling -L +100G taft/mirror
  Extending 2 mirror images.
  Extending logical volume mirror to 200.00 GiB
  Logical volume mirror successfully resized
The following display command shows that the mirror legs have been extended using physical volumes with the same tag as the leg. Note that the physical volumes with a tag of C were ignored. 
# lvs -a -o +devices
  LV                VG        Attr   LSize   Log         Copy%  Devices
  mirror            taft      Mwi-a- 200.00g mirror_mlog  50.16
mirror_mimage_0(0),mirror_mimage_1(0)
  [mirror_mimage_0] taft      Iwi-ao 200.00g                    /dev/sdb1(0)
  [mirror_mimage_0] taft      Iwi-ao 200.00g                    /dev/sdg1(0)
  [mirror_mimage_1] taft      Iwi-ao 200.00g                    /dev/sdc1(0)
  [mirror_mimage_1] taft      Iwi-ao 200.00g                    /dev/sdd1(0)
  [mirror_mlog]     taft      lwi-ao   4.00m                    /dev/sdh1(0)

5.4.12. Shrinking Logical Volumes

To reduce the size of a logical volume, first unmount the file system. You can then use the lvreduce command to shrink the volume. After shrinking the volume, remount the file system.

Warning

It is important to reduce the size of the file system or whatever is residing in the volume before shrinking the volume itself, otherwise you risk losing data.
Shrinking a logical volume frees some of the volume group to be allocated to other logical volumes in the volume group.
The following example reduces the size of logical volume lvol1 in volume group vg00 by 3 logical extents. 
# lvreduce -l -3 vg00/lvol1