Can I access and use LVM1-formatted volume groups in the anaconda installer in RHEL 6?

Solution Unverified - Updated -

Environment

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 6
  • anaconda
  • LVM1-format volume group(s)

Issue

  • Does anaconda in RHEL 6 allow me to access and use LVM1-formatted volume groups?
  • When trying to upgrade RHEL3 based system that uses LVM, installer doesn't recognize existing LVM1 physical volume on the disk

Resolution

anaconda is currently unable to detect LVM1-formatted physical volumes and volume groups, and as such, devices acting as LVM1 physical volumes will be displayed as regular devices on the storage screens.

Workaround: You may convert the volume group to LVM2 format from rescue mode prior to starting anaconda.

Root Cause

In order to determine what type of device something is, anaconda will probe anaconda for its ID_FS_TYPE attribute on that device and attempt to match it to one of its internal classes. So for instance, when udev reports a volume has ID_FS_TYPE of LVM2_member, anaconda checks the known _udevTypes values in all classes and finds that it matches the LVMPhysicalVolume class:

class LVMPhysicalVolume(DeviceFormat):
    """ An LVM physical volume. """
    _type = "lvmpv"
    _name = "physical volume (LVM)"
    _udevTypes = ["LVM2_member"]
    partedFlag = PARTITION_LVM
    _formattable = True                 # can be formatted
    _supported = True                   # is supported
    _linuxNative = True                 # for clearpart
    _packages = ["lvm2"]                # required packages

As such, it will treat it as an LVM2 physical volume, probing it for volume groups and logical volumes, and displaying them in the partitioning section.

anaconda has no such implementation for devices of LVM1_member type, and so it displays them as a regular disk.

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