Logical Volumn Management

LVM commands

Ubuntu

Install using the aternate CD and there is an option to use it. Desktop ISO doesn't have the option to use LVM.

apt-get install lvm2 system-config-lvm

Debian

apt-get install lvm2 system-config-lvm

Arch Linux

pacman -S lvm2

Install LVM GUI tools from AUR

yarout -S system-config-lvm

Gentoo

emerge lvm2

Enterprise Linux (RHEL, OEL)

Built-in support for LVM2.

Caveats

Write Barrier for ext3 and ext4

Until Linux kernel 2.6.31, write barriers were not supported (fully supported in 2.6.33). This means that the guarantee against filesystem corruption offered by journaled file systems like ext3 and XFS was negated under some circumstances. Many Linux distributions, with the notable exception of SUSE and Fedora, turn off protective barriers by default anyway, to prevent performance degradation.

Write Barriers

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By default, RHEL (5.6^ and 6.x), Fedora and SUSE enable write barriers for ext3 and ext4. However, based on the benchmarks in Fedora Logical Volume Manager Benchmarks ext4 with LVM DOES NOT enforce write barriers by default with LVM. This is potentially putting your data, however, at risk.

Reference:

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6

Storage Administration Guide - Chapter 4. LVM (Logical Volume Manager)

http://tldp.org/HOWTO/LVM-HOWTO/

Logical Volume Manager (Excellent wiki page)

http://sourceware.org/lvm2/

Logical Volume Manager

Barriers and journaling filesystems

Terry : LVM