LVREMOVE

Section: Maintenance Commands (8)
Updated: LVM TOOLS 2.03.11(2) (2021-01-08)
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NAME

lvremove - Remove logical volume(s) from the system

SYNOPSIS

lvremove position_args

[ option_args ]

DESCRIPTION

lvremove removes one or more LVs. For standard LVs, this returns the logical extents that were used by the LV to the VG for use by other LVs.

Confirmation will be requested before deactivating any active LV prior to removal. LVs cannot be deactivated or removed while they are open (e.g. if they contain a mounted filesystem). Removing an origin LV will also remove all dependent snapshots.

When a single force option is used, LVs are removed without confirmation, and the command will try to deactivate unused LVs.

To remove damaged LVs, two force options may be required (-ff).

Historical LVs

If the configuration setting metadata/record_lvs_history is enabled and the LV being removed forms part of the history of at least one LV that is still present, then a simplified representation of the LV will be retained. This includes the time of removal (lv_time_removed reporting field), creation time (lv_time), name (lv_name), LV uuid (lv_uuid) and VG name (vg_name). This allows later reporting to see the ancestry chain of thin snapshot volumes, even after some intermediate LVs have been removed. The names of such historical LVs acquire a hyphen as a prefix (e.g. '-lvol1') and cannot be reactivated. Use lvremove a second time, with the hyphen, to remove the record of the former LV completely.

USAGE

lvremove VG|LV|Tag|Select ...

: [ -A|--autobackup y|n ]
[ -f|--force ]
[ -S|--select String ]
[ --nohistory ]
[ --noudevsync ]
[ --reportformat basic|json ]
[ COMMON_OPTIONS ]

Common options for lvm:

: [ -d|--debug ]
[ -h|--help ]
[ -q|--quiet ]
[ -t|--test ]
[ -v|--verbose ]
[ -y|--yes ]
[ --commandprofile String ]
[ --config String ]
[ --driverloaded y|n ]
[ --lockopt String ]
[ --longhelp ]
[ --nolocking ]
[ --profile String ]
[ --version ]

OPTIONS

-A|--autobackup y|n: Specifies if metadata should be backed up automatically after a change. Enabling this is strongly advised! See vgcfgbackup(8) for more information.
--commandprofile String: The command profile to use for command configuration. See lvm.conf(5) for more information about profiles.
--config String: Config settings for the command. These override lvm.conf settings. The String arg uses the same format as lvm.conf, or may use section/field syntax. See lvm.conf(5) for more information about config.
-d|--debug ...: Set debug level. Repeat from 1 to 6 times to increase the detail of messages sent to the log file and/or syslog (if configured).
--driverloaded y|n: If set to no, the command will not attempt to use device-mapper. For testing and debugging.
-f|--force ...: Override various checks, confirmations and protections. Use with extreme caution.
-h|--help: Display help text.
--lockopt String: Used to pass options for special cases to lvmlockd. See lvmlockd(8) for more information.
--longhelp: Display long help text.
--nohistory: Do not record history of LVs being removed. This has no effect unless the configuration setting metadata/record_lvs_history is enabled.
--nolocking: Disable locking.
--noudevsync: Disables udev synchronisation. The process will not wait for notification from udev. It will continue irrespective of any possible udev processing in the background. Only use this if udev is not running or has rules that ignore the devices LVM creates.
--profile String: An alias for --commandprofile or --metadataprofile, depending on the command.
-q|--quiet ...: Suppress output and log messages. Overrides --debug and --verbose. Repeat once to also suppress any prompts with answer 'no'.
--reportformat basic|json: Overrides current output format for reports which is defined globally by the report/output_format setting in lvm.conf. basic is the original format with columns and rows. If there is more than one report per command, each report is prefixed with the report name for identification. json produces report output in JSON format. See lvmreport(7) for more information.
-S|--select String: Select objects for processing and reporting based on specified criteria. The criteria syntax is described by --select help and lvmreport(7). For reporting commands, one row is displayed for each object matching the criteria. See --options help for selectable object fields. Rows can be displayed with an additional "selected" field (-o selected) showing 1 if the row matches the selection and 0 otherwise. For non-reporting commands which process LVM entities, the selection is used to choose items to process.
-t|--test: Run in test mode. Commands will not update metadata. This is implemented by disabling all metadata writing but nevertheless returning success to the calling function. This may lead to unusual error messages in multi-stage operations if a tool relies on reading back metadata it believes has changed but hasn't.
-v|--verbose ...: Set verbose level. Repeat from 1 to 4 times to increase the detail of messages sent to stdout and stderr.
--version: Display version information.
-y|--yes: Do not prompt for confirmation interactively but always assume the answer yes. Use with extreme caution. (For automatic no, see -qq.)

VARIABLES

VG: Volume Group name. See lvm(8) for valid names.
LV: Logical Volume name. See lvm(8) for valid names. An LV positional arg generally includes the VG name and LV name, e.g. VG/LV.
Tag: Tag name. See lvm(8) for information about tag names and using tags in place of a VG, LV or PV.
Select: Select indicates that a required positional parameter can be omitted if the --select option is used. No arg appears in this position.
String: See the option description for information about the string content.
Size[UNIT]: Size is an input number that accepts an optional unit. Input units are always treated as base two values, regardless of capitalization, e.g. 'k' and 'K' both refer to 1024. The default input unit is specified by letter, followed by |UNIT. UNIT represents other possible input units: bBsSkKmMgGtTpPeE. b|B is bytes, s|S is sectors of 512 bytes, k|K is KiB, m|M is MiB, g|G is GiB, t|T is TiB, p|P is PiB, e|E is EiB. (This should not be confused with the output control --units, where capital letters mean multiple of 1000.)

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

See lvm(8) for information about environment variables used by lvm. For example, LVM_VG_NAME can generally be substituted for a required VG parameter.

EXAMPLES

Remove an active LV without asking for confirmation.
lvremove -f vg00/lvol1

Remove all LVs the specified VG.
lvremove vg00