# pvmove

## NAME



           pvmove — Move extents from one physical volume to another
    


## SYNOPSIS



           **pvmove** _position_args_
               [ _option_args_ ]
               [ _position_args_ ]
    


## DESCRIPTION



           pvmove moves the allocated physical extents (PEs) on a source PV
           to one or more destination PVs.  You can optionally specify a
           source LV in which case only extents used by that LV will be moved
           to free (or specified) extents on the destination PV. If no
           destination PV is specified, the normal allocation rules for the
           VG are used.
    
           If pvmove is interrupted for any reason (e.g. the machine crashes)
           then run pvmove again without any PV arguments to restart any
           operations that were in progress from the last checkpoint.
           Alternatively, use the abort option at any time to abort the
           operation. The resulting location of LVs after an abort depends on
           whether the atomic option was used.
    
           More than one pvmove can run concurrently if they are moving data
           from different source PVs, but additional pvmoves will ignore any
           LVs already in the process of being changed, so some data might
           not get moved.
    


## USAGE



           Move PV extents.
    
           **pvmove** _PV_
               [ **-A** |**--autobackup y** |**n**]
               [ **-n** |**--name** _LV_ ]
               [    **--alloc contiguous** |**cling** |**cling_by_tags** |**normal** |**anywhere** |
               **inherit**]
               [    **--atomic**]
               [    **--noudevsync**]
               [    **--reportformat basic** |**json**]
               [ COMMON_OPTIONS ]
               [ _PV_ ... ]
    
           Continue or abort existing pvmove operations.
    
           **pvmove**
               [ COMMON_OPTIONS ]
    
           Common options for command:
               [ **-b** |**--background**]
               [ **-i** |**--interval** _Number_ ]
               [    **--abort**]
    
           Common options for lvm:
               [ **-d** |**--debug**]
               [ **-h** |**--help**]
               [ **-q** |**--quiet**]
               [ **-t** |**--test**]
               [ **-v** |**--verbose**]
               [ **-y** |**--yes**]
               [    **--commandprofile** _String_ ]
               [    **--config** _String_ ]
               [    **--devices** _PV_ ]
               [    **--devicesfile** _String_ ]
               [    **--driverloaded y** |**n**]
               [    **--journal** _String_ ]
               [    **--lockopt** _String_ ]
               [    **--longhelp**]
               [    **--nohints**]
               [    **--nolocking**]
               [    **--profile** _String_ ]
               [    **--version**]
    


## OPTIONS



    
           **--abort**
                  Abort  any  pvmove  operations in progress. If a pvmove was
                  started with the --atomic option, then all LVs will  remain
                  on the source PV.  Otherwise, segments that have been moved
                  will  remain  on the destination PV, while unmoved segments
                  will remain on the source PV.
    
           **--alloc contiguous** |**cling** |**cling_by_tags** |**normal** |**anywhere** |**inherit**
                  Determines the allocation policy when a  command  needs  to
                  allocate Physical Extents (PEs) from the VG. Each VG and LV
                  has   an  allocation  policy  which  can  be  changed  with
                  vgchange/lvchange, or overridden on the command line.  **nor‐**
                  **mal** applies common sense rules such as not placing parallel
                  stripes on the same PV.  **inherit** applies the VG  policy  to
                  an  LV.   **contiguous** requires new PEs be placed adjacent to
                  existing PEs.  **cling** places new PEs on the same PV  as  ex‐
                  isting PEs in the same stripe of the LV.  If there are suf‐
                  ficient  PEs  for  an  allocation,  but normal does not use
                  them, **anywhere** will use them even  if  it  reduces  perfor‐
                  mance, e.g. by placing two stripes on the same PV.  Option‐
                  al  positional PV args on the command line can also be used
                  to limit which PVs the command  will  use  for  allocation.
                  See lvm(8) for more information about allocation.
    
           **--atomic**
                  Makes a pvmove operation atomic, ensuring that all affected
                  LVs are moved to the destination PV, or none are if the op‐
                  eration is aborted.
    
           **-A** |**--autobackup y** |**n**
                  Specifies if metadata should be backed up automatically af‐
                  ter  a  change.   Enabling  this  is  strongly advised! See
                  vgcfgbackup(8) for more information.
    
           **-b** |**--background**
                  If the operation requires polling, this option  causes  the
                  command  to  return  before  the operation is complete, and
                  polling is done in the background.
    
           **--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(5)
                  settings.    The   String  arg  uses  the  same  format  as
                  lvm.conf(5),  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).
    
           **--devices** _PV_
                  Devices  that  the  command can use. This option can be re‐
                  peated or accepts a comma separated list of  devices.  This
                  overrides the devices file.
    
           **--devicesfile** _String_
                  A  file listing devices that LVM should use.  The file must
                  exist  in  _/etc/lvm/devices/_  and  is  managed   with   the
                  lvmdevices(8)  command.  This overrides the lvm.conf(5) **de‐**
                  **vices/devicesfile** and **devices/use_devicesfile** settings.
    
           **--driverloaded y** |**n**
                  If set to no, the command will not attempt to  use  device-
                  mapper.  For testing and debugging.
    
           **-h** |**--help**
                  Display help text.
    
           **-i** |**--interval** _Number_
                  Report progress at regular intervals.
    
           **--journal** _String_
                  Record  information  in the systemd journal.  This informa‐
                  tion is in addition to information enabled by the  lvm.conf
                  log/journal setting.  command: record information about the
                  command.   output:  record the default command output.  de‐
                  bug: record full command debugging.
    
           **--lockopt** _String_
                  Used to pass options for special cases  to  lvmlockd.   See
                  lvmlockd(8) for more information.
    
           **--longhelp**
                  Display long help text.
    
           **-n** |**--name** _String_
                  Move only the extents belonging to the named LV.
    
           **--nohints**
                  Do not use the hints file to locate devices for PVs. A com‐
                  mand  may  read more devices to find PVs when hints are not
                  used. The command will still perform standard hint file in‐
                  validation where appropriate.
    
           **--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, depend‐
                  ing 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 de‐
                  fined  globally  by  the  report/output_format  setting  in
                  lvm.conf(5).  **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.
    
           **-t** |**--test**
                  Run  in test mode. Commands will not update metadata.  This
                  is implemented by disabling all metadata writing but never‐
                  theless 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 as‐
                  sume  the answer yes. Use with extreme caution.  (For auto‐
                  matic no, see -qq.)
    


## VARIABLES



           _PV_     Physical Volume name, a device path under /dev.  For com‐
                  mands managing physical extents, a PV positional arg gener‐
                  ally accepts a suffix indicating a range (or multiple
                  ranges) of physical extents (PEs). When the first PE is
                  omitted, it defaults to the start of the device, and when
                  the last PE is omitted it defaults to end.  Start and end
                  range (inclusive): _PV_[**:**_PE_**-**_PE_]...  Start and length range
                  (counting from 0): _PV_[**:**_PE_**+**_PE_]...
    
           _String_ See the option description for information about the string
                  content.
    
           _Size_[UNIT]
                  Size is an input number that accepts an optional unit.  In‐
                  put 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: **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.
    


## NOTES



           pvmove works as follows:
    
           1. A temporary 'pvmove' LV is created to store details of all the
           data movements required.
    
           2. Every LV in the VG is searched for contiguous data that need
           moving according to the command line arguments.  For each piece of
           data found, a new segment is added to the end of the pvmove LV.
           This segment takes the form of a temporary mirror to copy the data
           from the original location to a newly allocated location.  The
           original LV is updated to use the new temporary mirror segment in
           the pvmove LV instead of accessing the data directly.
    
           3. The VG metadata is updated on disk.
    
           4. The first segment of the pvmove LV is activated and starts to
           mirror the first part of the data.  Only one segment is mirrored
           at once as this is usually more efficient.
    
           5. A daemon repeatedly checks progress at the specified time in‐
           terval.  When it detects that the first temporary mirror is in
           sync, it breaks that mirror so that only the new location for that
           data gets used and writes a checkpoint into the VG metadata on
           disk.  Then it activates the mirror for the next segment of the
           pvmove LV.
    
           6. When there are no more segments left to be mirrored, the tempo‐
           rary LV is removed and the VG metadata is updated so that the LVs
           reflect the new data locations.
    
           Note that this new process cannot support the original LVM1 type
           of on-disk metadata.  Metadata can be converted using
           vgconvert(8).
    
           If the **--atomic** option is used, a slightly different approach is
           used for the move.  Again, a temporary 'pvmove' LV is created to
           store the details of all the data movements required.  This tempo‐
           rary LV contains all the segments of the various LVs that need to
           be moved.  However, in this case, an identical LV is allocated
           that contains the same number of segments and a mirror is created
           to copy the contents from the first temporary LV to the second.
           After a complete copy is made, the temporary LVs are removed,
           leaving behind the segments on the destination PV.  If an abort is
           issued during the move, all LVs being moved will remain on the
           source PV.
    


## EXAMPLES



           Move all physical extents that are used by simple LVs on the spec‐
           ified PV to free physical extents elsewhere in the VG.
           **pvmove /dev/sdb1**
    
           Use a specific destination PV when moving physical extents.
           **pvmove /dev/sdb1 /dev/sdc1**
    
           Move extents belonging to a single LV.
           **pvmove -n lvol1 /dev/sdb1 /dev/sdc1**
    
           Rather than moving the contents of an entire device, it is possi‐
           ble to move a range of physical extents, for example numbers 1000
           to 1999 inclusive on the specified PV.
           **pvmove /dev/sdb1:1000-1999**
    
           A range of physical extents to move can be specified as
           start+length. For example, starting from PE 1000. (Counting starts
           from 0, so this refers to the 1001st to the 2000th PE inclusive.)
           **pvmove /dev/sdb1:1000+1000**
    
           Move a range of physical extents to a specific PV (which must have
           sufficient free extents).
           **pvmove /dev/sdb1:1000-1999 /dev/sdc1**
    
           Move a range of physical extents to specific new extents on a new
           PV.
           **pvmove /dev/sdb1:1000-1999 /dev/sdc1:0-999**
    
           If the source and destination are on the same disk, the **anywhere**
           allocation policy is needed.
           **pvmove --alloc anywhere /dev/sdb1:1000-1999 /dev/sdb1:0-999**
    
           The part of a specific LV present within in a range of physical
           extents can also be picked out and moved.
           **pvmove -n lvol1 /dev/sdb1:1000-1999 /dev/sdc1**
    


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