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Monday, October 16, 2023

Striping an LVM (Logical Volume Manager) filesystem in Red Hat Linux

 Striping an LVM (Logical Volume Manager) filesystem in Red Hat Linux involves spreading the data across multiple physical volumes (PVs) to improve performance. Here are the general steps to stripe an LVM filesystem:

  1. Prepare the Physical Volumes (PVs):

    • Ensure you have multiple PVs available. These could be physical disks or partitions.
    • If you need to add new disks, use tools like fdisk or parted to create partitions on them.
  2. Create Volume Group (VG):

    • Use the vgcreate command to create a new volume group that encompasses all the PVs you want to use for striping. For example:
      bash
      vgcreate myvg /dev/sdX1 /dev/sdY1
  3. Create Striped Logical Volume (LV):

    • Use the lvcreate command with the -i option to specify the number of stripes you want. For example, to create a striped LV named mylv with a stripe count of 2:

      lvcreate -i 2 -L 10G -n mylv myvg
      This command will create a 10GB striped LV named mylv in the volume group myvg with data striped across the PVs.
  4. Create a File System:

    • Create a file system on the new LV. The specific command depends on the type of file system you want to use. For example, to create an ext4 file system:

      mkfs.ext4 /dev/myvg/mylv
  5. Mount the File System:

    • Create a mount point and mount the file system:
      bash
      mkdir /mnt/myfilesystem mount /dev/myvg/mylv /mnt/myfilesystem
  6. Update /etc/fstab:

    • To ensure the file system is mounted at boot, add an entry to the /etc/fstab file. For example:
      bash
      /dev/myvg/mylv /mnt/myfilesystem ext4 defaults 0 0
  7. Test and Verify:

    • Mount the file system and verify that it works as expected.
  8. Monitor and Maintain:

    • Regularly monitor the performance and health of your striped LVM setup.
    • You can add more PVs or extend the LV if needed.

Remember that striping can improve performance, but it does not provide redundancy or data protection. In a production environment, it's crucial to have proper backup and redundancy mechanisms in place. Always exercise caution when working with storage configurations, especially on production systems.