SteelEye 4.5.0 manual Overview, LVM Operation, LifeKeeper for Linux LVM Recovery Kit

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Overview

Overview

Overview

LVM Operation

LVM is currently the standard volume management product included with all of the major Linux distributions. LVM allows multiple physical disks and/or disk partitions to be grouped together into entities known as volume groups. Volume groups may then be divided or partitioned into logical volumes. Logical volumes are accessed as regular block devices, and as such may be used by file systems or any application that can operate directly with a block device.

Logical volume managers are principally used to simplify storage management. Logical volumes can be resized dynamically as storage requirements change, and volume groups and logical volumes can be sensibly named with identifiers chosen by the administrator, rather than physical disk or partition names such as sda or sdc1.

The following diagram shows the relationship of the LVM entities. File systems or applications use logical volumes. Logical volumes are created by partitioning volume groups. Volume groups consist of the aggregation of one or more physical disk partitions or disks.

Figure 1: Logical Volume Manager entity relationships

LifeKeeper for Linux LVM Recovery Kit

The LifeKeeper LVM Recovery Kit provides the support needed to allow other LifeKeeper recovery kits to operate properly on top of Linux logical volumes. To accomplish this support, the LVM Recovery Kit installs two new resource types: lvmlv and lvmvg which correspond to logical volumes and volume groups respectively. The lvmlv and lvmvg resources exist solely for internal use so that other LifeKeeper resources can operate.

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LVM Recovery Kit Administration Guide

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Contents Revision A 06/2004 Logical Volume Manager LVM Recovery Kit Administration GuideLifeKeeper for Linux Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds ip@steeleye.comTable of Contents LVM Recovery Kit Administration Guide LVM Recovery Kit Administration Guide Document ContentsIntroduction LifeKeeper for Linux Release Notes LifeKeeper for Linux Planning and Installation GuideDocumentation and References Software Requirements RequirementsHardware Requirements LVM Operation LifeKeeper for Linux LVM Recovery KitOverview LVM Recovery Kit Notes and Restrictions Linux Boot Script ModificationsVolume Group Activation Support for Raw I/O and Entire DisksLVM Version Support LifeKeeper LVM Hierarchy Creation and Administration Hierarchy Creation Procedure2. On the system which is to be the primary server for your application, create and activate the desired volume groups and logical volumes using the tools provided by the LVM package, and described in the LVM HowTo document referenced in the Documentation and References section above Using LVM with LifeKeeper Data Replication Figure 3 Hierarchy with LVM above LKDRVolume Group Reconfiguration Figure 4 LVM volume group Resource Properties dialogFigure 5 LVM volume group reconfiguration for added device Figure 6 LVM volume group reconfiguration for added device Figure 7 LVM volume group reconfiguration for deleted device Figure 8 LVM volume group reconfiguration for deleted deviceTroubleshooting Error MessagesCommon Error Messages Hierarchy CreationHierarchy Extension Resource Monitoring Hierarchy RestoreLVM Recovery Kit Error Messages