[linux-lvm] lvm over loop device

[Steve Brueggeman]

I didn't see any replies to this, so I thought I'd post what I've found.

You have to specify a smaller extent size when creating the volume group.  The
default extent size is 4MB, which is larger than your physical device on
/dev/loop1 (use the -s option)

For example, try this instead, which would give 4 extents on the 1MB physical
device on /dev/loop1 (I think.  I am not certain about how much metadata exists
on the physical device for LVM2)

>vgcreate SmallDiskGroup -s256k /dev/loop0 # create a new volumegroup using the
>loop0 device as phisical volume.

Steve.


On Mon, 29 Sep 2008 11:44:40 +0200, you wrote:

>Hello Bryn,
>I haven't had the time yet to try Stuart's suggestion... I've re did my
>attempt to create the lv though, and this time with the -vvv option in
>the step where I create the lv.
>my steps:
>dd if=/dev/sdb1 of=./disk0 # copy a existing LVM-partition to a file
>losetup -f ./disk0 	   # link the file to a loop device
>pvcreate /dev/loop0	   # create a pv using the file
>vgcreate SmallDiskGroup /dev/loop0 # create a new volumegroup using the
>loop0 device as phisical volume.
>vgchange -a y SmallDiskGroup #Activate the volumegroup
>
>nb. vgdisplay SmallDiskGroup gives 'Act PV 1' but 'MAX LV 0'
>
>the output of lvcreate -vvv -L1 -nSmallDiskVolume SmallDiskGroup is
>downloadable here: http://pastebin.com/pastebin.php?dl=m2b9dcd7f
>
>I hope you can find anything.
>
>Greetings,
>Geert
>  
>On Mon, 2008-09-29 at 10:08 +0100, Bryn M. Reeves wrote:
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>> geert Geurts wrote:
>> > So what I did first create a LVM partition of 1MB on a memorystick and then 
>> > change the if of dd to point to the LVM partition, I'm now able to pvcreate 
>> > /dev/loop0, vgcreate SmallDisk /dev/loop0.
>> > But I'm unable to create a logical volume in the SmallDisk group...
>> > what am I doing wrong here? is it even possible if not why?
>> 
>> Hi Geert,
>> 
>> What was the error you were getting at this point? If possible, can you
>> use a service like pastebin.com to post the complete output of "lvcreate
>> - -vvv" with the options you're using for the SmallDisk VG. That should
>> give enough detail to have some idea where it's failing.
>> 
>> I think the idea is reasonable enough although you'll probably need to
>> do some fiddling around to get the size/number of the gmailfs volumes
>> right to give good performance.
>> 
>> Snapshots could definitely work here but I think it might be a bit
>> tricky without some of the patches that are currently outstanding for
>> device-mapper, esp. Mikulas' snapshot merging patches which you'd need
>> to "restore" one of the COW areas. See the thread here:
>> 
>> http://kerneltrap.org/Linux/LVM_Snapshot_Merging
>> 
>> Regards,
>> Bryn.
>> 
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>
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