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LVM - unable to mirror LV

Hello guys,

I'm having problems to mirror a logical volume to two different PV.

Code:

membit:~ # pvscan

  PV /dev/sdb2  VG rootvg  lvm2 [465.67 GB / 12.70 GB free]

  PV /dev/sda1  VG datavg  lvm2 [149.05 GB / 149.05 GB free]

  PV /dev/sdc1  VG datavg  lvm2 [372.61 GB / 342.61 GB free]

  Total: 3 [987.32 GB] / in use: 3 [987.32 GB] / in no VG: 0 [0  ]



membit:~ # pvdisplay /dev/sda1 /dev/sdc1

  --- Physical volume ---

  PV Name              /dev/sda1

  VG Name              datavg

  PV Size              149.05 GB / not usable 1.31 MB

  Allocatable          yes

  PE Size (KByte)      4096

  Total PE              38156

  Free PE              38156

  Allocated PE          0

  PV UUID              uDXi31-5AX9-LRDl-W9sN-nEGK-XYfX-QCYXLl



  --- Physical volume ---

  PV Name              /dev/sdc1

  VG Name              datavg

  PV Size              372.61 GB / not usable 3.56 MB

  Allocatable          yes

  PE Size (KByte)      4096

  Total PE              95387

  Free PE              87707

  Allocated PE          7680

  PV UUID              jU7spD-Kad7-7oUC-16nd-ipiT-dj5c-gBqOBx



membit:~ # lvdisplay datavg/mirroredlv

  --- Logical volume ---

  LV Name                /dev/datavg/mirroredlv

  VG Name                datavg

  LV UUID                Ttd1cF-6hQO-s619-fhCQ-ZUo2-qTeb-4EspEh

  LV Write Access        read/write

  LV Status              available

  # open                0

  LV Size                30.00 GB

  Current LE            7680

  Segments              1

  Allocation            inherit

  Read ahead sectors    auto

  - currently set to    256

  Block device          253:6

OK, now if I try to add a mirror to the LV:

Code:

membit:~ # lvconvert -m 1 datavg/mirroredlv

  Insufficient suitable allocatable extents for logical volume : 7680 more required

  Unable to allocate extents for mirror(s).

HW/OS specs:

Code:

Kernel: 2.6.27.23-0.1-pae

Distro: OpenSUSE 11.1 x86

HDD:

/dev/sda = P-ATA 160GB

/dev/sdc = S-ATA 2 400GB

What am I doing wrong?? :)

I happened to be building an LVM mirror when I saw this post so I was able to test your setup and confirm the problem. The error is not quite accurate since it sounds like you don't have enough space to build the mirror (which you obviously do) when the real problem is that LVM can't build the mirror log.

You have two methods available for storing the log. The first (and easiest) is to store it in memory by adding '--mirrorlog core' to your lvconvert command. The second is to add a third PV to your datavg VG. LVM defaults to the PV method and you only have two PVs in that VG which is why your lvconvert failed.

The downside to using the memory based log is that your mirror will have to resync on every boot because LVM will not know the current state of the mirror.

The log size is very small since it only requires 1 bit per mirror region. The mirror region size defaults to 512K but can be changed with '--regionsize <size in MB>'.

If you use the PV log, be aware that prior to LVM2 2.02.44 the log size will be exactly 1 PE so you will want to increase the extent size on your PV when you create it and/or increase the region size on your mirror. Using the defaults for both will limit your mirror size to 16G (4K PE * 8 bits * 512K regionsize).

Hi just a note to possibly save others some time with regard to conversion of lvm2 (linear) logical volumes to mirrored volumes using lvconvert, eg, to implement raid1 redundancy on an existing linear lv.

Since about September 2013, the default mirror segment type in lvm2 has been 'raid1' (not 'mirror'). This makes '--corelog' and '--mirrorlog disk/core/mirrored' options inapplicable in this default case, because raid1 segment type always stores its logs (in fact, metadata subvolumes) on-disk on the same PVs as the lv being mirrored. You no-longer need a third pv for the log, or to store the log in-memory.

There are two further implications. First, the command to create the mirror is simplified, because there is only a need to specify the lv to be mirrored, and the (usually one) pv on which the mirror segment will be stored:

Code:

lvconvert -m1 /dev/my_vg/my_lv /dev/my_new_pv

Second, there are a couple of space considerations. You need to have:

obviously, space on the mirror pv to store the copy of the original lv
but also, 1 additional LE on the mirror pv, to store the log
AND ALSO (and this is the point I missed for some time), 1 additional LE on the original lv, to store the log (since the log is stored on BOTH the original pv and the new pv)

In some cases this third space requirement causes a problem because there is no space in the existing lv for even 1 new LE to be allocated for the log. In this case, you might get an error such as:

Code:

1 extents needed, but only 0 available

(unhelpfully not indicating that the LE is required on the original pv, not the new pv)

The remedy is to resize the existing lv (and other lvs on the same pv, and the underlying filesystems, if necessary) so that there is enough space on the existing lv to allocate 1 additional PE for the log. In my case, for example, my existing pv was completely full, so I had to:

resize each filesystem on the pv to make each slightly smaller (use resize2fs)
then resize each lv to make each slightly smaller to allow room for logs (use lvreduce)
and only then, use lvconvert to create the mirrors