.TH LVREMOVE 8 "LVM TOOLS #VERSION#" "Red Hat, Inc."
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.SH NAME
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lvremove \(em Remove logical volume(s) from the system
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.SH SYNOPSIS
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\fBlvremove\fP \fIposition_args\fP
.br
    [ \fIoption_args\fP ]
.br
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.SH DESCRIPTION
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lvremove removes one or more LVs. For standard LVs, this returns the
logical extents that were used by the LV to the VG for use by other LVs.
.P
Confirmation will be requested before deactivating any active LV prior to
removal.  LVs cannot be deactivated or removed while they are open (e.g.
if they contain a mounted filesystem). Removing an origin LV will also
remove all dependent snapshots.
.P
When a single force option is used, LVs are removed without confirmation,
and the command will try to deactivate unused LVs.
.P
To remove damaged LVs, two force options may be required (\fB-ff\fP).
.P
\fBHistorical LVs\fP
.P
If the configuration setting \fBmetadata/record_lvs_history\fP is enabled
and the LV being removed forms part of the history of at least one LV that
is still present, then a simplified representation of the LV will be
retained. This includes the time of removal (\fBlv_time_removed\fP
reporting field), creation time (\fBlv_time\fP), name (\fBlv_name\fP), LV
uuid (\fBlv_uuid\fP) and VG name (\fBvg_name\fP). This allows later
reporting to see the ancestry chain of thin snapshot volumes, even after
some intermediate LVs have been removed. The names of such historical LVs
acquire a hyphen as a prefix (e.g. '-lvol1') and cannot be reactivated.
Use lvremove a second time, with the hyphen, to remove the record of the
former LV completely.
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.SH USAGE
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\fBlvremove\fP \fIVG\fP|\fILV\fP|\fITag\fP|\fISelect\fP ...
.br
.RS 4
.ad l
[ \fB-A\fP|\fB--autobackup\fP \fBy\fP|\fBn\fP ]
.br
[ \fB-f\fP|\fB--force\fP ]
.br
[ \fB-S\fP|\fB--select\fP \fIString\fP ]
.br
[    \fB--nohistory\fP ]
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[    \fB--noudevsync\fP ]
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[    \fB--reportformat\fP \fBbasic\fP|\fBjson\fP|\fBjson_std\fP ]
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[ COMMON_OPTIONS ]
.ad b
.RE
.P
Common options for lvm:
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.RS 4
.ad l
[ \fB-d\fP|\fB--debug\fP ]
.br
[ \fB-h\fP|\fB--help\fP ]
.br
[ \fB-q\fP|\fB--quiet\fP ]
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[ \fB-t\fP|\fB--test\fP ]
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[ \fB-v\fP|\fB--verbose\fP ]
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[ \fB-y\fP|\fB--yes\fP ]
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[    \fB--commandprofile\fP \fIString\fP ]
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[    \fB--config\fP \fIString\fP ]
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[    \fB--devices\fP \fIPV\fP ]
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[    \fB--devicesfile\fP \fIString\fP ]
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[    \fB--driverloaded\fP \fBy\fP|\fBn\fP ]
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[    \fB--journal\fP \fIString\fP ]
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[    \fB--lockopt\fP \fIString\fP ]
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[    \fB--longhelp\fP ]
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[    \fB--nohints\fP ]
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[    \fB--nolocking\fP ]
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[    \fB--profile\fP \fIString\fP ]
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[    \fB--version\fP ]
.ad b
.RE
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.SH OPTIONS
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.HP
\fB-A\fP|\fB--autobackup\fP \fBy\fP|\fBn\fP
.br
Specifies if metadata should be backed up automatically after a change.
Enabling this is strongly advised! See \fBvgcfgbackup\fP(8) for more information.
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.HP
\fB--commandprofile\fP \fIString\fP
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The command profile to use for command configuration.
See \fBlvm.conf\fP(5) for more information about profiles.
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.HP
\fB--config\fP \fIString\fP
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Config settings for the command. These override \fBlvm.conf\fP(5) settings.
The String arg uses the same format as \fBlvm.conf\fP(5),
or may use section/field syntax.
See \fBlvm.conf\fP(5) for more information about config.
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.HP
\fB-d\fP|\fB--debug\fP ...
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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).
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.HP
\fB--devices\fP \fIPV\fP
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Restricts the devices that are visible and accessible to the command.
Devices not listed will appear to be missing. This option can be
repeated, or accepts a comma separated list of devices. This overrides
the devices file.
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.HP
\fB--devicesfile\fP \fIString\fP
.br
A file listing devices that LVM should use.
The file must exist in \fI#DEFAULT_SYS_DIR#/devices/\fP and is managed
with the \fBlvmdevices\fP(8) command.
This overrides the \fBlvm.conf\fP(5) \fBdevices/devicesfile\fP and
\fBdevices/use_devicesfile\fP settings.
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.HP
\fB--driverloaded\fP \fBy\fP|\fBn\fP
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If set to no, the command will not attempt to use device-mapper.
For testing and debugging.
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.HP
\fB-f\fP|\fB--force\fP ...
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Override various checks, confirmations and protections.
Use with extreme caution.
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.HP
\fB-h\fP|\fB--help\fP
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Display help text.
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.HP
\fB--journal\fP \fIString\fP
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Record information in the systemd journal.
This information 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.
debug: record full command debugging.
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.HP
\fB--lockopt\fP \fIString\fP
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Used to pass options for special cases to lvmlockd.
See \fBlvmlockd\fP(8) for more information.
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.HP
\fB--longhelp\fP
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Display long help text.
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.HP
\fB--nohints\fP
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Do not use the hints file to locate devices for PVs. A command may read
more devices to find PVs when hints are not used. The command will still
perform standard hint file invalidation where appropriate.
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.HP
\fB--nohistory\fP
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Do not record history of LVs being removed.
This has no effect unless the configuration setting
metadata/record_lvs_history is enabled.
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.HP
\fB--nolocking\fP
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Disable locking. Use with caution, concurrent commands may produce
incorrect results.
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.HP
\fB--noudevsync\fP
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Disables udev synchronization. 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.
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.HP
\fB--profile\fP \fIString\fP
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An alias for --commandprofile or --metadataprofile, depending
on the command.
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.HP
\fB-q\fP|\fB--quiet\fP ...
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Suppress output and log messages. Overrides --debug and --verbose.
Repeat once to also suppress any prompts with answer 'no'.
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.HP
\fB--reportformat\fP \fBbasic\fP|\fBjson\fP|\fBjson_std\fP
.br
Overrides current output format for reports which is defined globally by
the report/output_format setting in \fBlvm.conf\fP(5).
\fBbasic\fP 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. \fBjson\fP produces report
output in JSON format. \fBjson_std\fP produces report output in
JSON format which is more compliant with JSON standard.
See \fBlvmreport\fP(7) for more information.
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.HP
\fB-S\fP|\fB--select\fP \fIString\fP
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Select objects for processing and reporting based on specified criteria.
The criteria syntax is described by \fB--select help\fP and \fBlvmreport\fP(7).
For reporting commands, one row is displayed for each object matching the criteria.
See \fB--options help\fP for selectable object fields.
Rows can be displayed with an additional "selected" field (-o selected)
showing 1 if the row matches the selection and 0 otherwise.
For non-reporting commands which process LVM entities, the selection is
used to choose items to process.
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.HP
\fB-t\fP|\fB--test\fP
.br
Run in test mode. Commands will not update metadata.
This is implemented by disabling all metadata writing but nevertheless
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.
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.HP
\fB-v\fP|\fB--verbose\fP ...
.br
Set verbose level. Repeat from 1 to 4 times to increase the detail
of messages sent to stdout and stderr.
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.HP
\fB--version\fP
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Display version information.
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.HP
\fB-y\fP|\fB--yes\fP
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Do not prompt for confirmation interactively but always assume the
answer yes. Use with extreme caution.
(For automatic no, see -qq.)
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.SH VARIABLES
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.TP
.I VG
Volume Group name.  See \fBlvm\fP(8) for valid names.
.TP
.I LV
Logical Volume name.  See \fBlvm\fP(8) for valid names.
An LV positional arg generally includes the VG name and LV name, e.g. VG/LV.
.TP
.I Tag
Tag name.  See \fBlvm\fP(8) for information about tag names and using tags
in place of a VG, LV or PV.
.TP
.I Select
Select indicates that a required positional parameter can
be omitted if the \fB--select\fP option is used.
No arg appears in this position.
.TP
.I String
See the option description for information about the string content.
.TP
.IR Size [UNIT]
Size is an input number that accepts an optional unit.
Input 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:
.BR b | B
is bytes,
.BR s | S
is sectors of 512 bytes,
.BR k | K
is KiB,
.BR m | M
is MiB,
.BR g | G
is GiB,
.BR t | T
is TiB,
.BR p | P
is PiB,
.BR e | E
is EiB.
(This should not be confused with the output control --units, where
capital letters mean multiple of 1000.)
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.SH ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
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See \fBlvm\fP(8) for information about environment variables used by lvm.
For example, LVM_VG_NAME can generally be substituted for a required VG parameter.