VGCHANGE(8)						      System Manager's Manual						       VGCHANGE(8)

NAME

       vgchange - change attributes of a volume group

SYNOPSIS

       vgchange  [-A|--autobackup  {y|n}]  [-a|--available  {y|n}]  [-d|--debug] [-h|--help] [-l|--logicalvolume MaxLogicalVolumes] [-v|--verbose]
       [--version] [-x|--allocation {y|n}] [VolumeGroupName...]

DESCRIPTION

       vgchange allows you to change the attributes of one or more volume groups.  Its main purpose is to activate and deactivate VolumeGroupName,
       or  all	volume	groups	if none is specified.  Only active volume groups are subject to changes and allow access to their logical volumes.
       During volume group activation, if vgchange recognizes snapshot logical volumes which were dropped because they ran out of space,  it  dis-
       plays a message informing the administrator that such snapshots should be removed (see lvremove(8)).

   OPTIONS
       -A, --autobackup{y|n}
	      Controls automatic backup of metadata after the change.  See vgcfgbackup (8).  Default is yes.

       -a, --available{y|n}
	      Controls the availability of the volume group for input/output.  In other words: makes a volume group known/unknown to the kernel.

       -d, --debug
	      Enables additional debugging output (if compiled with DEBUG).

       -h, --help
	      Print a usage message on standard output and exit successfully.

       -l, --logicalvolume MaxLogicalVolumes
	      Changes the maximum logical volume number of an existing inactive volume group.

       -v, --verbose
	      Displays verbose runtime information about vgchange's activities.

       --version
	      Displays tool and IOP version and exit successfully.

       -x, --allocation{y|n}
	      Enables or disables the extension/reduction of this volume group with/by physical volumes.

EXAMPLES

       To activate all known volume groups in the system:

	    vgchange -a y

       To change the maximum number of logical volumes of inactive volume group vg00 to 128.

	    vgchange -l 128 /dev/vg00

DIAGNOSTICS

       vgchange returns an exit code of 0 for success and > 0 for error:

       1  error writing VGDA to physical volume(s)
       2  error changing extensibility of volume group
       3  error doing backup of VGDA
       4  extension of MaxLogicalVolume would cause overlapped physical extents
       5  error backup of volume group metadata
       6  error copying volume group metadata to work file
       7  error creating volume group directory and special files
       8  error removing volume group directory and special files

       95 driver/module not in kernel
       96 invalid I/O protocol version
       97 error locking logical volume manager
       98 invalid lvmtab (run vgscan(8))
       99 invalid command line
       If volume groups can't be activated, run vgscan(8) and retry.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

       LVM_AUTOBACKUP
	      If this variable is set to "no" then the automatic backup of VG metadata is turned off.

       LVM_VG_MAX_BACKUPS
	      This  variable  determines  the  backup  history	depth of kept VGDA copy files in /etc/lvmconf.	It can be set to a positive number
	      between 0 and 999.  The higher this number is, the more changes you can restore using vgcfgrestore(8).

SEE ALSO

       lvm(8), vgcreate(8)

AUTHOR

       Heinz Mauelshagen <Linux-LVM@Sistina.com>

Heinz Mauelshagen						     LVM TOOLS							       VGCHANGE(8)