LVM_IMPORT_VDO(8)

📦
version 2.03.44 · 11 versions
, in arch rolling

💖 LVM_IMPORT_VDO 💖

okay bestie, this is the lvm_import_vdo page from the System Manager's Manual — it's the glow-up manual for moving your VDO volumes into lvm2, and honestly? iconic behaviour.

✨ NAME ✨

lvm_import_vdo — the utility that imports VDO volumes into a brand new volume group 🫶

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

lvm_import_vdo [options] device

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

So here's the tea, bestie. The lvm_import_vdo utility takes VDO volumes that were created and managed by the vdo(8) manager and imports them into a VDO LV managed by lvm2(8). ✨

How does it do it? It moves the VDO superblock by 2 MiB and then creates LVM2 metadata at the front of the device. That's the whole move. 💅

🚨 READ THIS, FR FR: the operation is not reversible. Not even a little. So after conversion to LVM2, the ONLY way to access your VDO data is with lvm2(8) commands, and the vdo(8) manager no longer controls that volume. Periodt. You've been warned. 😭

💅 OPTIONS 💅

  • -f, --force — bypasses some sanity checks. like, just yolo past them 🙈
  • -h, --help — shows you the help text. adorable, we love a self-aware tool ✨
  • -n, --name — sets the name of the converted VDO LV. If you don't give a name, one gets picked automatically. Now here's the detail that matters: if the converted VDO volume is already using an LV as a backend device, then that LV's name is used for the VDO LV — and in that case, the name of the volume group must also stay the same. Also, the automatic name may change between releases and currently selects "vdolv" as the LV name, and the VG name is selected from the sequence "vdovg", "vdovg1", ...
  • -v, --verbose — be more verbose. give me the lore 📖
  • -y, --yes — answers "yes" at any prompts. no more tapping, just send it 💅
  • --dry-run — prints a shell-escaped preview of commands without running any storage-changing commands. a little dress rehearsal, no commitment 🎀
  • --no-snapshot — with this option, the conversion tool will not use a snapshot (COW storage) for conversion in your $TMPDIR filesystem, and will directly manipulate the VDO device in-place.
⚠️ Warning, and I mean it: using a snapshot makes the whole conversion transactional, and the snapshot can simply be merged once the conversion has completed successfully. If an error occurs, the snapshot is just removed. Without a snapshot, there is a higher risk of problems with recoverability in case some unexpected error occurs. so, your call, but know what you're choosing 💀
  • --vdo-config — specifies the configuration file for the vdo manager. 🔧

🌈 DIAGNOSTICS 🌈

On successful completion, the status code is 0. 🎉 A status code of 1 is used for failure. 😭

⭐ EXAMPLES ⭐

Convert a VDO volume created by the vdo manager into logical volume LV1 within volume group VG1.

# lvm_import_vdo --name VG1/LV1 /dev/mapper/vdo-volume

💜 ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES 💜

  • TMPDIR — the temporary directory name for mount points. Defaults to "/tmp".
  • DM_DEV_DIR — the device directory name. Defaults to "/dev" and must be an absolute path.
  • DM_UUID_PREFIX — specify a UUID prefix for the snapshot volume used during VDO conversion.
  • LVM_BINARY — overrides the command used to run lvm. Defaults to "lvm".
  • VDO_BINARY — overrides the command used to run vdo. Defaults to "vdo".

🫶 SEE ALSO 🫶

lvm(8), lvm.conf(5),

vdo(8)

aaaand that's the whole page, bestie 💖 this one's LVM_IMPORT_VDO(8) from Red Hat, Inc., part of LVM TOOLS 2.03.44(2) and dated 2026-10-27. go forth and import responsibly, mwah 😘✨

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