LVMDUMP(8)

💖 LVMDUMP(8) 💖

okay bestie, welcome to lvmdump — yes it's section 8 of the System Manager's Manual, and yes it's about to be your new fave diagnostic bestie 🎀

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✨ NAME ✨

lvmdump — Create lvm2 information dumps for diagnostic purposes 🩺

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🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

lvmdump [-A] [-a] [-c] [-d directory] [-h] [-m] [-p] [-s] [-u]

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🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

so basically? lvmdump is the tool that dumps all kinds of info about LVM2 for you. By default it makes a tarball that's literally made to be submitted alongside a problem report. it's giving "here's everything, please help me" energy and honestly? iconic. 💅

The content of that tarball is as follows:

• dmsetup info
• table of currently running processes
• recent entries from /var/log/messages (containing system messages)
• complete lvm configuration and cache (content of /etc/lvm)
• list of device nodes present under /dev
• list of files present in /sys/block
• list of files present in /sys/devices/virtual/block
• if enabled with -m, metadata dump will also be included
• if enabled with -a, debug output of vgscan, pvscan and list of all available volume groups, physical volumes and logical volumes will be included
• if enabled with -c, lvmlockd state and DLM info if running
• if enabled with -p, lvmpolld state if running
• if enabled with -s, system info and context
• if enabled with -u, udev info and context

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💅 OPTIONS 💅

• -A — Collect everything. Enables all optional collection flags (-a, -c, -m, -p, -s, -u).

⚠️ WARNING: This includes advanced collection (-a) which issues LVM commands that may hang or deadlock if LVM is already unresponsive. The metadata dump (-m) reads raw disk headers from all physical volumes, which can hang on unreachable or failing storage and can also significantly increase the dump size. Use this option only when a comprehensive dump is specifically needed for diagnosis and the system is in a state where issuing LVM commands and disk I/O is considered safe. 🫶

• -a — Advanced collection.

⚠️ WARNING: if lvm is already hung, then this script may hang as well if -a is used. bestie pls be careful 😭

• -c — Gather lvmlockd(8) state and DLM info if running.
• -d directory — Dump into a directory instead of a tarball. By default, lvmdump will produce a single compressed tarball containing all the information. Using this option, it can be instructed to only produce the raw dump tree, rooted in directory. 🗂️
• -h — Print help message.
• -m — Gather LVM metadata from the PVs. This option generates a 1:1 dump of the metadata area from all PVs visible to the system, which can cause the dump to increase in size considerably. However, the metadata dump may represent a valuable diagnostic resource. 👑
• -p — Include lvmpolld(8) daemon dump if it is running. The dump contains all in-progress operations currently monitored by the daemon and partial history for all yet uncollected results of polling operations already finished, including the reason for finishing. 🔥
• -s — Gather system info and context. Currently, this encompasses info gathered by calling lsblk command and various systemd info and context: overall state of systemd units present in the system, more detailed status of units controlling LVM functionality and the content of systemd journal for current boot. ✨
• -u — Gather udev info and context: /etc/udev/udev.conf file, udev daemon version (output of 'udevadm info --version' command), udev rules currently used in the system (content of /lib/udev/rules.d and /etc/udev/rules.d directory), list of files in /lib/udev directory and dump of current udev database content (the output of 'udevadm info --export-db' command). 🌈

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🧚 ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES 🧚

• LVM_BINARY — The LVM2 binary to use. Defaults to "lvm". Sometimes you might need to set this to "/usr/bin/lvm.static", for example. 💜
• DMSETUP_BINARY — The dmsetup binary to use. Defaults to "dmsetup".
• LVMLOCKCTL_BINARY — The lvmlockctl binary to use. Defaults to "lvmlockctl".
• LVM_LVMPOLLD_SOCKET — The lvmpolld socket path to use. Defaults to "/var/run/lvm/lvmpolld.socket".

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🫶 SEE ALSO 🫶

lvm(8), lvmpolld(8), dmsetup(8),

udev(8), udevadm(8)

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and that's the whole vibe check, bestie 💖 this page came to you from Red Hat, Inc., and it's part of LVM TOOLS 2.03.44(2) dated 2026-10-27 — slay, go dump some info, and remember: read the warnings before you -A anything, periodt. 🎀💅🦋