LVSCAN(8)

📦
version 2.03.44 · 14 versions
, in arch rolling

💅 LVSCAN — it's in the (8) System Manager's Manual, bestie ✨

🦋 NAME

lvscan — literally just list all logical volumes in all volume groups, no cap 💖

🌸 SYNOPSIS

lvscan [ option_args ]

💖 DESCRIPTION

Okay so picture this: lvscan goes around scanning every VG in the system, or every supported LVM block device, hunting for LVs 👀. And what do you get back? One line per LV — showing whether it's active or not, whether it's a snapshot or an origin, the size of the device, and its allocation policy. That's the whole tea. ☕

But if you want the full lore — the comprehensive deep-dive on your LVs — you gotta use lvs(8) or lvdisplay(8) instead. lvscan is giving quick-glance energy, not whole-essay energy 🫶

✨ USAGE ✨

lvscan
       [ -a|--all ]
       [ --ignorelockingfailure ]
       [ --readonly ]
       [ --reportformat basic|json|json_std ]
       [ COMMON_OPTIONS ]

—

Common options for lvm 👑:

[ -d|--debug ... ]
[ -h|--help ]
[ -q|--quiet ... ]
[ -t|--test ]
[ -v|--verbose ... ]
[ -y|--yes ]
[ --commandprofile String ]
[ --config String ]
[ --devices PV ]
[ --devicesfile String ]
[ --driverloaded y|n ]
[ --journal String ]
[ --lockopt String ]
[ --longhelp ]
[ --nohints ]
[ --nolocking ]
[ --profile String ]
[ --version ]

👑 OPTIONS 👑

  • -a, --all — spill the tea on the internal LVs too 🫣. These are the components of normal LVs — like mirrors — that you can't reach on their own, i.e. not independently accessible, e.g. not mountable.
  • --commandprofile String — the command profile to use for command configuration. Wanna know what profiles even are? See lvm.conf(5), it explains it all 💜
  • --config String — config settings for the command, and these override the lvm.conf(5) settings. The String arg uses the same format as lvm.conf(5), or it can use section/field syntax. Again: lvm.conf(5) for the deets on config 🎀
  • -d, --debug ... — sets the debug level. Repeat it anywhere from 1 to 6 times to crank up how detailed the messages sent to the log file and/or syslog (if configured) get 🔥
  • --devices PV — restricts which devices are visible and accessible to the command. Any device you don't list will just show up as missing. You can repeat this option, or hand it a comma-separated list of devices. Heads up: this overrides the devices file 💀
  • --devicesfile String — a file listing the devices LVM should use. The file must exist in /etc/lvm/devices/ and it's managed with the lvmdevices(8) command. This overrides the lvm.conf(5) devices/devicesfile and devices/use_devicesfile settings 🦋
  • --driverloaded y|n — if you set it to no, the command won't even try to use device-mapper. It's for testing and debugging 🧚
  • -h, --help — displays help text. Your bestie when you're lost 💖
  • --ignorelockingfailure — lets a command keep going with read-only metadata operations even after locking failures 🙈
  • --journal String — records information in the systemd journal. This is in addition to whatever the lvm.conf log/journal setting already turns on. Your options: command: records info about the command. output: records the default command output. debug: records full command debugging ✨
  • --lockopt String — used to pass options for special cases to lvmlockd. See lvmlockd(8) for more 🌸
  • --longhelp — displays long help text. The extended cut 🎬
  • --nohints — don't use the hints file to locate devices for PVs. When hints aren't used, a command may have to read more devices to find PVs. It'll still do standard hint file invalidation where appropriate, don't worry 💅
  • --nolocking — disables locking. Use with caution bestie, concurrent commands may produce incorrect results 😭
  • --profile String — an alias for --commandprofile or --metadataprofile, depending on the command 👑
  • -q, --quiet ... — suppresses output and log messages. It overrides --debug and --verbose. Repeat it once to also suppress any prompts with answer 'no' 🤫
  • --readonly — prevents the command from making changes, including activation and metadata updates. (See --permission r for read only LVs.) 🫶
  • --reportformat basic|json|json_std — overrides the current output format for reports, which is normally defined globally by the report/output_format setting in lvm.conf(5). Here's the breakdown: basic is the original format with columns and rows — and if there's more than one report per command, each report gets prefixed with the report name for identification. json produces report output in JSON format. json_std produces report output in JSON format that's more compliant with the JSON standard. See lvmreport(7) for more info 🌈
  • -t, --test — runs in test mode. Commands will not update metadata. How's it work? It disables all metadata writing but still returns success to the calling function anyway 😅. Warning: this may lead to unusual error messages in multi-stage operations if a tool relies on reading back metadata it believes has changed but actually hasn't. It's giving gaslighting fr fr 💀
  • -v, --verbose ... — sets the verbose level. Repeat it anywhere from 1 to 4 times to increase the detail of messages sent to stdout and stderr 🔥
  • --version — displays version information ⭐
  • -y, --yes — don't prompt for confirmation interactively, just always assume the answer is yes. Use with extreme caution 😭. (For automatic no, see -qq.)

🎀 VARIABLES 🎀

  • String — see the option description for info about what the string content is 💜
  • Size[UNIT] — Size is an input number that accepts an optional unit. Input units are always treated as base two values, regardless of capitalization — so for example 'k' and 'K' both refer to 1024. The default input unit is specified by letter, followed by |UNIT. And UNIT represents the other possible input units: b|B is bytes, s|S is sectors of 512 bytes, k|K is KiB, m|M is MiB, g|G is GiB, t|T is TiB, p|P is PiB, e|E is EiB. 🦋
Don't get this confused with the output control --units, where capital letters mean multiple of 1000. Different vibe entirely, iykyk 👀

🌈 ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES 🌈

See lvm(8) for the info about environment variables used by lvm. For example, LVM_VG_NAME can generally be substituted for a required VG parameter ✨

💖 SEE ALSO 💖

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

pvchange(8), pvck(8), pvcreate(8), pvdisplay(8), pvmove(8), pvremove(8), pvresize(8), pvs(8), pvscan(8),

vgcfgbackup(8), vgcfgrestore(8), vgchange(8), vgck(8), vgcreate(8), vgconvert(8), vgdisplay(8), vgexport(8), vgextend(8), vgimport(8), vgimportclone(8), vgimportdevices(8), vgmerge(8), vgmknodes(8), vgreduce(8), vgremove(8), vgrename(8), vgs(8), vgscan(8), vgsplit(8),

lvcreate(8), lvchange(8), lvconvert(8), lvdisplay(8), lvextend(8), lvreduce(8), lvremove(8), lvrename(8), lvresize(8), lvs(8), lvscan(8),

lvm-fullreport(8), lvm-lvpoll(8), blkdeactivate(8), lvmdump(8),

dmeventd(8), lvmpolld(8), lvmlockd(8), lvmlockctl(8), lvmdbusd(8), fsadm(8),

lvmsystemid(7), lvmreport(7), lvmcache(7), lvmraid(7), lvmthin(7), lvmvdo(7), lvmautoactivation(7)

okay that's the whole page bestie, go scan some LVs 💅✨

Brought to you by Red Hat, Inc. — LVM TOOLS 2.03.44(2), dated 2026-10-27 🎀🫶 That's the version, that's the source, that's the date, slay.

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