VGSCAN(8)

📦
version 2.03.44 · 14 versions
, in arch rolling

💅 NAME 💅

okay so bestie, let me introduce you to vgscan — she searches for all volume groups. that's it. that's her whole thing, and she does it beautifully. ✨

(and for the record, this is a System Manager's Manual page, section 8 — the big system-admin section. main character energy only. 👑)

🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

vgscan [ option_args ]

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

vgscan goes around scanning all supported LVM block devices in the system hunting for VGs (volume groups). it's giving detective queen 🔍💖 — that's literally the entire job description, no cap.

🎀 USAGE 🎀

here's how you'd actually call her:

vgscan
       [ --ignorelockingfailure ]
       [ --mknodes ]
       [ --notifydbus ]
       [ --refresh ]
       [ --reportformat basic|json|json_std ]
       [ COMMON_OPTIONS ]

and these are the common options for lvm, the shared wardrobe that basically every lvm command gets to wear:

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 ✨

  • --commandprofile String — the command profile you want to use for command configuration. peep lvm.conf(5) for the full tea on profiles. 💜
  • --config String — config settings for the command, and these override whatever lvm.conf(5) was saying. the String arg uses the same format as lvm.conf(5), or you can go off-script with section/field syntax. more info in lvm.conf(5). 📝
  • -d, --debug ... — set debug level. repeat it anywhere from 1 to 6 times to crank up the detail of the messages sent to the log file and/or syslog (if that's even configured). yes bestie, more is more.
  • --devices PV — restricts which devices are visible and accessible to the command. anything you don't list will just look like it's missing (ghosted, honestly 👻). you can repeat this option, or hand it a comma-separated list of devices. it overrides the devices file.
  • --devicesfile String — a file listing the devices LVM should use. the file has to already 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 will not attempt to use device-mapper. strictly for testing and debugging, babe.
  • -h, --help — display help text. the classic. 🫶
  • --ignorelockingfailure — lets a command keep going with read-only metadata operations even after locking failures. she's forgiving like that.
  • --journal String — record information in the systemd journal. this info is in addition to whatever the lvm.conf log/journal setting already turned on. command: records information about the command. output: records the default command output. debug: records full command debugging.
  • --lockopt String — used to pass options for special cases over to lvmlockd. see lvmlockd(8) for more.
  • --longhelp — display long help text. the extended director's cut. ✨
  • --mknodes — also checks the LVM special files in /dev that are needed for active LVs, and creates any missing ones and removes any unused ones. also check out the additional --refresh option for use in a udev environment.
  • --nohints — do not use the hints file to locate devices for PVs. without hints, a command may end up reading more devices to find PVs. she'll still perform standard hint file invalidation where appropriate, don't worry.
  • --nolocking — disable locking. use with caution, because concurrent commands may produce incorrect results.
⚠️ fr fr, that one is not a vibe. concurrent commands + no locking = incorrect results. be careful.
  • --notifydbus — send a notification to D-Bus. the command will exit with an error if LVM was not built with support for D-Bus notification, or if the notify_dbus config setting is disabled. 💀
  • --profile String — an alias for --commandprofile or --metadataprofile, depending on the command.
  • -q, --quiet ... — suppress output and log messages. overrides --debug and --verbose. repeat it once to also suppress any prompts with answer 'no'. 🤫
  • --refresh — if the LV is active, reload its metadata. in an environment where udev is used to manage the /dev content, using this option is highly recommended — because refresh also regenerates udev events for an LV based on which existing udev rules are applied to set the /dev content and permissions. also, this operation may be useful if something has gone wrong, or if some form of manual LV sharing is being used. 🔥
  • --reportformat basic|json|json_std — overrides the current output format for reports, which is defined globally by the report/output_format setting in lvm.conf(5). 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. 🌈
  • -t, --test — 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. heads up: 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. 🙈
  • -v, --verbose ... — set verbose level. repeat from 1 to 4 times to increase the detail of messages sent to stdout and stderr.
  • --version — display version information. 🎀
  • -y, --yes — do not prompt for confirmation interactively, but always assume the answer is yes. use with extreme caution. (for automatic no, see -qq.)

🧚 VARIABLES 🧚

  • String — see the option description for information about the string content.
  • 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 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. (and no, bestie, don't confuse this with the output control --units, where capital letters mean multiples of 1000. two totally different girls. 💅)

🌟 ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES 🌟

see lvm(8) for information about environment variables used by lvm. for example, LVM_VG_NAME can generally be substituted for a required VG parameter. 💖

🔗 SEE ALSO 🔗

and that's the whole page, bestie!! 🫶 this one was brought to you by Red Hat, Inc. — LVM TOOLS 2.03.44(2), dated 2026-10-27. a true icon, periodt. 💖✨👑

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