Hello, I'm hoping someone has an idea on how to go about working around
this better.
I've run into issues working with lvm2, vgrename several times now in
the past. I've got a bit more time now so I thought I'd reach out to see
if there was another way of doing this.
Sometimes its necessary to access a volume group that has a naming
conflict on the system being used, its usually during a temporary
procedure and attaching the drive creates a temporary naming conflict,
the volumes are listed as inactive and you need to access the data
(often to create an emergency backup). You can easily change the name
with vgrename and rescan to access the volumes, but to undo those
changes it is problematic.
To revert the change usually requires additional time, and then the
vgrename changes after rebooting into a recovery environment to undo the
rename.
Even with the volumes deactivated, as long as the volume group conflict
remains, vgrename will not set the name to a conflicting name even with
the force flag set (i.e. when referencing the volume using UUID).
The issue has been common enough that when I set up systems that use
lvm2 I usually just randomize the volume group names with output from
uuidgen but this does not help me much when the system isn't set up by
me initially.
vgrename fails to change the groupname for a set of volumes referenced
by UUID to a name that it knows is in conflict with any of the existing
previously scanned volume group names.
Systems using encryption at-rest often will fail to boot if the volume
group name has been changed, and this can all add up to quite a bit of
additional time needed when resolving any issues. Even more time when a
disk subsystem needs to go through a set startup sequence after each
shutdown/restart (~10-15m).
Is there a way to temporarily rename (without actually renaming) the
volume groups (i.e. like setting a mask for the volume group names), or
is there a way to force vgrename to actually make the change even if
there is an existing conflict (preferably without a reboot)?
The force flag in the documentation fails to make any changes, I ran a
test to confirm just recently and confirmed this is still an issue. In
most cases, the conflict, is with a root volume on the system being used
so its often either not possible, or expedient to rename that volume
group to resolve the naming conflict.
Appreciate any help you all can provide.
Best Regards,
Nathan Singer
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