[linux-lvm] How to 'copy' a volume?

[Erich Weiler <weiler@soe.ucsc.edu>]

Greetings all-

I have a problem I'm trying to solve, was hoping someone would know how 
to get around it...

I have a 2TB volume group, and one 500GB volume in it.  There is a Xen 
VM in that volume group.  What I'd like to do is 'copy' the volume and 
name it something else so I can use it as a 'template' for other VMs.

I know that LVM has the 'snapshot' capability.  But this doesn't look 
like it's what I need, as I don't want my duplicate volume to have any 
affiliation with the original at all.  I actually want to duplicate VM 
to take up just as much space as the first and be completely independent 
of any changes on the first.  Is there a way of achieving this?  Could I 
maybe simply make sure the volume is unmounted and not in use, then copy 
the /dev/mapper/myvolume file to something else?  I bet it's more 
involved than that...  :)

Thanks in advance for any info!!

-erich