[linux-lvm] Characters allowed for vg name

[linux-lvm] Characters allowed for vg name

[Gerrard Geldenhuis]

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Hi

I have a kickstart file which fails if I use an - character in the
vgname. Using a _ works fine. I did not see any reference to allowable
characters in the man pages. The man pages only makes mention off
allowable characters for tags.

 

Does anybody know what the allowable characters are for vg, pv and lv
names?

 

Regards


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Re: [linux-lvm] Characters allowed for vg name

[Bryn M. Reeves]

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Gerrard Geldenhuis wrote:
> Hi
> 
> I have a kickstart file which fails if I use an - character in the
> vgname. Using a _ works fine. I did not see any reference to allowable
> characters in the man pages. The man pages only makes mention off
> allowable characters for tags.
> 
> Does anybody know what the allowable characters are for vg, pv and lv names?

The '-' character is allowed:

# vgrename t0 t0-foo
  Volume group "t0" successfully renamed to "t0-foo"

Sounds like this is the installer enforcing an additional restriction.

What distribution/version are you using?

Regards,
Bryn.

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Re: [linux-lvm] Characters allowed for vg name

[Milan Broz]

Gerrard Geldenhuis wrote:
> I have a kickstart file which fails if I use an - character in the
> vgname. Using a _ works fine. I did not see any reference to allowable
> characters in the man pages. The man pages only makes mention off
> allowable characters for tags.

It's bug in kickstart processing - lvm allows '-' in vgname.

If using Fedora/RHEL/CentOS see
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=430907

Milan

--
mbroz@redhat.com

Re: [linux-lvm] Characters allowed for vg name

[Alasdair G Kergon]

On Wed, Mar 19, 2008 at 01:19:19PM -0000, Gerrard Geldenhuis wrote:
> I have a kickstart file which fails if I use an - character in the
> vgname. Using a _ works fine. 

Report a bug?

Hyphens are permitted *inside* VG and LV names, but not as the first
character.  There are also some reserved names you cannot use
because of existing /dev entries.  (E.g. a VG name of 'null' would clash
with '/dev/null' and '.' and '..' are also banned of course).

> Does anybody know what the allowable characters are for vg, pv and lv
> names?
 
VG/LV:
  a-zA-Z0-9+_.-

(PV names are simply filenames)

Alasdair
-- 
agk@redhat.com

RE: [linux-lvm] Characters allowed for vg name

[Gerrard Geldenhuis]

Thanks,
I did report it as a bug via Redhat support. I have ended up pasting the
mailinglist response in the support ticket after a week of no positive
response.

Would you aggree that a short note about allowable names should be added
to man lvm? If yes, then I don't mind creating a patch.

Regards

> -----Original Message-----
> From: linux-lvm-bounces@redhat.com
[mailto:linux-lvm-bounces@redhat.com]
> On Behalf Of Alasdair G Kergon
> Sent: 19 March 2008 13:39
> To: LVM general discussion and development
> Subject: Re: [linux-lvm] Characters allowed for vg name
> 
> On Wed, Mar 19, 2008 at 01:19:19PM -0000, Gerrard Geldenhuis wrote:
> > I have a kickstart file which fails if I use an - character in the
> > vgname. Using a _ works fine.
> 
> Report a bug?
> 
> Hyphens are permitted *inside* VG and LV names, but not as the first
> character.  There are also some reserved names you cannot use
> because of existing /dev entries.  (E.g. a VG name of 'null' would
clash
> with '/dev/null' and '.' and '..' are also banned of course).
> 
> > Does anybody know what the allowable characters are for vg, pv and
lv
> > names?
> 
> VG/LV:
>   a-zA-Z0-9+_.-
> 
> (PV names are simply filenames)
> 
> Alasdair
> --
> agk@redhat.com
> 
> _______________________________________________
> linux-lvm mailing list
> linux-lvm@redhat.com
> https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/linux-lvm
> read the LVM HOW-TO at http://tldp.org/HOWTO/LVM-HOWTO/

Re: [linux-lvm] Characters allowed for vg name

[Alasdair G Kergon]

On Wed, Mar 19, 2008 at 01:47:57PM -0000, Gerrard Geldenhuis wrote:
> I did report it as a bug via Redhat support. I have ended up pasting the
> mailinglist response in the support ticket after a week of no positive
> response.

Sorry for that: If you send me the ticket number privately I'll see that it's
progressed.

> Would you aggree that a short note about allowable names should be added
> to man lvm? If yes, then I don't mind creating a patch.

Here's a current summary of the rules (as added to bug 430907).


The characters allowed in VG and
LV names are:  a-z A-Z 0-9 + _ . -

Neither a VG nor an LV can begin with a hyphen.

There are also various reserved names.

A VG cannot be called anything that appears in 'ls /dev' at the time it is
created (including '.' and '..' of course).

An LV can also not be called '.' or '..'.
A new LV cannot begin with the strings 'snapshot' or 'pvmove'.
It may not contain the strings '_mlog' or '_mimage'.
Additional reserved strings are likely to be added over time.

Pre-existing LVs may be found with these names, and the tools will normally cope
adequately.  (Internally-generated LVs do use these reserved names - that's why
they are reserved.)



Alasdair
-- 
agk@redhat.com

Re: [linux-lvm] Characters allowed for vg name

[Stuart D. Gathman]

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On Wed, 19 Mar 2008, Alasdair G Kergon wrote:

> Pre-existing LVs may be found with these names, and the tools will normally
> cope adequately.  (Internally-generated LVs do use these reserved names -
> that's why they are reserved.)

I think that renaming is an excellent approach.  If a reserved name
is discovered when activating a VG, rename it to something legal but
recognizable.

I remember when this used to cause problems on AIX - because all LVs
had to be unique, so importing a foreign VG would rename all the common
LV names - very annoying.  But this is not a big problem with lvm2 because
only the VG needs to be unique.

- -- 
	      Stuart D. Gathman <stuart@bmsi.com>
    Business Management Systems Inc.  Phone: 703 591-0911 Fax: 703 591-6154
"Confutatis maledictis, flammis acribus addictis" - background song for
a Microsoft sponsored "Where do you want to go from here?" commercial.

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