NAME

vgexport - Unregister volume group(s) from the system

SYNOPSIS

vgexport option_args position_args
[ option_args ]

DESCRIPTION

vgexport changes a VG into the exported state, which ensures that the VG and its disks are not being used, and cannot be used until the VG is imported by vgimport(8). Putting a VG into an unusable, offline state can be useful when doing things like moving a VG's disks to another system. Exporting a VG provides some protection from its LVs being accidentally used, or being used by an automated system before it's ready.

A VG cannot be exported until all of its LVs are inactive.

LVM commands will ignore an exported VG or report an error if a command tries to use it.

For an exported VG, the vgs command will display attribute, and the pvs command will display attribute. Both vgs and pvs will display report field.

vgexport clears the VG system ID, and vgimport sets the VG system ID to match the host running vgimport (if the host has a system ID).

USAGE

Export specified VGs.

vgexport VG|Tag|Select ...

[ -S|--select String ]
[ COMMON_OPTIONS ]

Export all VGs.

vgexport -a|--all

[ COMMON_OPTIONS ]

Common options for command:

[ --reportformat basic|json ]

Common options for lvm:

OPTIONS

-a|--all

--commandprofile String
The command profile to use for command configuration. See lvm.conf(5) for more information about profiles.

--config String
Config settings for the command. These override lvm.conf settings. The String arg uses the same format as lvm.conf, or may use section/field syntax. See lvm.conf(5) for more information about config.

-d|--debug ...
Set debug level. Repeat from 1 to 6 times to increase the detail of messages sent to the log file and/or syslog (if configured).

--driverloaded y|n
If set to no, the command will not attempt to use device-mapper. For testing and debugging.

-h|--help
Display help text.

--lockopt String
Used to pass options for special cases to lvmlockd. See lvmlockd(8) for more information.

--longhelp
Display long help text.

--nolocking
Disable locking.

--profile String
An alias for --commandprofile or --metadataprofile, depending on the command.

-q|--quiet ...
Suppress output and log messages. Overrides --debug and --verbose. Repeat once to also suppress any prompts with answer 'no'.

--reportformat basic|json
Overrides current output format for reports which is defined globally by the report/output_format setting in lvm.conf. basic is the original format with columns and rows. If there is more than one report per command, each report is prefixed with the report name for identification. json produces report output in JSON format. See lvmreport(7) for more information.

-S|--select String
Select objects for processing and reporting based on specified criteria. The criteria syntax is described by --select help and lvmreport(7). For reporting commands, one row is displayed for each object matching the criteria. See --options help for selectable object fields. Rows can be displayed with an additional "selected" field (-o selected) showing 1 if the row matches the selection and 0 otherwise. For non-reporting commands which process LVM entities, the selection is used to choose items to process.

-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. 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 yes. Use with extreme caution. (For automatic no, see -qq.)

VARIABLES

VG
Volume Group name. See lvm(8) for valid names.

Tag
Tag name. See lvm(8) for information about tag names and using tags in place of a VG, LV or PV.

Select
Select indicates that a required positional parameter can be omitted if the --select option is used. No arg appears in this position.

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 other possible input units: bBsSkKmMgGtTpPeE. 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. (This should not be confused with the output control --units, where capital letters mean multiple of 1000.)

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.