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5.3.15. Moving a Volume Group to Another System

You can move an entire LVM volume group to another system. It is recommended that you use the vgexport and vgimport commands when you do this.

Note

As of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5, you can use the --force argument of the vgimport command. This allows you to import volume groups that are missing physical volumes and subsequently run the vgreduce --removemissing command.
The vgexport command makes an inactive volume group inaccessible to the system, which allows you to detach its physical volumes. The vgimport command makes a volume group accessible to a machine again after the vgexport command has made it inactive.
To move a volume group form one system to another, perform the following steps:
  1. Make sure that no users are accessing files on the active volumes in the volume group, then unmount the logical volumes.
  2. Use the -a n argument of the vgchange command to mark the volume group as inactive, which prevents any further activity on the volume group.
  3. Use the vgexport command to export the volume group. This prevents it from being accessed by the system from which you are removing it.
    After you export the volume group, the physical volume will show up as being in an exported volume group when you execute the pvscan command, as in the following example. 
    # pvscan
  PV /dev/sda1    is in exported VG myvg [17.15 GB / 7.15 GB free]
  PV /dev/sdc1    is in exported VG myvg [17.15 GB / 15.15 GB free]
  PV /dev/sdd1   is in exported VG myvg [17.15 GB / 15.15 GB free]
  ...
    When the system is next shut down, you can unplug the disks that constitute the volume group and connect them to the new system.
  4. When the disks are plugged into the new system, use the vgimport command to import the volume group, making it accessible to the new system.
  5. Activate the volume group with the -a y argument of the vgchange command.
  6. Mount the file system to make it available for use.
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