LVM (Logical Volume Manager) abstracts physical storage into flexible logical volumes that can be resized, snapshotted, and migrated without downtime. It is ideal for servers where storage requirements change over time. This guide configures LVM on Ubuntu 26.04 LTS.

Tested and valid on:

Ubuntu 26.04 LTS

Prerequisites

Ubuntu 26.04 LTS
One or more physical disks or partitions available
A user with sudo privileges

Step 1 – Install LVM Tools

sudo apt update
sudo apt install lvm2 -y

Step 2 – Identify Available Disks

sudo lsblk
sudo fdisk -l | grep -E '^Disk /dev'

Step 3 – Create Physical Volumes

sudo pvcreate /dev/sdb /dev/sdc
sudo pvs

Step 4 – Create a Volume Group

sudo vgcreate datavg /dev/sdb /dev/sdc
sudo vgs

Step 5 – Create Logical Volumes

sudo lvcreate -L 50G -n datalv datavg
sudo lvcreate -l 100%FREE -n backuplv datavg
sudo lvs

Step 6 – Format and Mount

sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/datavg/datalv
sudo mkdir -p /mnt/data
sudo mount /dev/datavg/datalv /mnt/data

Make permanent in /etc/fstab:

echo '/dev/datavg/datalv /mnt/data ext4 defaults 0 2' | sudo tee -a /etc/fstab

Step 7 – Extend a Logical Volume

# Add physical volume first if needed:
sudo pvcreate /dev/sdd
sudo vgextend datavg /dev/sdd
# Extend the LV and resize the filesystem:
sudo lvextend -L +20G /dev/datavg/datalv
sudo resize2fs /dev/datavg/datalv

Step 8 – Take an LVM Snapshot

sudo lvcreate -L 5G -s -n datalv-snap /dev/datavg/datalv
sudo lvs

Conclusion

LVM is configured on Ubuntu 26.04 LTS. You can now expand logical volumes on the fly, take point-in-time snapshots for backups, and migrate data between physical volumes without service interruption.

How to Configure LVM (Logical Volume Manager) on Ubuntu 26.04