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In this article I will share the steps to recover from a situation where one of our physical volumes becomes unknown device. I found this error while setting up my encrypted LUKS partition and extending the logical volume.
Lab Environment (CentOS/RHEL 7/8):
I am using RHEL 8 but the same steps would work on similar OS variants such as centOS 8, RHEL/CentOS 7, SuSE etc.
Error: “pvs shows unknown device” and “pvs couldnt find device with uuid”
Below is the error scenario. pvs shows unknown device and pvs couldnt find device with uuid for one of the physical volume.
[root@centos-8 ~]# pvs
Couldn't find device with uuid Lu7cAF-CUBP-eQ2q-ZR2T-TfJ6-FnzT-EIhheJ.
PV VG Fmt Attr PSize PFree
/dev/sda2 rhel lvm2 a-- <14.50g 0
[unknown] rhel lvm2 a-m <8.00g <8.00g
I had /dev/sdb1 as a Physical Volume but for some reason now pvs shows
unknown device for /dev/sdb1. It also throws error as “pvs couldnt
find device with uuid'
pvscan records which PVs are available on the system, and activates
LVs in completed VGs but it fails to activate the unknown device.
[root@centos-8 ~]# pvscan --cache
Couldn't find device with uuid Lu7cAF-CUBP-eQ2q-ZR2T-TfJ6-FnzT-EIhheJ.
pvscan[1733] PV /dev/sda2 online.
vgreduce command also fails to remove /dev/sdb1 (which is now shown
as unknown device) as it also have same problem as “pvs couldnt find
device with uuid”.
[root@centos-8 ~]# vgreduce rhel /dev/sdb1
Couldn't find device with uuid pWc1vE-NQS7-4UbM-2n0D-gVvH-uNc2-dlZftM.
Cannot change VG rhel while PVs are missing.
Consider vgreduce --removemissing.
Cannot process volume group rhel
Failed to find physical volume "/dev/sdb1".
Similarly the pvremove command fails as it complains
pvs couldnt find device with uuid
[root@centos-8 ~]# pvremove /dev/sdb1
Couldn't find device with uuid Lu7cAF-CUBP-eQ2q-ZR2T-TfJ6-FnzT-EIhheJ.
No PV found on device /dev/sdb1.
Resolution:
To fix the error “pvs shows unknown device” and
“pvs couldnt find device with uuid” execute
vgreduce with --removemissing directive.
From the man page:
Removes all missing PVs from the VG, if there are no LVs allocated on them. This resumes normal operation of the VG (new LVs may again be created, changed and so on). If this is not possible because LVs are referencing the missing PVs, this option can be combined with –force to have the command remove any partial LVs.
[root@centos-8 ~]# vgreduce rhel --removemissing
Couldn't find device with uuid pWc1vE-NQS7-4UbM-2n0D-gVvH-uNc2-dlZftM.
Wrote out consistent volume group rhel.
Now we don’t see any error for missing physical volume UUID
[root@centos-8 ~]# vgs
VG #PV #LV #SN Attr VSize VFree
rhel 1 2 0 wz--n- <14.50g 0
pvs command is not showing any unknown device any more.
[root@centos-8 ~]# pvs
PV VG Fmt Attr PSize PFree
/dev/sda2 rhel lvm2 a-- <14.50g 0
Recover lost physical volumes
If the disk underlying of the physical volume is not corrupted, there is
still a possibility to recover your PV. You can re-create the physical
volume using pvcreate command
[root@centos-8 ~]# pvcreate /dev/sdb1
Physical volume "/dev/sdb1" successfully created.
Next extend your volume group using vgextend or you can create a new
volume group using vgcreate as per your requirement using the new
physical volume
[root@centos-8 ~]# vgextend rhel /dev/sdb1
Volume group "rhel" successfully extended
Verify the vgs output
[root@centos-8 ~]# vgs
VG #PV #LV #SN Attr VSize VFree
rhel 2 2 0 wz--n- 22.49g <8.00g
Lastly I hope the steps from the article to Fix the LVM error, pvs shows unknown device and pvs couldnt find device with uuid in RHEL/CentOS 7/8 Linux was helpful. So, let me know your suggestions and feedback using the comment section.
References:
Remove a Physical Volume listed as an “unknown
device”
The pvs command shows ‘unkown device’ but UUID
and LVM labels are still visible
