The goal of this document is to give some tips and tricks about the LVM2
configuration for systems installed on external media.


1. First step
-------------

During installation of a standalone Operating System on external media,
LVM can be used to set Logical Volumes on the top of a partition or on
the top of an encrypted device. In all cases, because the system itself
is installed on only one disk, there is no sense to set more than one
Physical Volume per Volume Group. Bilibop functions don't work properly
if a VG is composed of more than one PV.

LVM can be used in a "multilayered block devices" schema. For example,

Disk
├───Partition1───PV#1
│                ├───LV#1───Filesystem (/boot)
│                └───LV#2───LUKS───PV#2
│                                  ├───LV#3───Filesystem (/)
│                                  ├───LV#4───Filesystem (/home)
│                                  └───LV#5───SWAP Filesystem
├───Partition2───LUKS───Filesystem
├───Partition3───Filesystem
└───Partition4───Filesystem

In this example, only one partition is used to contain the entire system,
which is nevertheless divided into four different filesystems, three of
which are encrypted with the same key/passphrase.


2. Configuration
----------------

/etc/lvm/lvm.conf is the configuration file for all LVM tools. See the
lvm.conf(5) manpage for details.

2.1. Filter
-----------

One of the first things to do when lvm2 is installed on a OS on removable
media is to configure the 'filter' array in the 'devices' section.
If you want to use your system to access internal drives of the host
computers, then you can keep the default setting, allowing LVM tools to
access any device:

filter = [ "a/.*/" ]

But if you prefer to use your system as it was alone, you have to *hide*
all Physical Volumes that are not used by your system. This is a more
complicated task, but the drivemap(1) command can help you:

$ drivemap -pin /
/dev/sdb       [ usb-_Trademark_Storage_05F210010018DD2-0:0 |    8GB ]
    /dev/sdb1 ............................... [ LVM2_member |    8GB ]
        /dev/mapper/system-boot .................... [ ext3 |  255MB ] /boot
        /dev/mapper/system-luks ............. [ crypto_LUKS | 7751MB ]
            /dev/mapper/bilibop ............. [ LVM2_member | 7750MB ]
                /dev/mapper/luks-root .............. [ ext4 | 6996MB ] /
                /dev/mapper/luks-home .............. [ ext4 |  750MB ] /home

Here we see the two Physical Volumes (LVM2_member) we need to 'accept',
all others will be 'rejected'. For one of these PV, it's easy: its static
name is "/dev/mapper/bilibop". But we have to find a way to name the first
partition of the disk, knowing that "/dev/sdb1" is dynamically attributed.
You must use a symlink created by udev, but it must not refer to the UUID
of the Physical Volume. Finally, it seems there is only one class of udev
symlinks you can use: /dev/disk/by-id/*. This can be found with:

$ ls -l /dev/disk/by-id/* | awk '/\/sdb1$/ {print $9}'
/dev/disk/by-id/usb-_Trademark_Storage_05F210010018DD2-0:0-part1

(It can happen that you have the choice between two or even three names,
mainly with external HDD)

Now the result in lvm.conf is:

filter = [ "a|^/dev/disk/by-id/usb-_Trademark_Storage_05F210010018DD2-0:0-part1$|", "a|^/dev/mapper/bilibop$|", "r|.*|" ]

or simply:

filter = [ "a|usb-_Trademark_Storage_05F210010018DD2-0:0-part1$|", "a|^/dev/mapper/bilibop$|", "r|.*|" ]

Now test it with 'vgscan'. It can happen that the second PV (and then the
second VG) is not found. This is because /dev/mapper/bilibop is not managed
by udev (maybe due to some dmsetup udev rules). In that case, you have to
inform LVM to not obtain device list from udev, but to scan /dev entirely
and take any symlink into account; so in the same 'devices' section, set

obtain_device_list_from_udev = 0

Then, if 'vgscan' gives you the expected result, run 'update-initramfs -u':
this will build a new initramdisk with the new lvm.conf into; all other
volumes than those used by your system will never be activated at boot time
or later, until you modify the 'filter' setting.

NOTE: the bilibop-rules package provides a helper script,
/usr/share/bilibop/physical_volumes_filter, which has been written to
automate the previously described tasks. See README.Debian in the
documentation of this package for details.

2.2. Backups and archives
-------------------------

If your root filesystem in on a Logical Volume, then the default place
to store backups - /etc/lvm/backup - is useless, because backups are stored
into the Volume that can need the backup to be opened.

Additionally, you have to know that LVM archives and backups can easily be
used to acquire certainty that your system was plugged on this computer or
this one, if Logical Volumes on the disks of the computer are activated.
So, you should probably disable these features in the 'backup' section:

archive = 0
backup  = 0

But keep a backup of your Volume Groups, at least to avoid the annoying
warnings (WARNING: This metadata update is NOT backed up).