How reduce or shrink Logical Volume on Linux

by nixCraft on August 1, 2006 · 8 comments· last updated at October 6, 2006

Q. How do I reduce or shrink Logical Volume on Linux? I am using CentOS Linux. Moreover, I would like to shrink or reduce a partition on an existing Logical Volume.

A. You need to use e2fsadm command. This command allows you resizing of a logical volume containing a mounted or unmounted ext2/ext3 filesystem. Logical volumes can be resized dynamically while preserving data on the volume for both ext2 and ext3 file system.

However, before using any one of the following command, make sure you have backup of all important data/config files.

First, unmount partition. For example if your paritition is called /webroot (vg0 volume group), type the following command:# umount /webrootLet us say you want to reduce size by 1000MB:# e2fsadm -L -1000M /dev/vg0/webrootWhere,

-L -1000M: Resize the filesystem/logical volume to or by the given size. If you use + or - then the number will be relative the the current size of the logical volume, otherwise the volume will be resized to LogicalVolumeSize. A size suffix of K for kilobytes, M for megabytes, G for gigabytes or T for terabytes can be used.
/dev/vg0/webroot - /webroot is part of vg0 volume (make sure you replace this name with your actual volume)

Now see to see the attributes of volume:# vgdisplayMount the volume:# mount /webrootFor more information read man pages of vgdisplay and e2fsadm.

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{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }

1 Suresh March 23, 2010 at 5:55 am

It’s totally wrong, there is no such type of command ‘e2fsadm’ in LINUX.
Plz suggest………………………

2 Tanvir February 5, 2011 at 10:52 am

“e2fsadm” is for kernel 2.4 and less. This command doesn’t work with kernel 2.6. What else could be done?

3 Anil July 27, 2011 at 2:51 pm

You can look at man pages for following commands
LVM – lvextend, lvresize
Filesystem – resize2fs

4 Bipin Bahuguna November 4, 2011 at 6:19 am

Hi,

You can reduce lvm size with lvreduce command.

First Step : –> umount /lvmpartition
Second Step : –> e2fsck /lvmpartition
Third Step: –> lvreduce -L100M /lvmpartition

if any issue with linux u can directly contact me on given email address.

5 Bipin Bahuguna November 4, 2011 at 6:20 am

Hi,

You can reduce lvm size with lvreduce command.

First Step : –> umount /lvmpartition
Second Step : –> e2fsck /lvmpartition
Third Step: –> resize2fs /lvmpartition
Fourth Step: –> lvreduce -L100M /lvmpartition

in previous reply just missed 3rd step.

if any issue with linux u can directly contact me on given email address.

6 noor parkar March 13, 2012 at 11:21 am: you still missed one more step
First Step : –> umount /lvmpartition
Second Step : –> e2fsck /lvmpartition
Third Step: –> resize2fs /lvmpartition
Fourth Step: –> lvreduce -L100M /lvmpartition
Fifth step –> resize2fs /lvmpartition
note here that after lvreduce , we reduces size of the partition and not of filesystem so we need to excute fifth step as well.
just check it.
Reply

7 Vkram January 3, 2012 at 5:14 pm