Among Logical Volume Manager’s (LVM) many features, one of the best is snapshots, which is particularly useful for system administrators. Snapshots allow for the creation of a point-in-time copy of a logical volume, which can be useful for upgrade, backup and recovery purposes.
This article explores the utility of LVM snapshots and provides practical scenarios where they can be applied effectively. We do assume some familiarity with basic LVM and its setup, so see the boxout (below) for more getting-started advice.
Most administrators use snapshots at the machine level, but sometimes machine-level snapshots aren’t possible – for example, physical machines and virtual machines from providers who don’t provide a snapshot service. Logical Volume Manager (LVM) can provide flexible snapshots in Linux no matter its underlying configuration, as long as it has LVM.
LVM snapshots are not a
