Thin Logical Volumes Are Not Restored After BMR When LVM PVs Are Created on Raw Disks
After a successful NetBackup Bare Metal Restore (BMR) of a Linux client using LVM thin provisioning, thin logical volumes (thin LVs) are missing or unusable after system boot.
The BMR restore job completes without fatal errors, but data stored on thin‑provisioned logical volumes is not restored or mounted.
This behavior occurs when LVM Physical Volumes (PVs) were created directly on raw disks (for example, /dev/sdb) rather than on partition‑based devices (for example, /dev/sdb1).
Product: Veritas NetBackup Bare Metal Restore (BMR)
Client OS: Linux (for example, RHEL 9.x)
Storage Configuration:
LVM with thin provisioning
Physical Volumes created on raw disks (no disk partitions)
Restore Type: Bare Metal Restore (BMR)
After a completed BMR restore and system reboot:
Thin pools may exist, but:
Thin logical volumes are missing OR
File systems are not present OR
Volumes are not mounted OR
Mounted volumes are empty
No fatal errors are reported during the BMR restore job
The BMR restore workflow does not fully support thin‑provisioned LVM configurations where Physical Volumes are created directly on raw disks.
BMR restore logic expects thin provisioning to be backed by partition‑based PVs. When PVs are created on raw disks, BMR:
Recreates the volume group and thin pool metadata
Does NOT recreate or populate thin logical volumes
Does NOT restore file system data contained within thin LVs
Warning:
The following procedure removes and recreates thin logical volumes. Incorrect execution can cause permanent data loss. Perform only if you understand your LVM layout and have valid backups.
Volume Group exists
Thin pool exists
NetBackup backup contains data from the thin logical volume
- Unmount the thin logical volume (if mounted):
umount <MOUNT_POINT> 2>/dev/null
- Remove the existing thin logical volume:
lvremove -y <VG_NAME>/<THIN_LV_NAME>
- Verify logical volumes in the volume group:
lvs <VG_NAME>
- Recreate the thin logical volume:
lvcreate -V <VIRTUAL_SIZE> -T <VG_NAME>/<THINPOOL_NAME> -n <THIN_LV_NAME>
- Verify logical volumes again:
lvs <VG_NAME>
- Create a file system on the thin logical volume:
mkfs.xfs -f /dev/<VG_NAME>/<THIN_LV_NAME>
- Verify the block device:
blkid /dev/<VG_NAME>/<THIN_LV_NAME>
- Create the mount point and mount the volume:
mkdir -p <MOUNT_POINT>
mount /dev/<VG_NAME>/<THIN_LV_NAME> <MOUNT_POINT>
- Verify the mount:
df -lh
- Perform a redirected restore of the required data into <MOUNT_POINT>.
To prevent this issue in future BMR restores:
Always create partitions on data disks
Create LVM Physical Volumes on partition devices (for example, /dev/sdb1)
Avoid creating PVs directly on raw disks
This is a known limitation in the current BMR restore workflow for thin‑provisioned LVM configurations created on raw disks.
Use the documented workaround to recover thin logical volumes and restore data.