EX200 Configure local storage Practice Question
A system administrator is managing a Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 server that uses LVM for storage. The volume group 'vgdata' contains two 500 GB physical volumes (sdb and sdc) with a logical volume 'lvdata' of 800 GB formatted with XFS and mounted at /data. The administrator adds a new 200 GB disk /dev/sdd and intends to use all of its capacity to extend lvdata. The following commands are executed in order: pvcreate /dev/sdd, vgextend vgdata /dev/sdd, lvextend -l +100%FREE /dev/vgdata/lvdata. The lvextend command completes successfully, but running 'df -h /data' still shows 800 GB. What is the most likely reason?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many candidates assume `lvextend` automatically resizes the filesystem, but Red Hat exams specifically test that you must run a separate filesystem-specific command (e.g., `xfs_growfs` or `resize2fs`) after extending the logical volume.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
The filesystem has not been grown after extending the logical volume.
After extending the logical volume with `lvextend`, the underlying block device has more space, but the filesystem still sees the original size. For XFS, you must run `xfs_growfs /data` (or `xfs_growfs /dev/vgdata/lvdata`) to expand the filesystem to use the newly allocated extents. Without this step, `df -h` continues to report the old filesystem size.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
The volume group 'vgdata' is not active, so the new space is ignored.
Why it's wrong here
In LVM, a volume group must be active for its logical volumes to be accessible. Because the logical volume is still mounted and the filesystem is in use, the volume group 'vgdata' is necessarily active; an inactive volume group would make the logical volume unavailable and unmountable. Therefore, the new space is not being ignored due to an inactive VG.
- ✗
The logical volume was extended using a snapshot instead of the original.
Why it's wrong here
A snapshot is a copy-on-write logical volume that preserves the state of an original LV at a specific moment, and it is created with lvcreate --snapshot. In this scenario, the administrator extended the logical volume with lvextend, which operates directly on the original LV, not on a snapshot. No snapshot was created or used during the process, so the extension was applied to the correct logical volume.
- ✓
The filesystem has not been grown after extending the logical volume.
Why this is correct
Extending a logical volume with lvextend only increases the size of the block device; the filesystem on top of it remains unchanged until explicitly resized. For XFS filesystems, the resize must be performed with xfs_growfs, which can only grow the filesystem online to fill the additional space in the LV. Since the administrator has presumably not run xfs_growfs (or did not mount the filesystem with a tool that auto-grows it), the new space is allocated but not yet available to files, which exactly matches the symptom.
- ✗
The physical volume was not created correctly and the space is not available.
Why it's wrong here
If the physical volume had not been created correctly with pvcreate or added to the volume group with vgextend, the lvextend command would have failed with an error such as 'Insufficient free space' or 'Failed to find physical volume'. The fact that lvextend completed successfully proves that the physical volume is valid, has free space, and has been properly incorporated into 'vgdata'. The issue is not at the physical volume layer; it is that the filesystem has not been grown after the LV extension.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
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