Mounting LVM raw disk image on Linux

The other day I needed to extract some files from a raw disk backup; problem is I never remember the commands and always have to look them up. For future reference here is how to do it.

Once you have the raw disk image create a loop device from it:

sudo losetup -f -P rawdisk.img

You should now have a loop device with all the partitions from the original raw disk:

sudo lsblk -f
...
NAME            FSTYPE      FSVER    UUID
loop1
├─loop1p1
├─loop1p2       ext4        1.0      7f54d4b9-ad5e-4e49-8a24-27e62258e2c0
└─loop1p3       LVM2_member LVM2 001 23c515ac-e138-47ad-b4b3-cbaa119a90d3

Now let LVM know about the new LVM device:

sudo pvscan --cache

You should now see the volume groups and logical volumes associated with the raw disk partition:

sudo vgs
...
VG        #PV #LV #SN Attr   VSize    VFree
ubuntu-vg   1   1   0 wz--n- <142.00g    0

sudo lvs
LV        VG        Attr       LSize    Pool Origin Data%  Meta%  Move Log Cpy%Sync Convert
ubuntu-lv ubuntu-vg -wi------- <142.00g

Activate the volume group and LVs:

sudo vgchange -ay

Mount the LV like any other and you're good to go:

sudo mkdir /mnt/backup-restore
sudo mount /dev/mapper/ubuntu--vg-ubuntu--lv /mnt/backup-restore

Then to tear down:

sudo umount /mnt/backup-restore
sudo lvchange -an /dev/mapper/ubuntu--vg-ubuntu--lv
sudo losetup -d /dev/loop1
sudo pvscan --cache