Device Mapper & LVM

Composing block devices: linear, striped, snapshot, thin provisioning, crypt and cache targets.

Practitioner 3 days in person6 half-days online Max 14 in person

Who this course is for

System administrators and platform engineers who manage Linux storage stacks and need to compose, resize, encrypt and — above all — recover device-mapper configurations without losing data.

Prerequisites

Solid Linux administration including disk partitioningCommand-line comfort and basic shell scriptingBlock-device basics (STO-101 helpful, not required)

Course outline

Day 1 — The device mapper model and LVM basics

Device mapper architecture: mapped devices, targets and tables
dmsetup by hand: building linear and striped devices
LVM as a dm client: physical volumes, volume groups, logical volumes
Extents, allocation policies and online resizing
Reading the stack: lsblk, dmsetup info/table, lvs/vgs/pvs reporting

Day 2 — Snapshots, thin provisioning and encryption

Classic snapshots: copy-on-write mechanics and why performance degrades
Thin pools: the metadata device, overprovisioning and monitoring
dm-crypt and LUKS: what happens at open, key management, cipher choices
Integrity targets at a glance: dm-integrity and dm-verity
Ordering the stack: what goes above what, and why

Day 3 — Caching, RAID and recovery

dm-cache and dm-writecache: architecture, policies and statistics
dm-raid vs mdadm: which software RAID lives where
Activation, udev and how a stack assembles at boot
Recovery drills: missing PV, corrupted VG metadata, failed thin pool
vgcfgrestore, thin_check and thin_repair — practised before you need them

Hands-on labs

Labs follow the academy model — 35% principles, 20% guided investigation, 45% engineering studio. Every claim you make in a lab is backed by a trace, a counter or a measurement you captured yourself. How we teach

Lab: compose linear, striped and snapshot devices with dmsetup alone, then reproduce the layout in LVM and compare the tables
Lab: build a thin pool, overprovision it, fill it past the physical limit — then observe and repair the failure
Lab: encrypt a volume with LUKS/dm-crypt, benchmark the overhead with fio and tune cipher and workqueue options
Lab: put dm-cache in front of a slow device and measure hit rate and latency from the cache statistics
Lab: recover from deliberately corrupted VG metadata and a broken thin-pool metadata device using backups and the repair tools

Capstone project

Design, assemble and then rescue a realistic stack: RAID-backed physical volumes, a thin pool, an encrypted and cached logical volume on top — documented as one diagram plus the exact command history. In the final session the stack is broken in a way you do not choose, and you produce a recovery runbook with proof (data checksums before and after) that nothing was lost.

What you leave with

Device-mapper tables you can read and write by hand, not just through LVM
Thin provisioning and snapshot mechanics understood well enough to operate safely
Encryption and caching layers added with measured, not assumed, overhead
A personal recovery drill set: metadata restore, thin repair, missing-PV scenarios

How it runs

Every course follows the same model: 35% principles, 20% guided investigation, 45% engineering studio. You leave with working code, raw measurements and an evidence-based report — not a certificate of attendance. Read the methodology or see a full sample lesson.

Material is adapted to your kernel version, hardware and workload before a private delivery. For public cohorts, the environment is provided and configured.

Questions

Who is this course for?

System administrators and platform engineers who manage Linux storage stacks and need to compose, resize, encrypt and — above all — recover device-mapper configurations without losing data. It sits at practitioner level within the Storage & Filesystems track.

What do I need to know already?

Specific prerequisites for this course: Solid Linux administration including disk partitioning; Command-line comfort and basic shell scripting; Block-device basics (STO-101 helpful, not required). We confirm levels before the cohort starts and adapt if a group is stronger or weaker than expected.

Can this run privately for my team?

Yes. Any course runs on-site at your offices anywhere, or live online for a distributed team, with labs adapted to your hardware and codebase.

What is the difference between in-person and online?

In person is 3 full days with hardware on your desk, capped at 14. Online is 6 half-day sessions across about two weeks so you can keep working, capped at 20, with remote lab access.

Do you invoice companies?

Yes. Purchase orders are accepted and invoicing is available in USD, EUR, GBP, SAR and CAD.

Upcoming dates

Dates	Where	Seats	Early bird	Regular
11 Oct – 13 Oct 20263 full days	RiyadhIn person · KAFD Conference Centre	9 of 14	—	SAR 7,880
18 Oct – 20 Oct 20263 full days	Kuwait CityIn person · Al Hamra Tower	4 of 14	—	KWD 650
18 Oct – 20 Oct 20263 full days	MuscatIn person · Knowledge Oasis Muscat	9 of 14	—	OMR 810
25 Oct – 1 Nov 20266 half-days	Gulf bandLive online · 09:00–13:00 GMT+3	3 of 20	—	US$1,500
26 Oct – 28 Oct 20263 full days	OttawaIn person · Kanata North Tech Park	4 of 14	—	CAD 2,860
2 Nov – 4 Nov 20263 full days	TorontoIn person · MaRS Discovery District	9 of 14	—	CAD 2,860
2 Nov – 4 Nov 20263 full days	LondonIn person · Shoreditch Works	4 of 14	—	GBP 1,640
2 Nov – 9 Nov 20266 half-days	Europe bandLive online · 09:00–13:00 CET	8 of 20	—	US$1,500
2 Nov – 9 Nov 20266 half-days	Americas bandLive online · 13:00–17:00 ET	13 of 20	—	US$1,500
9 Nov – 11 Nov 20263 full days	BerlinIn person · Factory Görlitzer Park	9 of 14	EUR 1,740until 10 Oct	~~EUR 1,930~~

Dates shown for the next few months. If nothing fits, tell us where and when — cohorts are added on demand, and private delivery can be scheduled any week.

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