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I currently have a Bionic Xubuntu machine which has a boot partition and an LVM partition containing a LUKS-encrypted system. It doesn't boot because xubuntu--vg-root does not exist (i.e. it isn't mapping the LVM partitions in the initramfs).

I can boot a live USB environment and mount the LUKS-encrypted volume just fine, and in fact I tried to follow the advice at here to re-install LVM in the initramfs. LVM commands are now available in the initramfs shell I get dropped to, but I have no way to actually detect the partitions from there, as far as I can tell.

lvm vgchange -ay in the initramfs does nothing; same with vgchange -ay.

From the live USB environment, pvdisplay gives:

--- Physical volume ---
  PV Name               /dev/mapper/luks-7743e53d-4290-4a98-8494-a9f1e12d37b0
  VG Name               xubuntu-vg
  PV Size               465.04 GiB / not usable 4.00 MiB
  Allocatable           yes 
  PE Size               4.00 MiB
  Total PE              119050
  Free PE               8
  Allocated PE          119042
  PV UUID               QYtrcB-bjTW-yqNl-Huw0-5uEK-QZA1-86CdLB

pvs gives:

  PV                                                    VG         Fmt  Attr PSize    PFree 
  /dev/mapper/luks-7743e53d-4290-4a98-8494-a9f1e12d37b0 xubuntu-vg lvm2 a--  <465.04g 32.00m

lvs gives:

  LV     VG         Attr       LSize   Pool Origin Data%  Meta%  Move Log Cpy%Sync Convert
  root   xubuntu-vg -wi-ao---- 464.05g                                                    
  swap_1 xubuntu-vg -wi-a----- 976.00m

and vgs gives:

  VG         #PV #LV #SN Attr   VSize    VFree 
  xubuntu-vg   1   2   0 wz--n- <465.04g 32.00m

How can I get this system booting again?

Leonora Tindall
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    First of all there is "vgchange -ay" command and "not lvm vgchange -ay". Secondly we will need a bit more information, what you are trying to do is useless, Volume Groups usually activated automatically. Try to run "sudo pvs" "sudo vgs" "sudo lvs" and get back with the results. – Dmitriy Kupch May 01 '19 at 20:23
  • There most definitely is `lvm vgchange -ay`; I can run it and I get no error. I have also run `vgchange -ay`. Neither give output, nor find my drive. There is not however any `pvs`, `vgs`, or `lvs` commands; all are not found. Is there an additional package I should install to get those? (Remember, all I can access without Live USB is initramfs busybox.) – Leonora Tindall May 01 '19 at 20:30
  • OBVIOUSLY you will need to boot from some liveCD to find out what the issue is e.g. SYSTEM RESCUE CD http://www.system-rescue-cd.org/Download/ lvm2 is a package you need, it comes by default with almost any up-=to-date livecd. – Dmitriy Kupch May 01 '19 at 20:55
  • Please reread my question. I have already done so and am asking what I need to install from that point forward. – Leonora Tindall May 01 '19 at 20:56
  • Please boot to livecd and run commands I outlined above. pvdisplay or pvs, lvs and vgs. – Dmitriy Kupch May 01 '19 at 20:58
  • Normally you would encrypt the whole drive, then create PVs, VGs and LVs. At first we will need to understand where your VG exist. – Dmitriy Kupch May 01 '19 at 21:05
  • Sorry, I misunderstood you. (for the record, though, `lvm vgchange` is absolutely a valid command.) Anyway the command output is posted, thanks for the help. – Leonora Tindall May 01 '19 at 22:25
  • Good, there is always things to learn I guess) It looks like you have encrypted the drive, created physical volume, then VG and LVs, such as swap and root. But I don't see the boot volume at all. Do you have /boot in root volume? – Dmitriy Kupch May 02 '19 at 13:10
  • Let us [continue this discussion in chat](https://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/93146/discussion-between-dmitriy-kupch-and-leonora-tindall). – Dmitriy Kupch May 02 '19 at 13:11

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