What tool to visualize linux block devices (partitions, LVM PVs, LVs, mdadm devices…)

Question

I'm looking for a tool that will scan my GUI-less server and create an easy to digest rough overview of all the block devices and their relationship (disk partitions, mdadm devices, LVM PVs & LVs etc) in some rich visual format (html, pdf, svg, png...).

Here's a simple example visualization:

    +--------+---------------------+ +-------------------+
    | sda1   |                     | |       sdc1        |
    +--------+---------------------+ +-------------------+
        +               +                      +
    +--------+---------------------+ +-------------------+
    | sdb1   |                     | |       sdd1        |
    +--------+---------------------+ +-------------------+
        |               |                      |
        v               v                      v
    +---+---+ +---------+----------+ +--------+----------+
    |  md0  | |        md1         | |       md2         |
    +-------+ +---------+----------+ +--------+----------+
    | /boot |                    \     /
      ext4                        \   /
                                   \ /
                                    +
                                    |
                                    v
              +------------------------------------------+
              |                vgmain                    |
              +------+-----------------+-----------------+
              |/root |  /home          |   /var          |
                ext4    btrfs              ext4

I don't need detail (I can get that from the CLI tools like lsbls, fdisk, mdadm, pvdisplay, lvdisplay, df)

Answer 1

You have - kind of* - two options in Linux:

system-config-lvm: Ideal for visualization, but it is buggy (abandonware?) and not available in some Linux distributions and/or releases; it seems to fail with some obscure gnome/unity settings that cause errors with pixels, rendering or something like that. But you can always use it from an Ubuntu Live CD (16.04 works fine for that).

KVPM: It doesn't have the same visualization level as system-config-lvm, but it shows the information in a mix of visual and table/report formats. It is more stable and have more features and it's made a la KDE (i.e., no oversimplified interface but instead a GUI with what you need at the power level you need). It also can manage normal partitions.

* For that to work on a GUI-less server, you can install x applications but run them remotely and open them in Windows using something like PuTTY + an X server or MobaXterm.