Using LVM volumes with VirtualBox

I have been used to using KVM when doing virtualization. However, I ran into some performance issues when trying to setup my home machine to run KVM as a normal user. Therefore, I decided to try out VirtualBox again. One issue I had was trying to use an lvm volume as a physical device for the virtual machine. Here is how I solved the problem.

First, I created the lvm volume

lvcreate --name www --size 10G images

Next, I created a vmdk file which describes the disk properties using the VBoxManage command:

VBoxManage internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename /vbox/www.vmdk -rawdisk /dev/images/www

Here are the contents of the vmdk file after running that command:

# Disk DescriptorFile
version=1
CID=e5ee218c
parentCID=ffffffff
createType="fullDevice"

# Extent description
RW 20971520 FLAT "/dev/images/www" 0

# The disk Data Base
#DDB

ddb.virtualHWVersion = "4"
ddb.adapterType="ide"
ddb.geometry.cylinders="16383"
ddb.geometry.heads="16"
ddb.geometry.sectors="63"
ddb.uuid.image="46527bd3-f962-43cc-8a43-11aafd3425aa"
ddb.uuid.parent="00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000"
ddb.uuid.modification="00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000"
ddb.uuid.parentmodification="00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000"
ddb.geometry.biosCylinders="1024"
ddb.geometry.biosHeads="255"
ddb.geometry.biosSectors="63"

Lastly, I made sure the permissions were set so my user could read the file

chown solj. /vbox/www.vmdk

After this, I was able to add the file as a storage device as if I were adding the lvm volume itself. This is great since now I can grow the volume as needed if I end up storing more on the machine than initially planned.