Managing ZFS File Systems in Oracle Solaris 11.4

Managing ZFS File Systems in Oracle
Solaris 11.4
Part No: E61017

February 2021
Managing ZFS File Systems in Oracle Solaris 11.4
Part No: E61017
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Contents
Using This Documentation ................................................................................ 13
1 Introducing the Oracle Solaris ZFS File System ........................................... 15

What's New in ZFS for Oracle Solaris .............................................................. 15
Oracle Solaris ZFS Features ............................................................................ 16
Components of a ZFS Storage Pool .................................................................. 17
Using Disks in a ZFS Storage Pool .......................................................... 17
Using Files in a ZFS Storage Pool ........................................................... 19
Redundancy Features of a ZFS Storage Pool ...................................................... 19
Mirrored Storage Pool Configuration ........................................................ 20
RAID-Z Storage Pool Configuration ......................................................... 20
ZFS Hybrid Storage Pool ........................................................................ 21
Dynamic Striping in a Storage Pool .......................................................... 21
2 Getting Started With Oracle Solaris ZFS ....................................................... 23

Hardware and Software Requirements ............................................................... 23
Planning the ZFS Implementation .................................................................... 24
Naming ZFS Components ....................................................................... 24
Identifying Storage Requirements ............................................................. 25
Choosing the Type of Data Redundancy .................................................... 25
Determining the ZFS File System Hierarchy .............................................. 25
3 Creating and Destroying Oracle Solaris ZFS Storage Pools ......................... 27

Creating ZFS Storage Pools ............................................................................ 27
▼ How to Set Up ZFS on a System ........................................................ 28
Creating a Mirrored Storage Pool ............................................................. 32
Creating a RAID-Z Storage Pool .............................................................. 33
Creating a ZFS Storage Pool With Log Devices .......................................... 33
5
Contents
Creating a ZFS Storage Pool With Cache Devices ....................................... 35

Doing a Dry Run of Storage Pool Creation ................................................ 36
Handling ZFS Storage Pool Creation Issues ............................................... 36
Destroying ZFS Storage Pools ......................................................................... 38
4 Managing Devices in Oracle Solaris ZFS Storage Pools ............................... 41

Adding Devices to a Storage Pool .................................................................... 41
Removing Devices From a Storage Pool ............................................................ 44
Attaching and Detaching Devices in a Storage Pool ............................................. 46
Splitting a Mirrored Storage Pool to Create a New Pool ....................................... 48
Taking Devices in a Storage Pool Offline or Returning Online ............................... 50
Clearing Storage Pool Device Errors ................................................................. 52
Replacing Devices in a Storage Pool ................................................................ 52
▼ How to Replace a Device in a Storage Pool .......................................... 53
Working With Hot Spares in Storage Pools ........................................................ 55
Designating Hot Spares in a Storage Pool .................................................. 55
Activating and Deactivating Hot Spares in Your Storage Pool ........................ 56
5 Managing Oracle Solaris ZFS Storage Pools ................................................ 59

Managing ZFS Storage Pool Properties ............................................................. 59
Querying ZFS Storage Pool Status ................................................................... 61
Displaying Information About ZFS Storage Pools ....................................... 61
Viewing I/O Statistics for ZFS Storage Pools ............................................. 65
Determining the Health Status of ZFS Storage Pools .................................... 68
Migrating ZFS Storage Pools .......................................................................... 73
Preparing for ZFS Storage Pool Migration ................................................. 73
Exporting a ZFS Storage Pool ................................................................. 73
Determining Available Storage Pools to Import ........................................... 74
Importing ZFS Storage Pools .................................................................. 75
Recovering Destroyed ZFS Storage Pools .................................................. 78
Upgrading ZFS Storage Pools ......................................................................... 80
6 Managing the ZFS Root Pool ........................................................................ 83

Requirements for Configuring the ZFS Root Pool ............................................... 83
ZFS Root Pool Space Requirements ......................................................... 83
ZFS Root Pool Configuration Recommendations ......................................... 84
6 Managing ZFS File Systems in Oracle Solaris 11.4 • February 2021

Contents
Installing the ZFS Root Pool ................................................................... 84

Managing a ZFS Root Pool ............................................................................. 86
▼ How to Configure a Mirrored Root Pool (SPARC or x86/EFI (GPT)) ......... 87
▼ How to Configure a Mirrored Root Pool (SPARC or x86/VTOC) ............... 88
▼ How to Update a ZFS Boot Environment ............................................. 89
▼ How to Mount an Alternate BE .......................................................... 90
Replacing Disks in a ZFS Root Pool ......................................................... 91
Managing ZFS Swap and Dump Devices ........................................................... 96
Viewing Swap and Dump Information ...................................................... 96
Adjusting the Sizes of ZFS Swap and Dump Devices ................................... 98
Troubleshooting ZFS Dump Device Issues ................................................. 99
Booting From a ZFS Root File System ............................................................ 100
Booting From an Alternate Root Pool Disk .............................................. 100
Booting From a ZFS Root File System on a SPARC Based System ............... 102
Booting From a ZFS Root File System on an x86 Based System ................... 103
Booting for Recovery Purposes in a ZFS Root Environment ........................ 104
7 Managing Oracle Solaris ZFS File Systems ................................................. 105

Introduction to ZFS File Systems ................................................................... 105
Creating ZFS File Systems ............................................................................ 106
▼ How to Create a ZFS File System ..................................................... 106
Destroying or Renaming a ZFS File System ..................................................... 107
▼ How to Destroy a ZFS File System .................................................... 107
▼ How to Rename a ZFS File System ................................................... 109
Introducing ZFS Properties ............................................................................ 109
ZFS Read-Only Native Properties ........................................................... 117
Settable ZFS Native Properties ............................................................... 117
ZFS User Properties ............................................................................. 124
Querying ZFS File System Information ........................................................... 125
Listing Basic ZFS Information ............................................................... 125
Creating Complex ZFS Queries .............................................................. 126
Listing Incomplete ZFS Datasets ............................................................ 127
Creating Parsable Output with zfs list ................................................. 128
Managing ZFS Properties .............................................................................. 128
Setting ZFS Properties .......................................................................... 128
Inheriting ZFS Properties ...................................................................... 129
Querying ZFS Properties ....................................................................... 130
7
Contents
Querying ZFS Properties for Scripting ..................................................... 133

Mounting ZFS File Systems .......................................................................... 133
Managing ZFS Mount Points ................................................................. 134
Mounting ZFS File Systems .................................................................. 136
Using Temporary Mount Properties ......................................................... 137
Unmounting ZFS File Systems ............................................................... 138
Sharing and Unsharing ZFS File Systems ........................................................ 138
About Sharing Labeled File Systems ....................................................... 140
Legacy ZFS Sharing Syntax .................................................................. 140
New ZFS Sharing Syntax ...................................................................... 141
ZFS Sharing Migration/Transition Issues .................................................. 148
Troubleshooting ZFS File System Sharing Problems .................................. 149
Setting ZFS Quotas ...................................................................................... 151
Setting Quotas on ZFS File Systems ....................................................... 152
Setting User and Group Quotas on a ZFS File System ................................ 153
Setting Default User and Group Quotas ................................................... 155
Setting Reservations on ZFS File Systems ........................................................ 156
Setting I/O Bandwidth Limits ........................................................................ 158
Compressing ZFS File Systems ...................................................................... 160
Encrypting ZFS File Systems ......................................................................... 161
Changing an Encrypted ZFS File System's Keys ........................................ 163
Mounting an Encrypted ZFS File System ................................................. 165
Upgrading Encrypted ZFS File Systems ................................................... 166
Interactions Between ZFS Compression, Deduplication, and Encryption
Properties ........................................................................................... 167
Examples of Encrypting ZFS File Systems ............................................... 167
Migrating ZFS File Systems .......................................................................... 169
▼ How to Migrate a File System to a ZFS File System ............................. 170
Upgrading ZFS File Systems ......................................................................... 172
8 Working With Oracle Solaris ZFS Snapshots and Clones ............................ 175

Overview of ZFS Snapshots .......................................................................... 175
Creating and Destroying ZFS Snapshots .................................................. 176
Displaying and Accessing ZFS Snapshots ................................................ 180
Disk Space Accounting for ZFS Snapshots ............................................... 181
Rolling Back a ZFS Snapshot ................................................................ 181
Identifying ZFS Snapshot Differences (zfs diff) ..................................... 182

Contents
Overview of ZFS Clones .............................................................................. 184

Creating a ZFS Clone ........................................................................... 184
Destroying a ZFS Clone ....................................................................... 185
Replacing a ZFS File System With a ZFS Clone ....................................... 185
Saving, Sending, and Receiving ZFS Data ....................................................... 186
Saving ZFS Data With Other Backup Products .......................................... 188
Types of ZFS Snapshot Streams ............................................................. 188
Sending a ZFS Snapshot ....................................................................... 191
Using Resumable Replication ................................................................ 193
Receiving a ZFS Snapshot .................................................................... 193
Applying Different Property Values to a ZFS Snapshot Stream ..................... 194
Sending and Receiving Complex ZFS Snapshot Streams ............................. 197
Remote Replication of ZFS Data ............................................................ 199
Monitoring ZFS Pool Operations .................................................................... 200
Copying ZFS Files ....................................................................................... 203
9 Oracle Solaris ZFS Delegated Administration ............................................. 205

Overview of ZFS Delegated Administration ..................................................... 205
Delegating ZFS Permissions .......................................................................... 206
Delegating ZFS Permissions (zfs allow) ................................................ 209
Removing ZFS Delegated Permissions (zfs unallow) ................................ 210
Delegating ZFS Permissions Examples ............................................................ 210
Displaying ZFS Delegated Permissions Examples .............................................. 214
Removing ZFS Delegated Permissions Examples .............................................. 216
10 Oracle Solaris ZFS Advanced Topics ........................................................ 219

ZFS Volumes .............................................................................................. 219
Using a ZFS Volume as a Swap or Dump Device ...................................... 220
Using a ZFS Volume as an iSCSI LUN ................................................... 220
Using ZFS on an Oracle Solaris System With Zones Installed .............................. 222
Adding ZFS File Systems to a Non-Global Zone ....................................... 223
Delegating Datasets to a Non-Global Zone ............................................... 224
Adding ZFS Volumes to a Non-Global Zone ............................................. 225
Using ZFS Storage Pools Within a Zone .................................................. 225
Managing ZFS Properties Within a Zone ................................................. 226
Understanding the zoned Property .......................................................... 227
9
Contents
Copying Zones to Other Systems ............................................................ 228

Using a ZFS Pool With an Alternate Root Location ........................................... 228
Creating a ZFS Pool With an Alternate Root Location ................................ 229
Importing a Pool With an Alternate Root Location ..................................... 229
Importing a Pool With a Temporary Name ............................................... 230
11 Oracle Solaris ZFS Troubleshooting and Pool Recovery ........................... 231

Identifying ZFS Problems ............................................................................. 231
Resolving General Hardware Problems ............................................................ 232
Identifying Hardware and Device Faults .................................................. 232
Resolving Persistent or Transient Transport Errors ..................................... 233
System Reporting of ZFS Error Messages ................................................ 233
Identifying Problems With ZFS Storage Pools .................................................. 234
Determining If Problems Exist in a ZFS Storage Pool ................................. 235
Reviewing ZFS Storage Pool Status Information ....................................... 236
Resolving ZFS Storage Device Problems ......................................................... 239
Resolving a Missing or Removed Device ................................................. 239
Replacing or Repairing a Damaged Device ............................................... 244
Changing Pool Devices ......................................................................... 254
Resolving Data Problems in a ZFS Storage Pool ............................................... 255
Resolving ZFS Space Issues .................................................................. 255
Checking ZFS File System Integrity ........................................................ 259
Repairing Corrupted ZFS Data ............................................................... 263
Identifying the Type of Data Corruption .................................................. 264
Repairing a Corrupted File or Directory ................................................... 265
Repairing ZFS Storage Pool-Wide Damage .............................................. 266
Repairing a Damaged ZFS Configuration ......................................................... 268
Repairing an Unbootable System .................................................................... 269
12 Recommended Oracle Solaris ZFS Practices ............................................ 271

Recommended Storage Pool Practices ............................................................. 271
General System Practices ...................................................................... 271
ZFS Storage Pool Creation Practices ....................................................... 273
Storage Pool Practices for Performance ................................................... 277
ZFS Storage Pool Maintenance and Monitoring Practices ............................ 278
Recommended File System Practices ............................................................... 279
Root File System Practices .................................................................... 280

Contents
File System Creation Practices ............................................................... 280

File System Creation Practices for an Oracle Database ............................... 280
Monitoring ZFS File System Practices ..................................................... 281
A Using Time Slider ....................................................................................... 283

About Time Slider ....................................................................................... 283
Enabling and Disabling Time Slider ................................................................ 284
▼ How to Enable or Disable Time Slider ............................................... 284
Using Time Slider Advanced Options .............................................................. 284
B Oracle Solaris ZFS Version Descriptions .................................................... 287

Overview of ZFS Versions ............................................................................ 287
ZFS Pool Versions ....................................................................................... 287
ZFS File System Versions ............................................................................. 289
Glossary .......................................................................................................... 291
Index ................................................................................................................ 295
11
Using This Documentation
■ Overview – Provides information about the Oracle ZFS file system, including information
specific to SPARC and x86 based systems, where appropriate.
■ Audience – System administrators.
■ Required knowledge – Basic Oracle Solaris or UNIX system administration experience
and general file system administration experience.
Product Documentation Library

Documentation and resources for this product and related products are available at Oracle
Solaris 11.4 Information Library.
Feedback
Provide feedback about this documentation at http://www.oracle.com/goto/docfeedback.
Using This Documentation 13

♦ ♦ ♦
1
C H A P T E R 1
Introducing the Oracle Solaris ZFS File System
This chapter provides an overview of the Oracle Solaris ZFS file system and its features and
benefits. It covers the following information:
■ “What's New in ZFS for Oracle Solaris”

■ “Oracle Solaris ZFS Features”
■ “Components of a ZFS Storage Pool”
■ “Redundancy Features of a ZFS Storage Pool”
What's New in ZFS for Oracle Solaris

The following ZFS features are introduced in this Oracle Solaris release.
■ ZFS supports compressed raw send in data replication. With this feature, ZFS can replicate
data by sending compressed file system blocks as is from the disk and writing the blocks
as is to the target. The feature increases efficiency by eliminating the decompression-
recompression processes in previous ZFS replication operations that used to run before the
data blocks are received at the target. For more information, see Example 40, “Sending ZFS
Data Using Raw Transfer,” on page 192.
■ Bandwidth restrictions can now be set on a dataset. By setting bandwidth restrictions,
you can assign limits to I/O operations on datasets to make sure that no one dataset can
monopolize the bandwidth of the pool. For more information, see “Setting I/O Bandwidth
Limits” on page 158.
■ ZFS includes the ability to restart or resume a transfer of ZFS data. This means that you
will not need to resend data that has already been received if the transfer is interrupted due
to network outage or ZFS server downtime. For more information, see “Using Resumable
Replication” on page 193.
■ When you transfer ZFS data from an Oracle Solaris 11.4 system, by default per block
checksums are enabled. To transfer ZFS data to systems that do not support per block
checksums, see Example 41, “Sending ZFS Data From a Oracle Solaris 11.4.0 Dataset,” on
page 193.
Chapter 1 • Introducing the Oracle Solaris ZFS File System 15

Oracle Solaris ZFS Features
■ You can remove top-level devices from a ZFS pool with the zpool remove command. This
feature is added to the command to compliment the current capabilities of removing log,
cache, and hot spare devices from pools. For more information, see “Removing Devices
From a Storage Pool” on page 44.
■ The clustered zpool property allows for global mounting of a ZFS file system in an Oracle
Solaris Cluster environment. See Cluster documentation at https://docs.oracle.com/cd/
E69294_01/index.html for more information.
■ The zfs send command can be used to replicate a cloned dataset in a self-contained
manner, independent from the origin dataset. For more information, see “Types of ZFS
Snapshot Streams” on page 188.
■ The cp command can be used with the -z option to copy a file more quickly. For more
information, see “Copying ZFS Files” on page 203.
■ The clone auto-promote feature enables you to do the following:
■ Destroy datasets even if these datasets have snapshots that are clone origins. Thus,
destroying snapshots, shares or projects becomes independent of any dependent clones.
These clones can be preserved even after the destroy operation.
■ Clone datasets directly without having to take a snapshot of the dataset first.
■ Provide data about disk space utilization of clones. Thus, you can understand how
clones share disk space and how the space used by a clone can change as other datasets
are destroyed and promoted.
Oracle Solaris ZFS Features
The Oracle Solaris ZFS file system provides features and benefits not found in other file
systems. The following table compares the features of the ZFS file system with traditional file
systems.
Note - For a more detailed discussion of the differences between ZFS and historical file
systems, see Oracle Solaris ZFS and Traditional File System Differences.
TABLE 1 Comparison of the ZFS File System and Traditional File Systems
ZFS File System Traditional File Systems
Uses concept of storage pools created on devices. The pool size Constrained to one device and to the size of that device.
grows as more devices are added to the pool, The additional space is
immediately available for use.
Volume manager unnecessary. Commands configure pools for data Requires volume manager to handle multiple devices to provide data
redundancy over multiple devices. redundancy, which adds to the complexity of administration.
Supports one file system per user or project for easier management. Uses one file system to manage multiple subdirectories.

Components of a ZFS Storage Pool
ZFS File System Traditional File Systems

Set up and manage many file systems by issuing commands, and Complex administration due to device and size constraints. For
directly apply properties that can be inherited by the descendant file example, every time you add a new file system, you must edit the
systems within the hierarchy. No need to edit the /etc/vfstab file. /etc/vfstab file.
File system mounts or unmounts are automatic based on file system
properties.
You can create a snapshot, a read-only copy of a file system

or volume quickly and easily. Initially, snapshots consume no
additional disk space within the pool.
Metadata is allocated dynamically. No pre-allocation or Pre-allocation of metadata results in immediate space cost at the
predetermined limits are set. The number of supported file systems creation of the file system. Pre-allocation also predetermines the
is limited only by the available disk space. total number of file systems that can be supported.
Uses transactional semantics, where data management uses copy- Overwrites data in place. File system vulnerable to getting into an
on-write semantics, not data overwrite. Any sequence of operations inconsistent state, for example, if the system loses power between
is either entirely committed or entirely ignored. During accidental the time a data block is allocated and when it is linked into a
loss of power or a system crash, most recently written pieces of directory. Tools such as fsck command or journaling do not always
data might be lost but the file system always remains consistent and guarantee a fix and can introduce unnecessary overhead.
uncorrupted.
All checksum verification and data recovery are performed at the Checksum verification, if provided, is performed on a per-block
file system layer, and are transparent to applications. All failures are basis. Certain failures, such as writing a complete block to an
detected and recovery can be performed. incorrect location, can result in data that is incorrect but has no
checksum errors.
Supports self-healing data through its varying levels of data
redundancy. A bad data block can be repaired by replacing it with
correct data from another redundant copy.
ACL (Access Control List) model based on NFSv4 specifications to In previous Oracle Solaris releases, ACL implementation was based
protect ZFS, similar to NT-style ACL. The model provides a much on POSIX ACL specifications to protect UFS.
more granular set of access privileges. Richer inheritance semantics
designate how access privileges are applied through the directory
hierarchy.

This section describes the components used for creating ZFS pools.
Using Disks in a ZFS Storage Pool
The most basic element of a storage pool is physical storage. Physical storage can be any block
device of at least 128 MB in size. Typically, this device is a hard drive that is visible to the
system in the /dev/dsk directory.
A storage device can be a whole disk (c1t0d0) or an individual slice (c0t0d0s7). From
management, reliability, and performance perspectives, using whole disks is the easiest and

most efficient way to use ZFS. ZFS formats the whole disk to contain a single, large slice. No
special disk formatting is required. With other methods, such as building pools from disk slices,
LUNs in hardware RAID arrays, or volumes presented by software-based volume managers,
management becomes increasingly complex and might provide less-than-optimal performance.
Caution - Because of potential complexity in managing slices for storage pools, avoid using
slices.
The format command displays the partition table of disks. When Oracle Solaris is installed on
a SPARC® system with GPT aware firmware, an EFI (GPT) label is applied to the disk. The
partition table would be similar to the following example:
Current partition table (original):

Total disk sectors available: 143358287 + 16384 (reserved sectors)
Part Tag Flag First Sector Size Last Sector

0 usr wm 256 68.36GB 143358320
1 unassigned wm 0 0 0
8 reserved wm 143358321 8.00MB 143374704
When Oracle Solaris is installed on an x86 based system, in most cases a EFI (GPT) label is
applied to root pool disks. The partition table would be similar to the following:
Current partition table (original):

Total disk sectors available: 27246525 + 16384 (reserved sectors)
Part Tag Flag First Sector Size Last Sector

0 BIOS_boot wm 256 256.00MB 524543
1 usr wm 524544 12.74GB 27246558
8 reserved wm 27246559 8.00MB 27262942
In the output, partition 0 (BIOS boot) contains required GPT boot information. Similar to
partition 8, partition 0 requires no administration and should not be modified. The root file
system is contained in partition 1.

Redundancy Features of a ZFS Storage Pool
Note - For more information about EFI labels, see “About EFI (GPT) Disk Labels” in
Managing Devices in Oracle Solaris 11.4.
On an x86 based system, the disk must have a valid Solaris fdisk partition. For more
information about creating or changing an Oracle Solaris fdisk partition, see “Configuring
Disks” in Managing Devices in Oracle Solaris 11.4.
Disk names generally follow the /dev/dsk/cNtNdN naming convention. Some third-party
drivers use a different naming convention or place disks in a location other than the /dev/dsk
directory. To use these disks, you must manually label the disk and allocate it to ZFS.
You can specify disks by using either the full path or a shorthand name that consists of the
device name within the /dev/dsk directory. The following examples show valid disk names:
■ c1t0d0
■ /dev/dsk/c1t0d0
■ /dev/tools/disk
Using Files in a ZFS Storage Pool
With ZFS, you can use files as virtual devices in your storage pool. If you adopt this method,
ensure that all files are specified as complete paths and are at least 64 MB in size.
This feature is useful for testing, such as experimenting with more complicated ZFS
configurations when physical devices are insufficient. Do not use this feature in a production
environment.
If you create a ZFS pool backed by files on a UFS file system, then you are implicitly relying
on UFS to guarantee correctness and synchronous semantics. However, creating a ZFS pool
backed by files or volumes that are created on another ZFS pool might cause a system deadlock
or panic.
You should configure your storage pools using ZFS redundancy. Without redundancy, the
risk of losing data is great. Moreover, without ZFS redundancy, the pool can only report data
inconsistencies, but cannot repair those inconsistencies. ZFS provides data redundancy and self-
healing properties in mirrored and RAID-Z configurations.

Mirrored Storage Pool Configuration
A mirrored storage pool configuration requires at least two disks, preferably on separate
controllers. A mirrored configuration can be simple or complex, where more than one mirror
exists in each pool.
For information about creating simple or complex mirrored storage pools, see “Creating a
Mirrored Storage Pool” on page 32.
RAID-Z Storage Pool Configuration

ZFS supports a RAID-Z configuration with the following fault tolerance levels:
■ Single-parity (raidz or raidz1) – Similar to RAID-5.
■ Double-parity (raidz2) – Similar to RAID-6.
■ Triple-parity (raidz3) – For more information, see Triple-Parity RAID and Beyond (https:
//queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=1670144).
In RAID-Z, ZFS uses variable-width RAID stripes so that all writes are full-stripe writes. ZFS
integrates file system and device management in such a way that the file system's metadata
has enough information about the underlying data redundancy model to handle variable-width
RAID stripes. Thus, RAID-Z avoids issues encountered in traditional RAID algorithms such as
RAID-5's write hole problem.
ZFS provides self-healing data in a mirrored or RAID-Z configuration. When a bad data block
is detected, ZFS fetches the correct data from another redundant copy and repairs the bad data
by replacing it with the good copy.
A RAID-Z configuration with n disks of size x with p parity disks can hold approximately
(n-p)*x bytes and can withstand p devices failing before data integrity is compromised. You
need at least two disks for a single-parity RAID-Z configuration and at least three disks for
a double-parity RAID-Z configuration, and so on. For example, if you have three disks in a
single-parity RAID-Z configuration, parity data occupies disk space equal to one of the three
disks. Otherwise, no special hardware is required to create a RAID-Z configuration.
Just like mirrored configurations, RAID-Z configurations can either be simple or complex.
If you are creating a RAID-Z configuration with many disks, consider splitting the disks into
multiple groupings. For example, a RAID-Z configuration with 14 disks is better split into
two 7-disk groupings. RAID-Z configurations with single-digit groupings of disks commonly
perform better.

See the following sources for more information:

■ “Creating a RAID-Z Storage Pool” on page 33 – provides information about creating a
RAID-Z storage pool.
■ https://blogs.oracle.com/roch/when-to-and-not-to-use-raid-z: – presents
guidelines on choosing between a mirrored configuration or a RAID-Z configuration based
on performance and disk space considerations.
■ Chapter 12, “Recommended Oracle Solaris ZFS Practices” – covers additional RAID-Z
storage pool recommendations.
ZFS Hybrid Storage Pool

The ZFS hybrid storage pool, available in Oracle's Sun Storage 7000 product series, combines
DRAM, SSDs, and HDDs to improve performance and increase capacity, while reducing power
consumption. With this product's management interface, you can select the ZFS redundancy
configuration of the storage pool and easily manage other configuration options.
For more information, see Oracle Unified Storage Systems (https://docs.oracle.com/cd/

F24631_01/index.html).
Dynamic Striping in a Storage Pool
ZFS dynamically stripes data across all top-level virtual devices. The decision about where to
place data is done at write time, so no fixed-width stripes are created at allocation time.
When new virtual devices are added to a pool, ZFS gradually allocates data to the new device
in order to maintain performance and disk space allocation policies. Each virtual device can
also be a mirror or a RAID-Z device that contains other disk devices or files. This configuration
gives you flexibility in controlling the fault characteristics of your pool. For example, you could
create the following configurations out of four disks:
■ Four disks using dynamic striping
■ One four-way RAID-Z configuration
■ Two two-way mirrors using dynamic striping
To ensure efficient use of ZFS, use top-level virtual devices of the same type with the same
redundancy level in each device. Do not combine different types of virtual devices within the
same pool, such as using a two-way mirror and a three-way RAID-Z configuration.

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2
C H A P T E R 2
Getting Started With Oracle Solaris ZFS
This chapter provides information to help you set up a basic Oracle Solaris ZFS configuration.
Later chapters provide more detailed information. By the end of this chapter, you will have a
basic understanding of how the ZFS commands work and should be able to create a basic pool
and file systems.
This chapter covers the following topics:
■ “Hardware and Software Requirements”

■ “Planning the ZFS Implementation”
Hardware and Software Requirements
Ensure that you meet the following hardware requirements before using the ZFS software:
■ A SPARC® or x86 based system that is running a supported Oracle Solaris release.
■ Between 7 GB -13 GB of disk space. For information about how ZFS uses disk space, see
“ZFS Root Pool Space Requirements” on page 83.
■ Sufficient memory to support your workload.
■ Multiple controllers for mirrored pool configurations.
Additionally, to perform ZFS management tasks, you must assume a role with either of the
following profiles:
■ ZFS Storage Management – Provides the privilege to create, destroy, and manipulate
devices within a ZFS storage pool
■ ZFS File System Management – Provides the privilege to create, destroy, and modify ZFS
file systems
Although you can use a superuser (root) account to configure ZFS, using RBAC (role-
based access control) roles is a best-practice method. For more information about creating or
assigning roles, see Securing Users and Processes in Oracle Solaris 11.4.
Chapter 2 • Getting Started With Oracle Solaris ZFS 23

Planning the ZFS Implementation
In addition to using RBAC roles for administering ZFS file systems, you might also consider
using ZFS delegated administration for distributed ZFS administration tasks. For more
information, see Chapter 9, “Oracle Solaris ZFS Delegated Administration”.
This section describes factors you need to consider before configuring ZFS.
Naming ZFS Components
Each ZFS component, such as datasets and pools, must be named according to the following
rules:
■ Each component can contain only alphanumeric characters in addition to the following
special characters:
■ Underscore (_)
■ Hyphen (-)
■ Colon (:)
■ Period (.)
■ Blank (" ")
Note - Tabs and other white spaces are not valid.
■ Pool names must begin with a letter and can contain only alphanumeric characters as well as
underscore (_), dash (-), and period (.). Note the following pool name restrictions:
■ The beginning sequence c[0-9] is not allowed.
■ The name log is reserved.
■ A name that begins with mirror, raidz, raidz1, raidz2, raidz3, or spare is not
allowed because these names are reserved.
■ Pool names must not contain a percent sign (%).
■ Dataset names must begin with an alphanumeric character.
■ Dataset names must not contain a percent sign (%).
■ Empty components are not allowed.

Identifying Storage Requirements
The pool describes the physical characteristics of the storage. You must be create the pool
before any file systems.
Before creating a storage pool, determine which devices will store your data. These devices
must be disks of at least 128 MB in size, and they must not be in use by other parts of the
operating system. Allocate entire disks to ZFS rather than individual slices on a preformatted
disk.
For more information about disks and how they are used and labeled, see “Using Disks in a
ZFS Storage Pool” on page 17.
Choosing the Type of Data Redundancy
ZFS supports multiple types of data redundancy, which determines the types of hardware
failures the pool can withstand. ZFS supports nonredundant (striped) configurations, as well as
mirroring and RAID-Z, which is a variation on RAID-5.
For more information about ZFS redundancy features, see “Redundancy Features of a ZFS
Storage Pool” on page 19.
Determining the ZFS File System Hierarchy
File system hierarchies are created on pools.
Hierarchies are simple, easy to understand, yet powerful mechanisms for organizing
information. This section describes specific issues regarding hierarchy planning.
Selecting the File System Granularity
ZFS supports file systems organized into hierarchies, where each file system has only a single
parent. The root of the hierarchy is always the pool name. ZFS supports property inheritance so
that common you can set properties quickly and easily on entire trees of file systems by using
hierarchies.
Chapter 2 • Getting Started With Oracle Solaris ZFS 25

ZFS file systems provide a central point of administration. They are lightweight enough
that you can establish one file system per user or project. This model enables you to control
properties, snapshots, and backups on a per-user or per-project basis.
For more information about managing file systems, see Chapter 7, “Managing Oracle Solaris
ZFS File Systems”.
Grouping File Systems

You can group similar ZFS file systems into hierarchies under a common name. The hierarchy
becomes the central point for administering and controlling file systems and their properties.
In Example 1, “Configuring a Mirrored ZFS File System,” on page 30, the two file systems
are placed under a file system named home.
Choosing File System Properties

You determine most file system characteristics properties. These properties control a variety of
behaviors, including where the file systems are mounted, how they are shared, whether they use
compression, or whether any quotas are in effect.
For more information about properties, see “Introducing ZFS Properties” on page 109.

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3
C H A P T E R 3
Creating and Destroying Oracle Solaris ZFS

Storage Pools
This chapter describes how to create and destroy ZFS storage pools in Oracle Solaris. It covers
the following topics:
■ “Creating ZFS Storage Pools”
■ “Destroying ZFS Storage Pools”
Creating ZFS Storage Pools
This section describes different ways of configuring storage pools. For information about root
pools, see Chapter 6, “Managing the ZFS Root Pool”.
When you create a storage pool, you configure virtual devices for the pool. A virtual device is
an internal representation of the disk devices or files that are used to create the storage pool and
describes the layout of physical storage and the storage pool's fault characteristics. A pool can
have any number of virtual devices at the top of the configuration, known as a pool's top-level
vdev.
If the top-level virtual device contains two or more physical devices, the configuration
provides data redundancy as mirror or RAID-Z virtual devices. Because of the advantages of
redundancy, you should create redundant storage pools. ZFS dynamically stripes data among all
of the top-level virtual devices in a pool.
Even with a redundant configuration, make sure that you also schedule regular backups of
your pool data to non-enterprise grade hardware. Storage pools with ZFS redundancy are
not immune to hardware failures, power failures, or disconnected cables. Performing regular
backups adds another layer of data protection to your enterprise.
After you create the storage pool, you can display information about it by using the following
command:
$ zpool status pool
Chapter 3 • Creating and Destroying Oracle Solaris ZFS Storage Pools 27

How to Set Up ZFS on a System
For more options that you can use with the zpool status command, see “Querying ZFS
Storage Pool Status” on page 61.
Observe the following restrictions when creating storage pools:
■ Do not repartition or relabel disks that are part of an existing storage pool. Otherwise, you
might have to reinstall the OS.
■ Do not create a storage pool that contains components from another storage pool, such as
files or volumes. Such a configuration can cause deadlocks.
■ Do not create a pool to be shared across systems, which is an unsupported configuration.
ZFS is not a cluster file system.

1. Assume the root role or an equivalent role with the appropriate ZFS rights
profile.
For more information about the ZFS rights profiles, see “Hardware and Software
Requirements” on page 23.
2. Create the ZFS pool.
$ zpool create pool keyword devices [keyword devices]
pool Name of the ZFS pool. The pool name must satisfy the naming
requirements in “Naming ZFS Components” on page 24
keyword Further specifies the pool configuration such as type of redundancy, or

whether log devices or cache will be used.
For the redundancy type, you use either the keyword mirror for a
mirrored configuration or one of the following keywords for a RAID-
Z configuration, depending on the parity you want: raidz or raidz1 for
single parity, raidz2 for double parity, and raidz3 for triple parity.
devices Specify the devices that are allocated for the pool. The devices cannot be
in use or contain another file system. Otherwise, pool creation fails.
For more information about how device usage is determined, see
“Devices Actively Being Used” on page 36.
3. (Optional) Display a list of ZFS pools on the system.
$ zpool list

4. (Optional) Display the status of the pool.
$ zpool status pool
5. Build the file system hierarchy.
a. Create the basic file system.

The basic file system acts as a container for the individual file systems that are
subsequently created.
$ zfs create pool/filesystem
where filesystem is the name of the file system.

When used in a command, the file system name must always include the full path of the
hierarchy: pool/filesystem. This rule also applies to subsequent children file systems that
you create.
b. Set the properties to be shared by children file systems.
$ zfs set property=value pool/filesystem
You can set multiple system properties.
Tip - You can simultaneously create a file system and set its properties by using the following
syntax:
$ zfs create -o property=value [-o property=value] pool/filesystem
c. Create the individual file systems that are grouped under the basic file
system.
$ zfs create pool/filesystem/fs1

$ zfs create pool/filesystem/fs2
...
where fs1, fs2, and so on are individual file systems.
d. (Optional) Set properties specific to the individual file system.
$ zfs set property=value pool/filesystem/fs1
6. (Optional) View the final results.
$ zpool list

For more information about viewing pool status, see “Querying ZFS Storage Pool
Status” on page 61.
Example 1 Configuring a Mirrored ZFS File System
In the following example, a basic ZFS configuration is created on the system with the following
specifications:
■ Two disks are allocated to the ZFS file system: c1t0d0 and c2t0d0.
■ The pool system1 uses mirroring.
■ The file system home is created over the pool.
■ The following properties are set for home: mountpoint, share.nfs, and compression.
■ Two children file systems, user1 and user2 are created on home.
■ A quota is set for user2. This property restricts the disk space available for user2 regardless
of the available disk space of the entire pool.
The command zfs get used example displays file system properties.
$ zpool create system1 mirror c1t0d0 c2t0d0

$ zpool list
NAME SIZE ALLOC FREE CAP HEALTH ALTROOT
system1 80G 137K 80G 0% ONLINE -
$ zpool status system1
pool: system1
state: ONLINE
scrub: none requested
config:
NAME STATE READ WRITE CKSUM

system1 ONLINE 0 0 0
mirror-0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c1t0d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c2t0d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
errors: No known data errors
$ zfs create system1/home

$ zfs set mountpoint=/export/zfs system1/home
$ zfs set share.nfs=on system1/home
$ zfs set compression=on system1/home
$ zfs get compression system1/home

NAME PROPERTY VALUE SOURCE

system1/home compression on local
$ zfs create system1/home/user1

$ zfs create system1/home/user2
$ zfs set quota=10G system1/home/user2
$ zfs list
NAME USED AVAIL REFER MOUNTPOINT
system1 92.0K 67.0G 9.5K /system1
system1/home 24.0K 67.0G 8K /export/zfs
system1/home/user1 8K 67.0G 8K /export/zfs/user1
system1/home/user2 8K 10.0G 8K /export/zfs/user2
Example 2 Configuring a RAID-Z ZFS File System
This example creates a RAID-Z file system and shows how you can specify disks by using
either their shorthand device names or their full device names: the disk c6t0d0 is the same as
/dev/dsk/c6t0d0.
■ Three disks are allocated to the ZFS file system: c4t0d0, c5t0d0, and c6t0d0.
■ The pool rdpool uses a RAID-Z single-parity configuration.
■ The file system base is created over the pool.
$ zpool create rdpool raidz c4t0d0 c5t0d0 /dev/dsk/c6t0d0

$ zpool list
rdpool 120G 205K 120G 0% ONLINE -
$ zpool status -v rdpool

pool: rdpool
state: ONLINE
config:

rdpool ONLINE 0 0 0
raidz-0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c4t0d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c5t0d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c6t0d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
$ zfs create rdpool/base

$ zfs set mountpoint=/export/zfs rdpool/base

$ zfs set share.nfs=on rdpool/base

$ zfs set compression=on rdpool/base
$ zfs get compression rdpool/home

rdpool/base compression on local
$ zfs create rdpool/base/user1

$ zfs create rdpool/base/user2
$ zfs set quota=10G rdpool/base/user2
$ zfs list
rdpool 92.0K 67.0G 9.5K /rdpool
rdpool/base 24.0K 67.0G 8K /export/zfs
rdpool/base/user1 8K 67.0G 8K /export/zfs/user1
rdpool/base/user2 8K 10.0G 8K /export/zfs/user2
Creating a Mirrored Storage Pool
To create a mirrored pool, use the mirror keyword. To configure multiple mirrors, repeat the
keyword on the command line. The following command creates a pool system1 with two top-
level virtual devices.
zpool create system1 mirror c1d0 c2d0 mirror c3d0 c4d0
Both virtual devices are two-way mirrors. Data is dynamically striped across both mirrors, with
data being redundant between each disk appropriately.
For more information about recommended mirrored configurations, see Chapter 12,
“Recommended Oracle Solaris ZFS Practices”.
You can perform the following operations on ZFS mirrored configurations:

■ Add another top-level virtual device with a different set of disks. See “Adding Devices to a
■ Attach additional disks. See “Attaching and Detaching Devices in a Storage
Pool” on page 46.
■ Replace disks. See “Replacing Devices in a Storage Pool” on page 52.
■ Detach disks. See “Attaching and Detaching Devices in a Storage Pool” on page 46.
■ Split a mirrored configuration to create a new, identical pool. See “Splitting a Mirrored
Storage Pool to Create a New Pool” on page 48.

For an example of how to configure ZFS with a mirrored storage pool, see Example 1,
“Configuring a Mirrored ZFS File System,” on page 30.
Creating a RAID-Z Storage Pool

To create a storage pool with a RAID-Z configuration, use one of the RAID-Z keywords
depending on the parity that you want for the pool:
■ raidz or raidz1 for single-parity configuration.

■ raidz2 for double-parity configuration.
■ raidz3 for triple-parity configuration.
To create multiple RAID-Z top level virtual devices, repeat the keyword on the command line.
The following command creates a pool rdpool with one top-level virtual device. The virtual
device is a triple-parity RAID-Z configuration that consists of nine disks.
$ zpool create rdpool raidz3 c0t0d0 c1t0d0 c2t0d0 c3t0d0 c4t0d0 \

c5t0d0 c6t0d0 c7t0d0 c8t0d0
For an example of how to configure ZFS with a RAID-Z storage pool, see Example 2,
“Configuring a RAID-Z ZFS File System,” on page 31.
You can perform the following operations on ZFS RAID-Z configurations:
■ Add another top-level virtual device with a different set of disks. See “Adding Devices to a
■ Replace disks. See “Replacing Devices in a Storage Pool” on page 52.
You cannot perform the following operations on a RAID-Z configuration:
■ Attach an additional disk.

■ Detach a disk, except when you are replacing it with a spare disk, or when you need to
detach a spare disk.
■ Remove a device that is not a log device or a cache device.
Creating a ZFS Storage Pool With Log Devices
The ZFS intent log (ZIL) satisfies POSIX requirements for synchronous transactions. For
example, databases often require their transactions to be on stable storage devices when

returning from a system call. NFS and other applications can also use fsync() to ensure data
stability.
By default, the ZIL is allocated from blocks within the main pool. However, you can obtain
better performance by using separate intent log devices such as NVRAM or a dedicated disk.
Log devices for the ZFS intent log are not related to database log files. Deploying separate log
devices can improve performance but the improvement also depends on the device type, the
hardware configuration of the pool, and the application workload.
You can configure mirrored log devices only for redundancy and not RAID-Z log devices. If an
unmirrored log device fails, storing log blocks reverts to the storage pool. Further, you can add,
replace, remove, attach, detach, import, and export log devices as part of the larger storage pool.
Consider the following points about ZFS log devices:

■ The minimum size of a log device is the same as the minimum size of each device in a
pool, which is 64 MB. The amount of logged data that might be stored on a log device is
relatively small. Log blocks are freed when the log transaction or system call is committed.
■ The maximum size of a log device should be approximately half the size of physical
memory, which is the maximum amount of potential logged data that can be stored. For
example, if a system has 16 GB of physical memory, consider a maximum log device size of
8 GB.
To create a storage pool with log devices, use the log keyword. The following example shows
how to configure a mirrored storage pool called datap with a mirrored log device.
$ zpool create datap mirror c0t5000C500335F95E3d0 c0t5000C500335F907Fd0 \

mirror c0t5000C500335BD117d0 c0t5000C500335DC60Fd0 \
log mirror c0t5000C500335E106Bd0 c0t5000C500335FC3E7d0
$ zpool status datap

pool: datap
state: ONLINE
config:

datap ONLINE 0 0 0
c0t5000C500335F95E3d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c0t5000C500335F907Fd0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c0t5000C500335BD117d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c0t5000C500335DC60Fd0 ONLINE 0 0 0
logs

c0t5000C500335E106Bd0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c0t5000C500335FC3E7d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
Creating a ZFS Storage Pool With Cache Devices
Cache devices provide an additional layer of caching between main memory and disk. These
devices provide the greatest performance improvement for random-read workloads of mostly
static content.
To configure a storage pool with cache devices, use the cache keyword, for example:
$ zpool create system1 mirror c2t0d0 c2t1d0 c2t3d0 cache c2t5d0 c2t8d0
pool: system1
state: ONLINE
config:

c2t0d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c2t1d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c2t3d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
cache
c2t5d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c2t8d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
You can add single or multiple cache devices to the pool, either while it is being created or after
it is created, as shown in Example 6, “Adding Cache Devices,” on page 43. However, you
cannot create mirrored cache devices or create them as part of a RAID-Z configuration.
Note - If a read error is encountered on a cache device, that read I/O is reissued to the original
storage pool device, which might be part of a mirrored or a RAID-Z configuration. The content
of cache devices is considered volatile, similar to other system caches.
After cache devices are added, they gradually fill with content from main memory. The time
before a cache device reaches full capacity varies depending on its size. Use the zpool iostat
command to monitor capacity and reads, as shown in the following example:

$ zpool iostat -v pool 5
For more information about the zpool iostat command, see “Viewing I/O Statistics for ZFS
Storage Pools” on page 65.
Doing a Dry Run of Storage Pool Creation
For testing purposes, you can simulate creating a pool without actually writing to the device.
The zpool create -n command performs the device in-use checking and redundancy-level
validation, and reports any errors in the process. If no errors are found, you see output similar to
the following example:
$ zpool create -n system1 mirror c1t0d0 c1t1d0

would create 'system1' with the following layout:
system1
mirror
c1t0d0
c1t1d0
Caution - Some errors, such as specifying the same device twice in the same configuration,
cannot be detected without actually creating the pool. Therefore, the actual pool creation can
still fail even if the dry run is successful.
Handling ZFS Storage Pool Creation Issues
This section groups descriptions of errors during pool creation by those relating to devices,
redundancy, or mount points.
Some error messages suggest using the -f option to override the reported errors. However, as a
general rule, you should repair errors instead of overriding them.
Devices Actively Being Used

When you create ZFS pools on specific devices, ZFS first determines if those devices are in use
either by ZFS itself or some other part of the operating system. If the devices are in use, then
appropriate error messages are displayed.

You must manually correct the errors reported by the following messages before attempting to
create the pool again.
Mounted file system
The disk contains a file system that is currently mounted. To correct this error, use the
umount command.
File system in /etc/vfstab
The disk contains a file system that is listed in the /etc/vfstab file but the file system is not
currently mounted. To correct this error, remove or comment out the line in the /etc/vfstab
file.
Dedicated dump device
The disk is in use as the dedicated dump device for the system. To correct this error, use the
dumpadm command.
Part of a ZFS pool
The disk or file is part of an active ZFS storage pool. To correct this error, use the zpool
destroy command to destroy the other pool provided that the pool is no longer needed. If
that pool is still needed, use the zpool detach command to detach the disk from that pool.
You can detach a disk only from a mirrored storage pool.
The following in-use checks serve as helpful warnings. You can override these warnings by
using the -f option to create the pool:
Contains a file system
The disk contains a known file system but it is not mounted or being used.
Part of volume
The disk is part of a Solaris Volume Manager volume.
Part of exported ZFS pool
The disk is part of a storage pool that has been exported or manually removed from a system.
In the latter case, the pool is reported as potentially active because the disk might be a
network-attached drive in use by another system. Be cautious when overriding a potentially
active pool.

Destroying ZFS Storage Pools
Mismatched Redundancy Levels
Creating pools with virtual devices of different redundancy levels results in error messages
similar to the following example:
$ zpool create system1 mirror c1t0d0 c2t0d0 mirror c3t0d0 c4t0d0 c5t0d0
invalid vdev specification
use '-f' to override the following errors:
mismatched replication level: 2-way mirror and 3-way mirror vdevs are present
Similar error messages are generated if you create mirrored or RAID-Z pools using devices of
different sizes.
Maintaining mismatched levels of redundancy results in unused disk space on the larger device,
which is an inefficient use of ZFS. You should correct these errors instead of overriding them.
Default Mount Point for Storage Pools Not Empty
When a pool is created, the default mount point for the top-level file system is /pool-name. If
this directory exists and contains data, an error occurs.
To create a pool with a different default mount point, use the zpool create -m mountpoint
command. For example:
$ zpool create system1 c1t0d0

default mountpoint '/system1' exists and is not empty
use '-m' option to provide a different default
$ zpool create -m /export/zfs system1 c1t0d0
This command creates the new pool system1 and the system1 file system with a mount point of
/export/zfs.
For more information about mount points, see “Managing ZFS Mount Points” on page 134.
You can destroy a pool even if the pool contains mounted datasets by using the zpool destroy
pool command.

Caution - ZFS cannot always keep track of which devices are in use. Ensure that you are
destroying the correct pool and you always have copies of your data. If you accidentally destroy
the wrong pool, see “Recovering Destroyed ZFS Storage Pools” on page 78.
When you destroy a pool, the pool is still available for import. Therefore, confidential data
might remain on the disks that were part of the pool. To completely destroy the data, use a
feature like the format utility's analyze->purge option on every disk in the destroyed pool.
To ensure data confidentiality, create encrypted ZFS file systems. Even if a destroyed pool
is recovered, the data would remain inaccessible without the encryption keys. For more
information, see “Encrypting ZFS File Systems” on page 161.
When a pool with a mix of available and unavailable devices is destroyed, data is written to
the available disks to indicate that the pool is no longer valid. This state information prevents
the devices from being listed as a potential pool when you perform an import. Even with
unavailable devices, the pool can still be destroyed. When the unavailable devices are repaired,
they are reported as potentially active when you create a new pool and appear as valid
devices when you search for pools to import.
A pool itself can become unavailable if a sufficient number of its devices are unavailable. The
state of the pool's top-level virtual device is reported as UNAVAIL. In this case, you can destroy
the pool only by using the zpool destroy -f command.
For more information about pool and device health, see “Determining the Health Status of ZFS
Storage Pools” on page 68.

♦ ♦ ♦
4
C H A P T E R 4
Managing Devices in Oracle Solaris ZFS

Storage Pools
This chapter discusses different tasks you can perform to manage the physical devices that you
use for the ZFS pools on the system. It has the following sections:
■ “Adding Devices to a Storage Pool”

■ “Removing Devices From a Storage Pool”
■ “Attaching and Detaching Devices in a Storage Pool”
■ “Splitting a Mirrored Storage Pool to Create a New Pool”
■ “Taking Devices in a Storage Pool Offline or Returning Online”
■ “Clearing Storage Pool Device Errors”
■ “Replacing Devices in a Storage Pool”
■ “Designating Hot Spares in a Storage Pool”
Adding Devices to a Storage Pool
You can dynamically add disk space to a pool by adding a new top-level virtual device. This
disk space is immediately available to all datasets in the pool.
The virtual device that you add should have the same level of redundancy as the existing virtual
device. However, you can change the level of redundancy by using the -f option.
To add a new virtual device to a pool, use the zpool add command.
$ zpool add pool keyword devices
Note - With zpool add -n, you can perform a dry run before actually adding devices.
Chapter 4 • Managing Devices in Oracle Solaris ZFS Storage Pools 41

EXAMPLE 3 Adding Disks to a Mirrored ZFS Configuration
In the following example, a mirror is added to a ZFS configuration that consists of two top-level
mirrored devices.
$ zpool add mpool mirror c0t3d0 c1t3d0
$ zpool status mpool
pool: mpool
state: ONLINE
config:

mpool ONLINE 0 0 0
c0t1d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c1t1d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c0t2d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c1t2d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
mirror-2 ONLINE 0 0 0 Added mirrored device.
c0t3d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c1t3d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
EXAMPLE 4 Adding Disks to a RAID-Z Configuration
This example shows how to add one RAID-Z device consisting of three disks to an existing
RAID-Z storage pool that also contains three disks.
$ zpool add rzpool raidz c2t2d0 c2t3d0 c2t4d0
$ zpool status rzpool
pool: rzpool
state: ONLINE
config:

rzpool ONLINE 0 0 0
raidz1-0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c1t2d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c1t3d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c1t4d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
raidz1-1 ONLINE 0 0 0 Added RAID-Z device.
c2t2d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c2t3d0 ONLINE 0 0 0

c2t4d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
EXAMPLE 5 Adding a Mirrored Log Device
This example shows how to add a mirrored log device to a mirrored storage pool.
$ zpool add newpool log mirror c0t6d0 c0t7d0

$ zpool status newpool
pool: newpool
state: ONLINE
config:

newpool ONLINE 0 0 0
c0t4d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c0t5d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
logs Added mirrored log device.
c0t6d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c0t7d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
Note that mirrored log devices are provided with an identifier, such as mirror-1 in the example.
The identifier is useful when you remove log devices, as shown in Example 8, “Removing a
Mirrored Log Device,” on page 45.
EXAMPLE 6 Adding Cache Devices
This example shows how to add a cache device to a pool.
$ zpool add system1 cache c2t5d0 c2t8d0

pool: system1
state: ONLINE
config:


Removing Devices From a Storage Pool
c2t0d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c2t1d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c2t3d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
cache Added cache device.
c2t5d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c2t8d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
To remove devices from a pool, use the zpool remove command. This command supports
removing hot spares, cache, log, and top level virtual data devices. You can remove devices by
referring to their identifiers, such as mirror-1 in Example 3, “Adding Disks to a Mirrored ZFS
Configuration,” on page 42.
You can cancel a top-level device removal operation by using the command zpool remove -s.
Note - The primary use case for removing a top-level data device is when you accidentally add
a device to a pool. You can lessen the potential impact to the running system if you remove the
accidentally added device promptly. For example, system or application performance might be
impacted negatively if you remove a top-level data device from an existing pool while reading
a large amount of cold data that is not re-written after the device is removed. Such a process
might be an RMAN backup of a data warehouse database. So, only use the zpool remove
command to recover a pool when you have added another device to the pool accidentally.
Avoid using the zpool remove command in cases where you cannot tolerate a performance
degradation or when the pool is nearly full. In such cases, consider creating a new pool and then
using the zfs send and zfs recv commands to migrate the data to the new pool.
EXAMPLE 7 Removing Top Level Virtual Data Devices
This example shows how to remove mirror-1 and mirror-2 from the pool that was created in
Example 3, “Adding Disks to a Mirrored ZFS Configuration,” on page 42. The example
provides two pieces of information after you issue the command to remove devices:
■ The status of the pool while the devices are being removed.
■ The status of the pool after the device removal is completed.
$ zpool remove mpool mirror-1 mirror-2
# zpool status mpool

pool: mpool
state: ONLINE
status: One or more devices is currently being removed.
action: Wait for the resilver to complete.
Run 'zpool status -v' to see device specific details.
scan: resilver in progress since Mon Jul 7 18:19:35
2014
16.7G scanned
884M resilvered at 52.6M/s, 9.94% done, 0h1m to go
config:

mpool ONLINE 0 0 0
c0t1d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c1t1d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
mirror-1 REMOVING 0 0 0
c0t2d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c1t2d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
mirror-2 REMOVING 0 0 0
c0t3d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c1t3d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
+
+ errors: No known data errors

pool: mpool
state: ONLINE
config:

c0t1d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c1t1d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
EXAMPLE 8 Removing a Mirrored Log Device
This example shows how to remove the log device mirror-1 that was created in Example 5,
“Adding a Mirrored Log Device,” on page 43. Note that if the log device is not redundant,
then remove the device by referring to the device name, such as c0t6d0.
$ zpool remove newpool mirror-1
$ zpool status newpool
pool: newpool
state: ONLINE

Attaching and Detaching Devices in a Storage Pool

config:

newpool ONLINE 0 0 0
c0t4d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c0t5d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
EXAMPLE 9 Removing Cache Devices
This example shows how to remove the cache device that was created in Example 6, “Adding
Cache Devices,” on page 43.
$ zpool remove system1 c2t5d0 c2t8d0
pool: system1
state: ONLINE
config:

c2t0d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c2t1d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c2t3d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
To add a new device to an existing virtual device, use the following command:
$ zpool attach pool existing-device new-device
You can use the zpool detach command to detach a device provided one of the following
conditions applies:
■ The device belongs to a mirrored pool configuration.
■ In a RAID-Z configuration, the detached device is replaced by another physical device or by
a spare.

Outside of these conditions, detaching a device generates an error similar to the following:
cannot detach c1t2d0: only applicable to mirror and replacing vdevs
The following examples show how to apply zfs attach commands.
EXAMPLE 10 Converting a Two-Way Mirrored Storage Pool to a Three-Way Mirrored Storage Pool
In this example, mpool is an existing two-way mirror pool. It is converted into a three-way
mirror pool by attaching c2t1d0, the new device, to the existing device c1t1d0. The newly
attached device is immediately resilvered.
$ zpool attach mpool c1t1d0 c2t1d0

pool: mpool
state: ONLINE
scrub: resilver completed after 0h0m with 0 errors on Fri Jan 8 12:59:20 2010
config:

mpool ONLINE 0 0 0
c0t1d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c1t1d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c2t1d0 ONLINE 0 0 0 592K resilvered Attached device creates a 3-
way mirror pool
EXAMPLE 11 Converting a Nonredundant Storage Pool to a Mirrored Storage Pool
The zpool attach command also enables you to convert a storage pool or a log device from a
nonredundant to a redundant configuration.
The following example shows the status of the nonredundant pool system1 before and after it is
converted into a redundant pool.

pool: system1
state: ONLINE
config:
c0t1d0 ONLINE 0 0 0

Splitting a Mirrored Storage Pool to Create a New Pool

$ zpool attach system1 c0t1d0 c1t1d0
pool: system1
state: ONLINE
scrub: resilver completed after 0h0m with 0 errors on Fri Jan 8 14:28:23 2010
config:

system1 ONLINE 0 0 0 Pool becomes mirrored
c0t1d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c1t1d0 ONLINE 0 0 0 73.5K resilvered
You can quickly clone a mirrored ZFS storage pool by using the zpool split command. The
new pool will have identical contents to the original mirrored ZFS storage pool. You can then
import the new pool either to the same system or to another system. For more information about
importing pools, see “Importing ZFS Storage Pools” on page 75.
To split a pool, use the following command:
$ zpool split pool new-pool [device]
Unless you specify the device, the zpool split command by default detaches the last disk
of the pool's virtual device for the newly created pool. If a pool has multiple top-level virtual
devices, the command detaches a disk from each virtual device to create a new pool out of those
disks.
Splitting a pool applies only to mirrored configurations. You cannot split a RAID-Z configured
pool or a nonredundant pool.
If you split a pool that has only a single top-level device consisting of three disks, the new pool
created out of the third disk is nonredundant. The remaining pool retains data redundancy with
its two remaining disks. To convert the new pool into a redundant configuration, attach a new
device to the pool.
For more procedures and examples about splitting a ZFS pool with the zpool split command,
log in to your account at My Oracle Support (https://support.oracle.com) and see "How to
Use 'zpool split' to Split an rpool (Doc ID 1637715.1)".

Ensure the following before splitting a mirrored pool:
■ Data and application operations are quiesced.

■ No resilvering is in progress.
■ Your hardware is configured correctly. For related information about confirming your
hardware's cache flush settings, see “General System Practices” on page 271.
Before the actual split operation occurs, data in memory is flushed to the mirrored disks. After
the data is flushed, the disk is detached from the pool and given a new pool GUID so that the
pool can be imported on the same system on which it was split.
If the pool to be split has non-default file system mount points and the new pool is created on
the same system, then you must use the zpool split -R option to identify an alternate root
directory for the new pool so that any existing mount points do not conflict. For example:
$ zpool split -R /system2 system1 system2
If you don't use the zpool split -R option and you can see that mount points conflict when
you attempt to import the new pool, import the new pool with the -R option. If the new pool is
created on a different system, then specifying an alternate root directory is not necessary unless
mount point conflicts occur.
EXAMPLE 12 Splitting a Mirrored ZFS Pool
In this example, a mirrored storage pool called poolA with three disks is split. The two resulting
pools are the mirrored pool poolA with two disks and the new pool poolB with one disk.
$ zpool status poolA

pool: poolA
state: ONLINE
scan: none requested
config:

poolA ONLINE 0 0 0
c0t0d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c0t1d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c0t2d0 ONLINE 0 0 0

$ zpool split poolA poolB
$ zpool import luna
$ zpool status poolA poolB
pool: luna

Taking Devices in a Storage Pool Offline or Returning Online
state: ONLINE
config:

poolB ONLINE 0 0 0
c0t2d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
pool: poolA
state: ONLINE
config:

poolA ONLINE 0 0 0
c0t0d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c0t1d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
With the new configuration, you can perform other operations. For example, you can import
poolB on another system for backup purposes. After the backup is complete, you can destroy
poolB and reattach the disk to poolA.
Taking Devices in a Storage Pool Offline or Returning

Online
When a device in a storage pool becomes permanently unreliable or non-functional, you can
take the device offline with the following command:
$ zpool offline [option] pool device
where the name of device can either be the short name or the full path.
When you take a device offline, its OFFLINE state becomes persistent. For a nonpersistent
OFFLINE state, use the -t option, which takes the device temporarily offline. When the system is
rebooted, the device is automatically restored to the ONLINE state.

Taking Devices in a Storage Pool Offline or Returning Online
Caution - Do not take devices offline such that the pool itself becomes unavailable. For
example, you cannot take offline two devices in a raidz1 configuration, nor can you take
offline a top-level virtual device. The following error message would be displayed:
cannot offline c0t5000C500335F95E3d0: no valid replicas
The OFFLINE state does not mean that the device is detached from the pool. Therefore, you
cannot use that device for another pool. Otherwise, an error message is generated similar to the
following example:
device is part of exported or potentially active ZFS pool. Please see zpool(8)
To use the device for another pool, first restore the device to the ONLINE state, and then destroy
the pool to which the device belongs.
If you do not want to destroy the pool, replace the offline device with a comparable device. The
replaced device then becomes available for a different pool.
Note - You do not need to take devices offline to replace them.
To return a device online, use the following command:
$ zpool online [option] pool device
Any data that has been written to the pool is resynchronized with the newly available device.
If you try to bring online a device whose state is UNAVAIL, a message about a faulted device is
displayed, similar to the following example:
warning: device 'device' onlined, but remains in faulted state

use 'zpool clear' to restore a faulted device
Messages about faulted device might also be displayed on the console or written to the /var/
adm/messages file.
For more information about replacing a faulted device, see “Resolving a Missing or Removed
Device” on page 239.
To expand a LUN, use the zpool online -e command. By default, a LUN that is added to
a pool is not expanded to its full size unless the autoexpand pool property is enabled. If the
property is disabled, use the command to expand the LUN automatically. You can run the
command regardless of whether the LUN is offline or already online.

Clearing Storage Pool Device Errors
Clearing Storage Pool Device Errors
Pool device failures, such as temporarily losing connectivity, can cause errors that are also
reported in a zpool status output. To clear such errors, use the following command:
$ zpool clear pool [devices]
If devices are specified, the command clears only those errors that are associated with the
devices. Otherwise, the command clears all device errors within the pool.
For more information about clearing zpool errors, see “Clearing Transient or Persistent Device
Errors” on page 245.
Replacing Devices in a Storage Pool
You can replace a device in a storage pool by using the zpool replace command.
$ zpool replace pool replaced-device [new-device]
If you are installing a device's replacement on the same location in a redundant pool, you might
only need to identify the replaced device. On some hardware, ZFS recognizes the new device
on the same location. However, if you install the replacement on a different location, you must
specify both the replaced device and the new device.
The automatic detection of replaced devices is hardware-dependent and might not be supported
on all platforms. Furthermore, some hardware types support the autoreplace pool property.
If this property is enabled, then a device's replacement on the same location is automatically
formatted and replaced. Running the zpool replace command is unnecessary.
Note the following guidelines:
■ A hot spare device, if available, automatically replaces a device that is removed while
the system is running. After a failed disk is replaced, you might need to detach the spare
by using the zpool detach command. For information about detaching a hot spare, see
“Activating and Deactivating Hot Spares in Your Storage Pool” on page 56.
■ A device that is removed and then reinserted is automatically brought online. In this case,
no replacement occurred. The replacement hot spare device is automatically removed after
the reinserted device is brought back online.
When you replace a device with one that has a larger capacity, the new device is not
automatically expanded to its full size after you add it to the pool. The autoexpand pool
property determines the automatic expansion of a replacement LUN. By default, this property is
disabled. You can enable it before or after the larger LUN is added to the pool.

How to Replace a Device in a Storage Pool
On some systems with SATA disks, you must unconfigure a disk before you can take it offline.
If you are replacing a disk in the same slot position on this system, then you can just run the
zpool replace command as described in Example 13, “Replacing Devices in a Mirrored Pool,”
on page 54the first example in this section. For an example of replacing a SATA disk, see
Example 54, “Replacing a SATA Disk in a ZFS Storage Pool,” on page 248.
Because of the resilvering of data onto new disks, replacing disks is time-consuming. Between
disk replacements, run the zpool scrub command to ensure that the replacement devices are
operational and that the data is written correctly.
For more information about replacing devices, see “Resolving a Missing or Removed
Device” on page 239 and “Replacing or Repairing a Damaged Device” on page 244.

1. If necessary, switch the device to the OFFLINE state.
$ zpool offline pool device
2. Physically replace the device with a new device.

In the case of redundant storage pools, ensure that the replacement device is equal to or larger
than the smallest disk in the pool.
3. Run the format command.

Check the following in the output:
■ Ensure that the new device is listed.

■ Check whether the replacement device is marked as WWN to verify that the device ID has
changed..
4. Replace the device in the pool.

If the new device has a new ID, include the ID in the command.
$ zpool replace pool replaced-device [new-device-ID]
Note - If you are replacing multiple devices, make sure that each device is fully resilvered
before you replace the next device.
5. If necessary, bring the device online.
$ zpool online pool new-device

6. If faulted device errors are reported, perform FMA procedures.
a. Run the command fmadm faulty.
b. From the Affects: section of the output, identify the pool name and the GUID
of the virtual device.
c. Run the following command and provide the information from the previous
step.
$ fmadm repaired zfs://pool=name/vdev=guid
Example 13 Replacing Devices in a Mirrored Pool
In this example, two 16GB disks in the pool system1 are replaced with two 72GB disks. The
autoexpand property is enabled after the disk replacements to expand the full disk sizes.

pool: system1
state: ONLINE
config:

mirror ONLINE 0 0 0
c1t16d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c1t17d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
$ zpool list system1

system1 16.8G 76.5K 16.7G 0% ONLINE -
$ zpool replace system1 c1t16d0 c1t1d0
system1 16.8G 88.5K 16.7G 0% ONLINE -
$ zpool set autoexpand=on system1
system1 68.2G 117K 68.2G 0% ONLINE -

Working With Hot Spares in Storage Pools
The hot spares feature enables you to identify disks that could be used to replace a failed or
faulted device in a storage pool. A hot spare device is inactive in a pool until the spare replaces
the failed device.
Designating Hot Spares in a Storage Pool

Devices can be designated as hot spares in the following ways:
■ When the pool is created.
$ zpool create pool keyword devices spare devices

■ After the pool is created.
$ zpool add pool spare devices
To remove a hot spare, use the following command:
$ zpool remove pool spare-device
Note - You cannot remove a hot spare that is currently being used by the pool.
A hot spare device must be equal to or larger than the size of the largest disk in the pool.
Otherwise, the smaller spare device can still be designated as a hot spare. However, when
that device is activated to replace a failed device, the operation fails with the following error
message:
cannot replace disk3 with disk4: device is too small
Do not share a spare across multiple pools or multiple systems even if the device is visible for
access by these systems. You can configure a disk to be shared among several pools provided
that only a single system must control all of these pools. However, this practice is risky. For
example, if pool A that is using the shared spare is exported, pool B could unknowingly use the
spare while pool A is exported. When pool A is imported, data corruption could occur because
both pools are using the same disk.

Activating and Deactivating Hot Spares in Your

Storage Pool
You activate hot spares in the following ways:
■ Manual replacement – Run the zpool replace command to replace a failed device. When
a new device is inserted to replace the failed disk, you activate the new device by detaching
the spare.
■ Automatic replacement – An FMA agent detects a fault, determines spare availability, and
automatically replaces the faulted device. A hot spare also replaces a device in the UNAVAIL
state.
If you set the autoreplace pool property to on, the spare is automatically detached
and returned to the spare pool when the new device is inserted and the online operation
completes.
To deactivate a hot spare, perform one of the following actions:
■ Remove the hot spare from the storage pool.
■ Detach the hot spare after physically replacing a failed disk. See Example 14, “Detaching a
Hot Spare After the Failed Disk Is Replaced,” on page 56.
■ Swap in another hot spare either temporarily or permanently. See Example 15, “Detaching a
Failed Disk and Using the Hot Spare,” on page 57.
EXAMPLE 14 Detaching a Hot Spare After the Failed Disk Is Replaced
This example assume the following configuration:

■ In system1's mirror-1 configuration, disk c0t5000C500335BA8C3d0 has failed. The
following partial output shows the status of mirror-1:

.
mirror-1 DEGRADED 0 0 0
c0t5000C500335BD117d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c0t5000C500335BA8C3d0 UNAVAIL 0 0 0 Failed disk
■ The pool's spare c0t5000C500335E106Bd0 is automatically activated to replace the failed
disk.
■ You physically replace the failed disk with a new device c0t5000C500335DC60Fd0.
The example begins with reconfiguring the pool with the new device. First, you run zpool
replace to inform ZFS about the removed device. Then, if necessary, you run zpool detach to

deactivate the spare and return it to the spare pool. The example ends with displaying the status
of the new configuration and performing the appropriate FMA steps for fault devices, as shown
in Step 6 of “How to Replace a Device in a Storage Pool” on page 53.
$ zpool replace system1 c0t5000C500335BA8C3d0

$ zpool detach system1 c0t5000C500335E106Bd0
.
.
c0t5000C500335BD117d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c0t5000C500335DC60Fd0 ONLINE 0 0 0 Replacement device
spares
c0t5000C500335E106Bd0 AVAIL Deactivated spare
$ fmadm faulty
EXAMPLE 15 Detaching a Failed Disk and Using the Hot Spare
Instead of a new replacement device, you can use the spare device as a permanent replacement
instead. In this case, you simply detach the failed disk. If the failed disk is subsequently
repaired, then you can add it to the pool as a newly designated spare.
This example uses the same assumptions as Example 14, “Detaching a Hot Spare After the
Failed Disk Is Replaced,” on page 56.
■ The mirror-1 configuration of the pool system1 is in a degraded state.

.
c0t5000C500335BD117d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c0t5000C500335BA8C3d0 UNAVAIL 0 0 0 Failed disk
■ The pool's spare c0t5000C500335E106Bd0 is automatically activated to replace the failed
disk.
The example begins with detaching the failed disk that has been replaced by the spare.
$ zpool detach system1 c0t5000C500335BA8C3d0

.
.
c0t5000C500335BD117d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c0t5000C500335E106Bd0 ONLINE 0 0 0 Spare replaces failed disk

Subsequently, you add the repaired disk back to the pool as the spare device. You complete the
procedure by performing the appropriate FMA steps for fault devices.
$ zpool add system1 spare c0t5000C500335BA8C3d0

.
.
c0t5000C500335BD117d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c0t5000C500335E106Bd0 ONLINE 0 0 0 Former spare
spares
c0t5000C500335BA8C3d0 AVAIL Repaired disk as spare
$ fmadm faulty

♦ ♦ ♦
5
C H A P T E R 5
Managing Oracle Solaris ZFS Storage Pools
This chapter describes how to administer storage pools in Oracle Solaris ZFS. It has the
following sections:
■ “Managing ZFS Storage Pool Properties”
■ “Querying ZFS Storage Pool Status”
■ “Migrating ZFS Storage Pools”
■ “Upgrading ZFS Storage Pools”
Managing ZFS Storage Pool Properties

To manage ZFS pool properties, you use the following commands:
■ zpool get all pool – Lists all the properties of the pool with their corresponding values.
■ zpool get property pool – Lists the specified property of the pool with its corresponding
value.
■ zpool set property=value pool – Assigns a value to the pool's specified property.
If you attempt to set a pool property on a pool that is full, a message similar to the following is
displayed:
$ zpool set autoreplace=on system1

cannot set property for 'system1': out of space
For information about preventing pool space capacity problems, see Chapter 12,
“Recommended Oracle Solaris ZFS Practices”.
TABLE 2 ZFS Pool Property Descriptions

Type Default Value Description
Property Name
allocated String N/A Read-only value that identifies the amount of storage space within the pool that has
been physically allocated.
Chapter 5 • Managing Oracle Solaris ZFS Storage Pools 59

Managing ZFS Storage Pool Properties

Property Name
altroot String off Identifies an alternate root directory. If set, this directory is prepended to any mount
points within the pool. This property can be used in the following situations: when
you are examining an unknown pool, if the mount points cannot be trusted, or in an
alternate boot environment where the typical paths are not valid.
autoreplace Boolean off Controls automatic device replacement. If set to off, you must initiate device
replacement using the zpool replace command. If set to on, any new device found
in the same physical location as a device that previously belonged to the pool is
automatically formatted and replaced. The property abbreviation is replace.
bootfs Boolean N/A Identifies the default bootable file system for the root pool. This property is typically
set by the installation programs.
cachefile String N/A Controls where pool configuration information is cached. All pools in the cache are
automatically imported when the system boots. However, installation and clustering
environments might require this information to be cached in a different location so
that pools are not automatically imported. You can set this property to cache pool
configuration information in a different location. This information can be imported
later by using the zpool import -c command.
For most ZFS configurations, this property is not used.

capacity Number N/A Read-only value that identifies the percentage of pool space used.
The property abbreviation is cap.

clustered String off Provides support for global mounting of a ZFS file system in an Oracle Solaris
Cluster environment.
dedupditto String N/A Sets a threshold for the reference count for a deduped block. If the count goes above
the threshold, another ditto copy of the block is stored automatically.
dedupratio String N/A Read-only deduplication ratio achieved for a pool, expressed as a multiplier.
delegation Boolean on Controls whether a nonprivileged user can be granted access permissions that are
defined for a file system. For more information, see Chapter 9, “Oracle Solaris ZFS
Delegated Administration”.
failmode String wait Controls the system behavior if a catastrophic pool failure occurs. This condition
is typically a result of a loss of connectivity to the underlying storage device or
devices or a failure of all devices within the pool. The behavior of such an event is
determined by one of the following values:
■ wait – Blocks all I/O requests to the pool until device connectivity is restored
and the errors are cleared by using the zpool clear command. In this state, I/
O operations to the pool are blocked but read operations might succeed. A pool
remains in the wait state until the device issue is resolved.
■ continue – Returns an EIO error to any new write I/O requests but allows reads
to any of the remaining healthy devices. Any write requests that have yet to be
committed to disk are blocked. After the device is reconnected or replaced, the
errors must be cleared with the zpool clear command.
■ panic – Prints a message to the console and generates a system crash dump.
free String N/A Read-only value that identifies the number of blocks within the pool that are not
allocated.
guid String N/A

Querying ZFS Storage Pool Status

Property Name
Read-only property that identifies the unique identifier for the pool.
Caution - If you are using multiple pools, make sure that they all have unique
GUIDs. Shared GUIDs among pools might result in unexpected behavior.
health String N/A Read-only property that identifies the current health of the pool, as either ONLINE,
DEGRADED, SUSPENDED, REMOVED, or UNAVAIL.
listshares String off Controls whether share information in this pool is displayed with the zfs list
command. The default value is off.
listsnapshots String off Controls whether snapshot information that is associated with this pool is displayed
with the zfs list command. If this property is disabled, you can display snapshot
information with the zfs list -t snapshot command.
readonly Boolean off Identifies whether a pool can be modified. This property is enabled only when a pool
is has been imported in read-only mode. If enabled, any synchronous data that exists
only in the intent log will not be accessible until the pool is re-imported in read-write
mode.
size Number N/A Read-only property that identifies the total size of the storage pool.
version Number N/A Identifies the current on-disk version of the pool. The preferred method of updating
pools is with the zpool upgrade command, although you can use this property when
you need a specific version for backwards compatibility. You can set this property
to any number between 1 and the current version reported by the zpool upgrade -v
command.
The zpool list command provides several ways to request information regarding pool status.
The information available generally falls into three categories: basic usage information, I/O
statistics, and health status. This section discuses all three types of storage pool information.
Displaying Information About ZFS Storage Pools

The zpool list command displays basic information about pools. You can use the command in
the following ways:
■ Without options: zpool list [pool]

If you do not specify a pool, then information for all pools is displayed.
■ With options: zpool list options [arguments]

Displaying Information About All Storage Pools or a Specific

Pool
The zpool list [pool] command displays the following pool information:
NAME Name of the pool.
SIZE Total size of the pool, equal to the sum of the sizes of all top-level virtual
devices.
ALLOC Amount of physical space allocated to all datasets and internal metadata.
Note that this amount differs from the amount of disk space as reported at
the file system level.
FREE Amount of unallocated space in the pool.
CAP (CAPACITY) Amount of disk space used, expressed as a percentage of the total disk
space.
HEALTH Current health status of the pool.

For more information about pool health, see “Determining the Health
Status of ZFS Storage Pools” on page 68.
ALTROOT Alternate root of the pool, if one exists.

For more information about alternate root pools, see “Using a ZFS Pool
With an Alternate Root Location” on page 228.
The following example shows sample zpool list command output:
$ zpool list
syspool1 80.0G 22.3G 47.7G 28% ONLINE -
syspool2 1.2T 384G 816G 32% ONLINE -
To obtain statistics for a specific pool, specify the pool name with the command.
Displaying Specific Storage Pool Statistics
You can select the specific pool information to be displayed by issuing options and arguments
with the zpool list command.

The -o option enables you to filter which columns are displayed. The following example shows
how to list only the name and size of each pool:
$ zpool list -o name,size
NAME SIZE
syspool1 80.0G
syspool2 1.2T
You can use the zpool list command as part of a shell script by issuing the combined
-Ho options. The -H option suppresses display of column headings and instead displays tab-
separated pool information. For example:
$ zpool list -Ho name,size
syspool1 80.0G
syspool2 1.2T
The -T option enables you to gather time-stamped statistics about the pools. Use the following
syntax:
$ zpool list -T d interval [count]
d Specifies to use the standard date format when displaying the date.
interval Specifies the interval in seconds between which information is displayed.
count Specifies the number of times to report the information. If you do not
specify count then the information is continuously refreshed at the
specified interval until you press Ctl-C.
The following example displays pool information twice, with a 3-second gap between the
reports. The output uses the standard format to display the date.
$ zpool list -T d 3 2
Tue Nov 2 10:36:11 MDT 2010
NAME SIZE ALLOC FREE CAP DEDUP HEALTH ALTROOT
pool 33.8G 83.5K 33.7G 0% 1.00x ONLINE -
rpool 33.8G 12.2G 21.5G 36% 1.00x ONLINE -
Tue Nov 2 10:36:14 MDT 2010
pool 33.8G 83.5K 33.7G 0% 1.00x ONLINE -
rpool 33.8G 12.2G 21.5G 36% 1.00x ONLINE -
Displaying Pool Devices by Physical Locations

Use the zpool status -l option to display information about the physical location of pool
devices. Reviewing the physical location information is helpful when you need to physically
remove or replace a disk.

In addition, you can use the fmadm add-alias command to include a disk alias name that helps
you identify the physical location of disks in your environment. For example:
$ fmadm add-alias SUN-Storage-J4400.1002QCQ015 Lab10Rack5disk
$ zpool status -l system1

pool: system1
state: ONLINE
scan: scrub repaired 0 in 0h0m with 0 errors on Fri Aug 3 16:00:35 2012
config:

/dev/chassis/Lab10Rack5.../DISK_02/disk ONLINE 0 0 0
.
.
.
spares
/dev/chassis/Lab10Rack5.../DISK_17/disk AVAIL
/dev/chassis/Lab10Rack5.../DISK_12/disk AVAIL
Displaying ZFS Storage Pool Command History
Use the zpool history command to display the log of zfs and zpool command use. The log
records when these commands were successfully used to modify pool state information or to
troubleshoot an error condition.
Note the following information about the history log:

■ You cannot disable the log. The log is saved persistently on disk and is preserved across
system reboots.
■ The log is implemented as a ring buffer. The minimum size is 128 KB. The maximum size
is 32 MB.
■ For smaller pools, the maximum size is capped at 1 percent of the pool size, where the size
is determined at pool creation time.

■ Because the log requires no administration, you do not need to tune the log size or its
location.
The following example shows the zfs and zpool command history on the pool system1.
$ zpool history system1

2012-01-25.16:35:32 zpool create -f system1 mirror c3t1d0 c3t2d0 spare c3t3d0
2012-02-17.13:04:10 zfs create system1/test
2012-02-17.13:05:01 zfs snapshot -r system1/test@snap1
Use the -l option to display a long format that includes the user name, the host name, and the
zone in which the operation was performed. For example:
$ zpool history -l system1

History for 'system1':
[user root on host1:global]
2012-02-17.13:04:10 zfs create system1/test [user root on host1:global]
2012-02-17.13:05:01 zfs snapshot -r system1/test@snap1 [user root on host1:global]
Use the -i option to display internal event information that can be used for diagnostic purposes.
For example:
$ zpool history -i system1

2012-01-25.16:35:32 [internal pool create txg:5] pool spa 33; zfs spa 33; zpl 5;
uts host1 5.11 11.1 sun4v
2012-02-17.13:04:10 zfs create system1/test
2012-02-17.13:04:10 [internal property set txg:66094] $share2=2 dataset = 34
2012-02-17.13:04:31 [internal snapshot txg:66095] dataset = 56
2012-02-17.13:05:01 zfs snapshot -r system1/test@snap1
2012-02-17.13:08:00 [internal user hold txg:66102] <.send-4736-1> temp = 1 ...
Viewing I/O Statistics for ZFS Storage Pools
To request I/O statistics for a pool or specific virtual devices, use the zpool iostat command.
Similar to the iostat command, this command can display a static snapshot of all I/O activity,
as well as updated statistics for every specified interval. The following statistics are reported:
alloc capacity The amount of data currently stored in the pool or device. This amount
differs from the amount of disk space available to actual file systems by a
small margin due to internal implementation details.

free capacity The amount of disk space available in the pool or device. Like the used
statistic, this amount differs from the amount of disk space available to
datasets by a small margin.
read operations The number of read I/O operations sent to the pool or device, including
metadata requests.
write operations The number of write I/O operations sent to the pool or device.
read bandwidth The bandwidth of all read operations (including metadata), expressed as
units per second.
write bandwidth The bandwidth of all write operations, expressed as units per second.
Listing Pool-Wide I/O Statistics
When issued with no options, the zpool iostat command displays the accumulated statistics
since boot for all pools on the system. For example:
$ zpool iostat
capacity operations bandwidth
pool alloc free read write read write
---------- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- -----
rpool 6.05G 61.9G 0 0 786 107
system1 31.3G 36.7G 4 1 296K 86.1K
---------- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- -----
Because these statistics are cumulative since boot, bandwidth might appear low if the pool is
relatively idle. You can request a more accurate view of current bandwidth usage by specifying
an interval. For example:
$ zpool iostat system1 2

---------- ----- ----- ---- ----- ----- -----
system1 18.5G 49.5G 0 187 0 23.3M
system1 18.5G 49.5G 0 464 0 57.7M
system1 18.5G 49.5G 0 457 0 56.6M
system1 18.8G 49.2G 0 435 0 51.3M
In this example, the command displays usage statistics for the pool system1 every two seconds
until you press Control-C. Alternately, you can specify an additional count argument, which
causes the command to terminate after the specified number of iterations.

For example, zpool iostat 2 3 would print a summary every two seconds for three iterations,
for a total of six seconds.
Listing Virtual Device I/O Statistics
The zpool iostat -v command can display I/O statistics for virtual devices. Use this
command to identify abnormally slow devices or to observe the distribution of I/O generated
by ZFS. See the following three examples. The last two examples display a multigroup
configuration.
$ zpool iostat -v tank

----------------------- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- -----
tank 2.69G 1.81T 0 29 252 14.2M
c0t5000C5001032271Bd0 1.34G 927G 0 14 130 7.09M
c0t5000C50010349387d0 1.34G 927G 0 14 122 7.09M
----------------------- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- -----

------------------------- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- -----
tank 810M 1.81T 0 390 536 32.1M
mirror-0 405M 928G 0 194 232 16.1M
c0t5000C5001032271Bd0 - - 0 37 1.07K 16.2M
c0t5000C50010349387d0 - - 0 38 858 16.1M
mirror-1 405M 928G 0 195 304 16.1M
c0t5000C5001033963Fd0 - - 0 37 1.14K 16.2M
c0t5000C5001033024Fd0 - - 0 38 858 16.2M
------------------------- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- -----

------------------------- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- -----
tank 258M 5.44T 0 321 876 31.5M
raidz1-0 128M 2.72T 0 160 29 15.9M
c0t5000C5001032271Bd0 - - 0 33 1.40K 8.07M
c0t5000C50010349387d0 - - 0 30 1.37K 8.07M
c0t5000C5001033963Fd0 - - 0 30 1.37K 8.07M
raidz1-1 130M 2.72T 0 160 847 15.5M
c0t5000C5001033024Fd0 - - 1 34 2.20K 8.10M
c0t5000C500103C9817d0 - - 0 34 1.37K 7.87M
c0t5000C50010324F67d0 - - 0 34 1.37K 8.10M
------------------------- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- -----

The zpool iostat -v command provides specific information for each level of the pool
configuration:
■ Pool level shows the sum of the group level data.
■ Group level shows the compiled data of the mirror or raidz configuration.
■ Leaf level shows information for each physical disk.
Note two important points when viewing I/O statistics for virtual devices:
■ Statistics on disk space use are available only for top-level virtual devices. The way in
which disk space is allocated among mirror and RAID-Z virtual devices is particular to the
implementation and not easily expressed as a single number.
■ The numbers might not add up exactly as you would expect. In particular, operations across
RAID-Z and mirrored devices will not be exactly equal. This difference is particularly
noticeable immediately after a pool is created because a significant amount of I/O is done
directly to the disks as part of pool creation, which is not accounted for at the mirror level.
Over time, these numbers gradually equalize. However, broken, unresponsive, or offline
devices can affect this symmetry as well.
You can use interval and count when examining virtual device statistics.
You can also display physical location information about the pool's virtual devices. The
following example shows sample output that has been truncated:
$ zpool iostat -lv

---------- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- -----
export 2.39T 2.14T 13 27 42.7K 300K
mirror 490G 438G 2 5 8.53K 60.3K
/dev/chassis/lab10rack15/SCSI_Device__2/disk - - 1 0 4.47K 60.3K
mirror 490G 438G 2 5 8.62K 59.9K
Determining the Health Status of ZFS Storage

Pools
You can display pool and device health by using the zpool status command. In addition, the
fmd command also reports potential pool and device failures on the system console, and the
/var/adm/messages file.

This section describes only how to determine pool and device health. For data recovery from
unhealthy pools, see Chapter 11, “Oracle Solaris ZFS Troubleshooting and Pool Recovery”.
A pool's health status is described by one of four states:
DEGRADED
A pool with one or more failed devices whose data is still available due to a redundant
configuration.
ONLINE
A pool that has all devices operating normally.
SUSPENDED
A pool that is waiting for device connectivity to be restored. A SUSPENDED pool remains in
the wait state until the device issue is resolved.
UNAVAIL
A pool with corrupted metadata, or one or more unavailable devices, and insufficient
replicas to continue functioning.
Each pool device can fall into one of the following states:
DEGRADED The virtual device has experienced a failure but can still function. This
state is most common when a mirror or RAID-Z device has lost one
or more constituent devices. The fault tolerance of the pool might be
compromised because a subsequent fault in another device might be
unrecoverable.
OFFLINE The device has been explicitly taken offline by the administrator.
ONLINE The device or virtual device is in normal working order even though
some transient errors might still occur.
REMOVED The device was physically removed while the system was running.
Device removal detection is hardware-dependent and might not be
supported on all platforms.
UNAVAIL The device or virtual device cannot be opened. In some cases, pools with
UNAVAIL devices appear in DEGRADED mode. If a top-level virtual device is
UNAVAIL, then nothing in the pool can be accessed.
The health of a pool is determined from the health of all its top-level virtual devices. If all
virtual devices are ONLINE, then the pool is also ONLINE. If any one of the virtual devices is
DEGRADED or UNAVAIL, then the pool is also DEGRADED. If a top-level virtual device is UNAVAIL or
OFFLINE, then the pool is also UNAVAIL or SUSPENDED. A pool in the UNAVAIL or SUSPENDED state

is completely inaccessible. No data can be recovered until the necessary devices are attached
or repaired. A pool in the DEGRADED state continues to run but you might not achieve the same
level of data redundancy or data throughput than if the pool were online.
The zpool status command also displays the state of resilver and scrub operations as follows:
■ Resilver or scrub operations are in progress.
■ Resilver or scrub operations have been completed.
Resilver and scrub completion messages persist across system reboots.
■ Operations have been canceled.
Storage Pool Health Status
You can review pool health status by using one of the following zpool status command
options:
■ zpool status -x [pool] – Displays only the status pools that have errors or are otherwise
unavailable.
■ zpool status -v [pool] – Generates verbose output providing detailed information about
the pools and their devices.
You should investigate any pool that is not in the ONLINE state for potential problems.
The following example shows how to generate a verbose status report about the pool system1.
$ zpool status -v system1
pool: system1
state: DEGRADED
status: One or more devices are unavailable in response to persistent errors.
Sufficient replicas exist for the pool to continue functioning in a
degraded state.
action: Determine if the device needs to be replaced, and clear the errors
using 'zpool clear' or 'fmadm repaired', or replace the device
with 'zpool replace'.
scan: scrub repaired 0 in 0h0m with 0 errors on Wed Jun 20 15:38:08 2012
config:

system1 DEGRADED 0 0 0
c0t5000C500335F95E3d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c0t5000C500335F907Fd0 UNAVAIL 0 0 0
c0t5000C500335BD117d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c0t5000C500335DC60Fd0 ONLINE 0 0 0

device details:
c0t5000C500335F907Fd0 UNAVAIL cannot open

status: ZFS detected errors on this device.
The device was missing.
see: URL to My Oracle Support knowledge article for recovery
The READ and WRITE columns provide a count of I/O errors that occurred on the device, while
the CKSUM column provides a count of uncorrectable checksum errors that occurred on the
device. Both error counts indicate a potential device failure for which some corrective action is
needed. If non-zero errors are reported for a top-level virtual device, portions of your data might
have become inaccessible.
The output identifies problems as well as possible causes for the pool's current state. The output
also includes a link to a knowledge article for up-to-date information about the best way to
recover from the problem. From the output, you can determine which device is damaged and
how to repair the pool.
For more information about diagnosing and repairing UNAVAIL pools and data, see Chapter 11,
“Oracle Solaris ZFS Troubleshooting and Pool Recovery”.
Gathering ZFS Storage Pool Status Information

You can use the zpool status interval and count options to gather statistics over a period of
time. In addition, you can display a time stamp by using the -T option. For example:
$ zpool status -T d 3 2
Wed Jun 20 16:10:09 MDT 2012
pool: pond
state: ONLINE
scan: resilvered 9.50K in 0h0m with 0 errors on Wed Jun 20 16:07:34 2012
config:

pond ONLINE 0 0 0
c0t5000C500335F95E3d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c0t5000C500335F907Fd0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c0t5000C500335BD117d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c0t5000C500335DC60Fd0 ONLINE 0 0 0

pool: rpool
state: ONLINE
config:

rpool ONLINE 0 0 0
c0t5000C500335BA8C3d0s0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c0t5000C500335FC3E7d0s0 ONLINE 0 0 0

Wed Jun 20 16:10:12 MDT 2012
pool: pond
state: ONLINE
scan: resilvered 9.50K in 0h0m with 0 errors on Wed Jun 20 16:07:34 2012
config:

pond ONLINE 0 0 0
c0t5000C500335F95E3d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c0t5000C500335F907Fd0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c0t5000C500335BD117d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c0t5000C500335DC60Fd0 ONLINE 0 0 0
pool: rpool
state: ONLINE
config:

rpool ONLINE 0 0 0
c0t5000C500335BA8C3d0s0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c0t5000C500335FC3E7d0s0 ONLINE 0 0 0

Migrating ZFS Storage Pools
Occasionally, you might need to move a storage pool between systems. You would disconnect
the storage devices from the original system and reconnect them to the destination system either
by physically recabling the devices or by using multiported devices such as the devices on a
SAN.
ZFS enables you to export the pool from one system and import it on the destination system
even if the systems are of different architectural endianness. For information about replicating
or migrating file systems between different storage pools, which might reside on different
systems, see “Saving, Sending, and Receiving ZFS Data” on page 186.
Preparing for ZFS Storage Pool Migration

To migrate a pool, you must first export it. This operation flushes any unwritten data to disk,
writes data to the disk indicating that the export is complete, and removes all information about
the pool from the system.
If you do not explicitly export the pool but instead remove the disks manually, you can still
import the resulting pool on another system. However, you might lose the last few seconds
of data transactions. Also, because the devices are no longer present, the pool will appear as
UNAVAIL on the original system. By default, the destination system cannot import a pool that
has not been explicitly exported. This condition is necessary to prevent you from accidentally
importing an active pool that consists of network-attached storage that is still in use on another
system.
Exporting a ZFS Storage Pool
To export a pool, use the following command:
$ zpool export [option] pool
The command first unmounts any mounted file systems within the pool. If any of the file
systems fail to unmount, you can forcefully unmount them by using the -f option. However, if
ZFS volumes in the pool are in use, the operation fails even with the -f option. To export a pool
with a ZFS volume, first ensure that all consumers of the volume are no longer active.
For more information, see “ZFS Volumes” on page 219.

After this command is executed, the pool is no longer visible on the system.
If devices are unavailable at the time of export, the devices cannot be identified as cleanly
exported. If one of these devices is later attached to a system without any of the other working
devices, it appears as potentially active.
Determining Available Storage Pools to Import

After the pool has been removed from the system, you can attach the devices to the target
system. You do not need to attach them under the same device name. ZFS detects any moved
or renamed devices and adjusts the configuration appropriately. Note that ZFS can handle
some situations in which only some of the devices are available. However, a successful pool
migration depends on the overall health of all the devices.
Use the following general command syntax for all pool import operations:
$ zpool import [options] [pool|ID-number]
To discover available pools that can be imported, run the zpool import command without
specifying pools. In the output, the pools are identified by names and unique number identifiers.
If pools available for import share the same name, use the numeric identifier to import the
correct pool.
If problems exist with a pool to be imported, the command output also provides the appropriate
information to help you determine what action to take.
In the following example, one of the devices is missing but you can still import the pool
because the mirrored data remains accessible.
$ zpool import
pool: system1
id: 4715259469716913940
state: DEGRADED
status: One or more devices are unavailable.
action: The pool can be imported despite missing or damaged devices. The
fault tolerance of the pool may be compromised if imported.
config:
system1 DEGRADED
mirror-0 DEGRADED
c0t5000C500335E106Bd0 ONLINE
c0t5000C500335FC3E7d0 UNAVAIL cannot open
device details:
c0t5000C500335FC3E7d0 UNAVAIL cannot open


In the following example, because two disks are missing from a RAID-Z virtual device, not
enough redundant data exists to reconstruct the pool. With insufficient available devices, ZFS
cannot import the pool.
$ zpool import
pool: mothership
id: 3702878663042245922
state: UNAVAIL
action: The pool cannot be imported due to unavailable devices or data.
config:
mothership UNAVAIL insufficient replicas

raidz1-0 UNAVAIL insufficient replicas
c8t0d0 UNAVAIL cannot open
c8t2d0 ONLINE
c8t3d0 ONLINE
device details:


Importing ZFS Storage Pools
To import a specific pool, specify the pool name or its numeric identifier with the zfs import
command. Additionally, you can rename a pool while importing it. For example:
$ zpool import system1 mpool
This command imports the exported pool system1 and renames it mpool. The new pool name is
persistent.
Note - You cannot rename a pool directly. You can only change the name of a pool while
exporting and importing the pool, which also renames the root dataset to the new pool name.

Caution - During an import operation, warnings occur if the pool might be in use on another
system.
cannot import 'pool': pool may be in use on another system

use '-f' to import anyway
Do not attempt to import a pool that is active on one system to another system. ZFS is not a
native cluster, distributed, or parallel file system and cannot provide concurrent access from
multiple, different systems.
You can also import pools under an alternate root by using the -R option. For more information,
see “Using a ZFS Pool With an Alternate Root Location” on page 228.
Importing a Pool With a Missing Log Device
By default, a pool with a missing log device cannot be imported. You can use zpool import -m
command to force a pool to be imported with a missing log device.
In the following example, the output indicates a missing mirrored log when you first import the
pool dozer.
$ zpool import dozer

The devices below are missing, use '-m' to import the pool anyway:
mirror-1 [log]
c3t3d0
c3t4d0
cannot import 'dozer': one or more devices is currently unavailable
To proceed with importing the pool with the missing mirrored log, use the -m option.
$ zpool import -m dozer

$ zpool status dozer
pool: dozer
state: DEGRADED
status: One or more devices could not be opened. Sufficient replicas exist for
the pool to continue functioning in a degraded state.
action: Attach the missing device and online it using 'zpool online'.
see: URL to My Oracle Support knowledge article
scan: scrub repaired 0 in 0h0m with 0 errors on Fri Oct 15 16:51:39 2010
config:

dozer DEGRADED 0 0 0

c3t1d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c3t2d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
logs
mirror-1 UNAVAIL 0 0 0 insufficient replicas
13514061426445294202 UNAVAIL 0 0 0 was c3t3d0
16839344638582008929 UNAVAIL 0 0 0 was c3t4d0
The imported pool remains in a DEGRADED state. Based on the output recommendation, attach
the missing log devices. Then, run the zpool clear command to clear the pool errors.
Importing a Pool in Read-Only Mode

If a pool is so damaged that it cannot be accessed, importing in read-only mode might enable
you to recover the pool's data. For example:
$ zpool import -o readonly=on system1

$ zpool scrub system1
cannot scrub system1: pool is read-only
When a pool is imported in read-only mode, the following conditions apply:

■ All file systems and volumes are mounted in read-only mode.
■ Pool transaction processing is disabled. Any pending synchronous writes in the intent log
are not made until the pool is imported in read-write mode.
■ Setting a pool property during the read-only import is ignored.
You can set the pool back to read-write mode by exporting and importing the pool. For
example:
$ zpool export system1

$ zpool import system1
Importing a Pool By Using a Specific Device Path
By default, the zpool import command searches devices only within the /dev/dsk directory.
If devices exist in another directory, or you are using pools backed by files, you must use the -d
option to search alternate directories. For example:
$ zpool create mpool mirror /file/a /file/b

$ zpool export mpool
$ zpool import -d /file
pool: mpool

id: 7318163511366751416
state: ONLINE
action: The pool can be imported using its name or numeric identifier.
config:
mpool ONLINE
mirror-0 ONLINE
/file/a ONLINE
/file/b ONLINE
$ zpool import -d /file mpool
If devices exist in multiple directories, you can specify multiple -d options.
The following command imports the pool mpool by identifying one of the pool's specific
devices, /dev/etc/c2t3d0:
$ zpool import -d /dev/etc/c2t3d0 mpool

pool: mpool
state: ONLINE
scan: resilvered 952K in 0h0m with 0 errors on Fri Jun 29 16:22:06 2012
config:

mpool ONLINE 0 0 0
c2t3d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c2t1d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
Recovering Destroyed ZFS Storage Pools
You can use the zpool import -D command to recover a storage pool that has been destroyed.
In the following example, the pool system1 is indicated as destroyed.
$ zpool import -D
pool: system1
id: 5154272182900538157
state: ONLINE (DESTROYED)
config:
system1 ONLINE
mirror-0 ONLINE
c1t0d0 ONLINE

c1t1d0 ONLINE
To recover the destroyed pool, import it with the -D option.

$ zpool import -D system1
pool: system1
state: ONLINE
config:

c1t0d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c1t1d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
If one of the devices in the destroyed pool is unavailable, you might still recover the destroyed
pool by including the -f option. In this scenario, you would import the degraded pool and then
attempt to fix the device failure. For example:
$ zpool import -D
pool: dozer
id: 4107023015970708695
state: DEGRADED (DESTROYED)
action: The pool can be imported despite missing or damaged devices. The
fault tolerance of the pool may be compromised if imported.
config:
dozer DEGRADED
raidz2-0 DEGRADED
c8t0d0 ONLINE
c8t1d0 ONLINE
c8t2d0 ONLINE
c8t4d0 ONLINE
device details:

$ zpool import -Df dozer
$ zpool status -x
pool: dozer
state: DEGRADED

Upgrading ZFS Storage Pools

degraded state.
config:

dozer DEGRADED 0 0 0
raidz2-0 DEGRADED 0 0 0
c8t0d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c8t1d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c8t2d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
4881130428504041127 UNAVAIL 0 0 0
c8t4d0 ONLINE 0 0 0

$ zpool online dozer c8t3d0
$ zpool status -x
all pools are healthy
With the zpool upgrade command, you can upgrade ZFS storage pools from a previous Oracle
Solaris release.
Before using the command, use the zpool status command to check whether the pools were
configured with a ZFS version that is previous to the version currently on the system. Also,
consider displaying the features of the current ZFS version on the system by using the -v option
as shown below:
$ zpool upgrade -v
The list of features would vary depending on the ZFS version number on the system. See “ZFS
Pool Versions” on page 287 for a complete list.
Use the -a option to upgrade the pools and take advantage of the latest ZFS features.
$ zpool upgrade -a
After you upgrade the pools, they are no longer accessible on a system that is running a
previous ZFS version.

EXAMPLE 16 Upgrading ZFS Pools
This example shows the actions to upgrade pools.
$ zpool status
pool: system1
state: ONLINE
status: The pool is formatted using an older on-disk format. The pool can
still be used, but some features are unavailable.
action: Upgrade the pool using 'zpool upgrade'. Once this is done, the
pool will no longer be accessible on older software versions.
config:
c1t0d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c1t1d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
$ zpool upgrade -v
This system is currently running ZFS pool version version-number.
The following versions are supported:
VER DESCRIPTION
--- --------------------------------------------------------
1 Initial ZFS version
2 Ditto blocks (replicated metadata)
3 Hot spares and double parity RAID-Z
4 zpool history
5 Compression using the gzip algorithm
.
.
Additional features
$ zpool upgrade -a

♦ ♦ ♦
6
C H A P T E R 6
Managing the ZFS Root Pool
This chapter describes how to manage the Oracle Solaris ZFS root pool and its components. It
covers the following topics:
■ “Requirements for Configuring the ZFS Root Pool”

■ “Managing a ZFS Root Pool”
■ “Managing ZFS Swap and Dump Devices”
■ “Booting From a ZFS Root File System”
For information about root pool recovery, see Using Unified Archives for System Recovery and
Cloning in Oracle Solaris 11.4.
Requirements for Configuring the ZFS Root Pool

ZFS is the default root file system of Oracle Solaris. The root pool contains the boot
environment (BE) and is automatically created during the installation.
ZFS Root Pool Space Requirements
The size of the swap dump volumes depend on the amount of physical memory. The minimum
amount of pool space for a bootable ZFS root file system depends upon the amount of physical
memory, the disk space available, and the number of BEs to be created.
The 7GB to 13GB minimum disk space recommended in “Hardware and Software
Requirements” on page 23 is consumed as follows:
■ Swap area and dump device – The default sizes of the swap and dump volumes that the
installation program creates vary based on variables such as the amount of system memory.
The dump device size is approximately half the size of physical memory or greater,
depending on the system's activity.
Chapter 6 • Managing the ZFS Root Pool 83

You can adjust the sizes of your swap and dump volumes during or after installation. The
new sizes must support system operation. See “Adjusting the Sizes of ZFS Swap and Dump
Devices” on page 98.
■ Boot environment – A ZFS BE is approximately 4 GB-6 GB. Each ZFS BE that is cloned
from another ZFS BE does not need additional disk space. The BE size will increase when it
is updated, depending on the updates. All ZFS BEs in the same root pool use the same swap
and dump devices.
■ Oracle Solaris Components – All subdirectories of the root file system except /var that are
part of the OS image must be in the root file system. All Oracle Solaris components except
the swap and dump devices must reside in the root pool.
ZFS Root Pool Configuration Recommendations

Follow these guidelines when configuring the ZFS root pool:
■ If you are using EFI (GPT) labeled disks, create the root pool on mirrored whole disks. If
you are using SMI (VTOC) labeled disks, create the root pool on mirrored slices.
In most cases, x86 systems and SPARC systems with GPT aware firmware have EFI (GPT)
labeled disks. Otherwise, SPARC systems have SMI (VTOC) labeled disks.
■ Do not rename the root pool that is created after an initial installation because the system
might become unbootable. Also, as best practice, do not change any default settings, such as
the mountpoint, of the root pool. Otherwise, errors might occur in subsequent operations on
the boot environment.
■ Do not use a thinly provisioned VMware device for a root pool device.
Root pools have the following limitations:
■ RAID-Z or striped configurations are not supported for root pools.
■ Root pools cannot have a separate log device.
■ You cannot configure multiple top-level virtual devices on root pools. However, you can
expand a mirrored root pool by attaching additional devices.
■ The gzip and lz4 compression algorithms are not supported on root pools.
Installing the ZFS Root Pool
As documented in Manually Installing an Oracle Solaris 11.4 System, you can use Live Media,
text installer, or Automated Installer (AI) with the AI manifest to install Oracle Solaris. All
three methods automatically install a ZFS root pool on a single disk. The installation also
configures swap and dump devices on ZFS volumes on the root pool.

The AI method offers more flexibility in installing the root pool. In the AI manifest, you can
specify the disks to use to create a mirrored root pool as well as enable ZFS properties, as
shown in Example 17, “Modifying the AI Manifest to Customize Root Pool Installation,” on
page 85.
After Oracle Solaris is completely installed, perform the following actions:
■ If the installation created a root pool on a single disk, then manually convert the pool into
a mirrored configuration. See “How to Configure a Mirrored Root Pool (SPARC or x86/
VTOC)” on page 88.
■ Set a quota on the ZFS root file system to prevent the root file system from filling up.
Currently, no ZFS root pool space is reserved as a safety net for a full file system. For
example, if you have a 68 GB disk for the root pool, consider setting a 67 GB quota on the
ZFS root file system (rpool/ROOT/solaris) to allow for 1 GB of remaining file system
space. See “Setting Quotas on ZFS File Systems” on page 152.
■ Create a root pool recovery archive for disaster recovery or for migration purposes by using
the Oracle Solaris archive utility. For more information, refer to Using Unified Archives for
System Recovery and Cloning in Oracle Solaris 11.4 and the archiveadm(8) man page.
EXAMPLE 17 Modifying the AI Manifest to Customize Root Pool Installation
This example shows how to customize the AI manifest to perform the following:
■ Create a mirrored root pool consisting of c1t0d0 and c2t0d0.
■ Enable the root pool's listsnaps property.
<target>
<disk whole_disk="true" in_zpool="rpool" in_vdev="mirrored">
<disk_name name="c1t0d0" name_type="ctd"/>
</disk>
<disk whole_disk="true" in_zpool="rpool" in_vdev="mirrored">
<disk_name name="c2t0d0" name_type="ctd"/>
</disk>
<logical>
<zpool name="rpool" is_root="true">
<vdev name="mirrored" redundancy="mirror"/>

<filesystem name="export" mountpoint="/export"/>
<filesystem name="export/home"/>
<pool_options>
<option name="listsnaps" value="on"/>
</pool_options>
<be name="solaris"/>
</zpool>

Managing a ZFS Root Pool
</logical>
</target>
EXAMPLE 18 Sample Root Pool Configuration
The following example shows a mirrored root pool and file system configuration after an AI
installation with a customized manifest.
$ zpool status rpool

pool: rpool
state: ONLINE
config:

rpool ONLINE 0 0 0
c8t0d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c8t1d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
$ zfs list
rpool 11.8G 55.1G 4.58M /rpool
rpool/ROOT 3.57G 55.1G 31K legacy
rpool/ROOT/solaris 3.57G 55.1G 3.40G /
rpool/ROOT/solaris/var 165M 55.1G 163M /var
rpool/VARSHARE 42.5K 55.1G 42.5K /var/share
rpool/dump 6.19G 55.3G 6.00G -
rpool/export 63K 55.1G 32K /export
rpool/export/home 31K 55.1G 31K /export/home
rpool/swap 2.06G 55.2G 2.00G -
Managing a ZFS Root Pool

This section provides procedures for managing the ZFS root pool.

How to Configure a Mirrored Root Pool (SPARC or x86/EFI (GPT))
How to Configure a Mirrored Root Pool (SPARC or

x86/EFI (GPT))
This procedure describes how to convert the default root pool installation into a redundant
configuration. This procedure applies to most x86 systems and SPARC systems with GPT-
aware firmware whose disks have the EFI (GPT) label.
1. (Optional) Display the current root pool status.
$ zpool status root-pool
2. Attach a second disk to configure a mirrored root pool.
$ zpool attach root-pool current-disk new-disk
The correct disk labeling and the boot blocks are applied automatically.
3. View the root pool status to confirm that resilvering is complete.

If resilvering has been completed, the output includes a message similar to the following:
scan: resilvered 11.6G in 0h5m with 0 errors on Fri Jul 20 13:57:25 2014
4. If the new disk is larger than the current disk, enable the ZFS autoexpand property.
$ zpool set autoexpand=on root-pool
The following example shows the difference in the rpool's disk space after the autoexpand
property is enabled.
$ zpool list rpool

rpool 29.8G 152K 29.7G 0% 1.00x ONLINE -
$ zpool set autoexpand=on rpool
$ zpool list rpool

rpool 279G 146K 279G 0% 1.00x ONLINE -
5. Verify that you can boot successfully from the new disk.

How to Configure a Mirrored Root Pool (SPARC or x86/VTOC)
Note - Unexpected behavior might occur if the ZFS configuration consists of a root file system
that is built on mirrored iSCSI targets and the second LUN is not available on the same iSCSI
target or session as the boot disk. When the system is booted, the boot process would report that
opening the second iSCSI LUN failed and the root pool is in a degraded state. However, this
status is temporary. The issue automatically resolves after the ZFS performs a quick resilvering.
The second LUN then goes online and the state of the root pool goes online as well.
How to Configure a Mirrored Root Pool (SPARC or

x86/VTOC)
This procedure describes how to convert the default root pool installation into a redundant
configuration. This procedure applies to certain x86 systems and SPARC systems without GPT-
aware firmware whose disks have the SMI (VTOC) label.
Before You Begin Prepare the second disk to attach to the root pool as follows:
■ SPARC: Confirm that the disk has an SMI (VTOC) disk label and that slice 0 contains
the bulk of the disk space. If you need to relabel the disk and create a slice 0, see “How to
Replace a ZFS Root Pool Disk” in Managing Devices in Oracle Solaris 11.4.
■ x86: Confirm that the disk has an fdisk partition, an SMI disk label, and a slice 0. If you
need to repartition the disk and create a slice 0, see “Modifying Slices or Partitions” in
1. (Optional) Display the current root pool status.
$ zpool status root-pool
The configuration would display the disk's slice 0, as shown in the following example for
rpool.

pool: rpool
state: ONLINE
config:

rpool ONLINE 0 0 0
c2t0d0s0 ONLINE 0 0 0

How to Update a ZFS Boot Environment
2. Attach the second disk to configure a mirrored root pool.

Make sure that you include the slice when specifying the disk, such as c2t0d0s0. The correct
disk labeling and the boot blocks are applied automatically.

4. If the new disk is larger than the current disk, enable the ZFS autoexpand property.
The following example shows the difference in the rpool's disk space after the autoexpand
property is enabled.
$ zpool list rpool
$ zpool list rpool

Note - Unexpected behavior might occur if the ZFS configuration consists of a root file system
that is built on mirrored iSCSI targets and the second LUN is not available on the same iSCSI
target or session as the boot disk. When the system is booted, the boot process would report that
opening the second iSCSI LUN failed and the root pool is in a degraded state. However, this
status is temporary. The issue automatically resolves after the ZFS performs a quick resilvering.
The second LUN then goes online and the state of the root pool goes online as well.
How to Update a ZFS Boot Environment
By default, the ZFS BE is named solaris. The pkg update command updates the ZFS BE
by creating and automatically activating a new BE, provided that significant differences exist
between the current and updated BEs.

How to Mount an Alternate BE
1. (Optional) View the current boot environment configuration.

The BE's Active field shows N to indicate that the BE is active, R to indicate that it becomes
active after a system reboot, or both (NR).
$ beadm list
BE Active Mountpoint Space Policy Created
-- ------ ---------- ----- ------ -------
solaris NR / 3.82G static 2012-07-19 13:44
2. Update the ZFS BE.
$ pkg update
.
DOWNLOAD PKGS FILES XFER (MB)
Completed 707/707 10529/10529 194.9/194.9
.
A new BE, solaris-1, is created automatically and activated.
3. Reboot the system to complete the BE activation. Then, confirm the BE status.
$ init 6
.
.
$ beadm list
-- ------ ---------- ----- ------ -------
solaris - - 46.95M static 2014-07-20 10:25
solaris-1 NR / 3.82G static 2014-07-19 14:45
4. If an error occurs when booting the new BE, activate and boot the previous BE.
$ beadm activate solaris

$ init 6
You use the same beadm activate BE command syntax to activate an existing backup BE
independent of any update operation.
How to Mount an Alternate BE

1. Become an administrator.
2. Mount the alternate BE.
$ beadm mount alt-BE /mnt

How to Replace a Disk in a ZFS Root Pool
3. Access the BE.
$ ls /mnt
4. Unmount the alternate BE when you're finished.
$ beadm umount alt-BE
Replacing Disks in a ZFS Root Pool
You might need to replace a disk in the root pool for the following reasons:
■ The root pool is too small and you want to replace it with a larger disk
■ The root pool disk is failing. In a non-redundant pool, if the disk is failing and the system no
longer boots, boot from another source such as a CD or the network. Then, replace the root
pool disk.
You can replace disks by using one of two methods:

■ Using the zpool replace command.
This method involves scrubbing and clearing the root pool of dirty time logs (DTLs), then
replacing the disk. After the new disk is installed, you apply the boot blocks manually.
■ Using the zpool detach|attach commands.
This method involves attaching the new disk and verifying that it is working properly, then
detaching the faulty disk.
If you are replacing root pool disks that have the SMI (VTOC) label, ensure that you fulfill the
following requirements:
■ SPARC: Confirm that the disk has an SMI (VTOC) disk label and a slice 0 that contains
the bulk of the disk space. If you need to relabel the disk and create a slice 0, see “How to
Replace a ZFS Root Pool Disk” in Managing Devices in Oracle Solaris 11.4.
■ x86: Confirm that the disk has an fdisk partition, an SMI disk label, and a slice 0. If you
need to repartition the disk and create a slice 0, see “Modifying Slices or Partitions” in
This procedure uses the zpool attach|detach commands to replace the disk.
1. Physically connect the replacement disk.

2. Attach the new disk to the root pool.
Where current-disk becomes old-disk to be detached at the end of this procedure.

The correct disk labeling and the boot blocks are applied automatically.
Note - If the disks have SMI (VTOC) labels, make sure that you include the slice when
specifying the disk, such as c2t0d0s0.

5. After a successful boot, detach the old disk.
$ zpool detach root-pool old-disk
Where old-disk is the current-disk of Step 2.
Note - If the disks have SMI (VTOC) labels, make sure that you include the slice when
specifying the disk, such as c2t0d0s0.
6. If the attached disk is larger than the existing disk, enable the ZFS autoexpand
property.
7. Set the system to boot automatically from the new disk.

■ SPARC: Use either the eeprom command or the setenv command from the boot PROM.
■ x86: Reconfigure the system BIOS.
8. If necessary, physically remove the replaced disk from the system.
Example 19 Replacing a Disk in a ZFS Root Pool (SPARC or x86/EFI (GPT)
This example replaces c2t0d0 in the root pool named rpool by using the zpool attach|
detach commands. It assumes that the replacement disk c2t1d0 is already physically connected
to the system.

$ zpool attach rpool c2t0d0 c2t1d0

Make sure to wait until resilver is done before rebooting.

pool: rpool
state: ONLINE
config:

rpool ONLINE 0 0 0
c2t0d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c2t1d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
After completing the boot test from the new disk c2t1d0, you would detach c2t0d0 and, if
necessary, enable the autoexpand property.
$ zpool detach rpool c2t0d0

$ zpool list rpool
$ zpool list rpool
You would complete the operation by setting the system to automatically boot from the new
disk.
Example 20 Replacing SATA Disks in a Root Pool (SPARC or x86/EFI (GPT))
This example replaces c1t0d0 by using the zpool replace command.
Systems with SATA disks require that before replacing a failed disk with the zpool replace
command, you take the disk offline and unconfigure it. As a best practice, scrub and clear the
root pool first before replacing the disk.
Suppose that you are replacing c1t0d0 on the system. You would issue the following
commands:
$ zpool scrub rpool

$ zpool clear rpool
$ zpool offline rpool c1t0d0
$ cfgadm -c unconfigure c1::dsk/c1t0d0

At this point, you would physically remove the failed disk c1t0d0 and insert the replacement
disk on the same slot. Thus, the new disk is still c1t0d0. On some hardware, you do not have to
bring the disk online or reconfigure the replacement disk after it is inserted.
$ cfgadm -c configure c1::dsk/c1t0d0

$ zpool online rpool c1t0d0
$ zpool replace rpool c1t0d0
After resilvering is completed, you would install the boot blocks.
$ bootadm install-bootloader
Example 21 Replacing a Disk in a ZFS Root Pool (SPARC or x86/VTOC)
This example uses the zpool attach|detach commands to replace c2t0d0s0 in the root pool
named rpool. It assumes that the replacement disk c2t1d0s0 is already physically connected to
the system.
$ zpool attach rpool c2t0d0s0 c2t1d0s0

Make sure to wait until resilver is done before rebooting.

pool: rpool
state: ONLINE
config:

rpool ONLINE 0 0 0
You would test booting from the new disk c2t1d0s0. You would also test booting from the old
disk c2t0d0s0 in case c2t1d0s0 fails.
ok boot /pci@1f,700000/scsi@2/disk@1,0
ok boot /pci@1f,700000/scsi@2/disk@0,0
After completing the boot tests, you would detach c2t0d0s0 and, if necessary, enable the
autoexpand property.
$ zpool detach rpool c2t0d0s0

$ zpool list rpool

$ zpool list rpool
You would complete the operation by setting the system to automatically boot from the new
disk.
Example 22 Replacing SATA Disks in a Root Pool (SPARC or x86 (VTOC))
This example replaces c1t0d0 by using the zpool replace command.
Systems with SATA disks require that before replacing a failed disk with the zpool replace
command, you take the disk offline and unconfigure it. As a best practice, scrub and clear the
root pool first before replacing the disk.
Suppose that you are replacing c1t0d0 on the system. You would issue the following
commands:
$ zpool scrub rpool

$ zpool clear rpool
$ zpool offline rpool c1t0d0s0
$ cfgadm -c unconfigure c1::dsk/c1t0d0
At this point, you would physically remove the failed disk c1t0d0 and insert the replacement
disk on the same slot. Thus the new disk is still c1t0d0. On some hardware, you do not have to
bring the disk online or reconfigure the replacement disk after it is inserted.
$ cfgadm -c configure c1::dsk/c1t0d0
After confirming that the replacement disk c1t0d0s0 has an SMI label and a slice 0, you would
issue the zpool replace command and proceed with the replacement process.
$ zpool replace rpool c1t0d0s0

$ zpool online rpool c1t0d0s0
After resilvering is completed, you install the boot blocks.

Managing ZFS Swap and Dump Devices
Managing ZFS Swap and Dump Devices
The installation process automatically creates a swap area and a dump device on a ZFS volume
in the ZFS root pool.
The dump device is used when the directory where crash dumps are saved has insufficient
space, or if you ran the dumpadm -n command syntax. The -n modifies the dump configuration
to not run savecore automatically running after a system reboot.
Certain systems avail of the deferred dump feature in the current Oracle Solaris release. With
this feature, a system dump is preserved in memory across a system reboot to enable you to
analyze the crash dump after the system reboots. For more information, see “About Devices and
the Oracle Hardware Management Pack” in Managing Devices in Oracle Solaris 11.4.
Note the following guidelines when managing swap and dump volumes:
■ During a Solaris installation, a dump device is automatically created in the root pool. This
is the recommended location for dump and swap devices. If the root pool is too small for
the dump device, it can be relocated to a non-root pool. The non-root pool must be either a
single-disk pool, a mirrored pool, or a striped pool. Dump devices are not supported on a
RAIDZ pool.
■ You must use separate ZFS volumes for the swap area and dump devices.
■ Sparse volumes are not supported for swap volumes.
■ Currently, using a swap file on a ZFS file system is not supported.
Viewing Swap and Dump Information
To view the swap area, use the swap -l command. For example:
$ swap -l
swapfile dev swaplo blocks free
/dev/zvol/dsk/rpool/swap 145,2 16 16646128 16646128
To view the dump configuration, use the dumpadm command. For example:
$ dumpadm
Dump content: kernel pages
Dump device: /dev/zvol/dsk/rpool/dump (dedicated)
Savecore directory: /var/crash/
Savecore enabled: yes

How to Create a Swap Volume
Save compressed: on
You can also manually create swap or dump volumes in a non-root pool. After creating a dump
device on the non-root pool, you must also reset it by running the dump -d command.
In the following example, a dump device is created on the non-root pool bpool.
$ zfs create -V 10g bpool/dump2

$ dumpadm -d /dev/zvol/dsk/bpool/dump2
Dump content : kernel with ZFS metadata
Dump device : /dev/zvol/dsk/bpool/dump2 (dedicated)
Savecore directory: /var/crash
Savecore enabled : yes
Save compressed : on
How to Create a Swap Volume
This procedure applies to both root pools and non-root pools. If you need more swap space but
the existing swap device is busy, just add another swap volume by using this same procedure.
1. Create the swap volume.
$ zfs create -V size new-pool/swap
2. With a text editor, update the /etc/vfstab entry for the new swap device.
See Example 23, “Manually Creating a Swap Volume,” on page 97 for a sample entry.
3. Activate the new swap volume if you want to switch to the new swap volume
from an existing active swap volume.
$ swap -a path-to-new-swap-volume
4. If necessary, reboot the system.
Example 23 Manually Creating a Swap Volume
This example creates a new 4 GB swap volume in the pool rpool. This new swap volume is
intended to replace an existing swap volume.
$ zfs create -V 4g rpool2/swap2

$ vi /etc/vfstab
/dev/zvol/dsk/rpool2/swap - - swap - no - vfstab entry
$ swap -a /dev/zvol/dsk/rpool/swap2

How to Create a Dump Volume
This procedure applies whether you are using a root pool or a non-root pool.
1. Create the dump volume.
$ zfs create -V size new-pool/dump
2. Reset the dump device.
$ dumpadm -d dump-path
3. If necessary, reboot the system.
Example 24 Manually Creating a Dump Volume
This example creates a new 4 GB dump volume in the pool rpool.
$ zfs create -V 4g rpool2/dump

$ dumpadm -d /dev/zvol/dsk/rpool2/dump
Adjusting the Sizes of ZFS Swap and Dump

Devices
After installation, you might need to adjust the size of swap and dump devices after installation.
Or you might need to recreate the swap and dump volumes.
By default, when you specify n blocks for the swap size, the first page of the swap file is
automatically skipped. Thus, the actual size that is assigned is n-1 blocks. To configure
the swap file size differently, use the swaplow option with the swap command. For more
information about the options for the swap command, see the swap(8) man page.
The following examples show how to adjust existing swap and dump devices under different
circumstances.
EXAMPLE 25 Resetting the Dump Device volsize Property
Note that resizing a large dump device can be a time-consuming process.
$ zfs set volsize=2G rpool/dump

$ zfs get volsize rpool/dump

rpool/dump volsize 2G -
EXAMPLE 26 Resizing the Swap Volume for Immediate Use
This example shows how to adjust the size of the swap volume.
$ swap -l
$ zfs get volsize rpool/swap
rpool/swap volsize 1G local
$ zfs set volsize=2g rpool/swap
$ swap -l
You will see two swap entries temporarily, but you will have access to the extended swap space.
Troubleshooting ZFS Dump Device Issues
This section describes certain issues and possible resolutions related to dump devices.
■ The size of the dump device is too small.

When you reset the dump device, the output includes a message similar to the following:
dumpadm: dump device dump-path is too small to hold a system dump
To resolve this error, increase the size of the dump device. See “Adjusting the Sizes of ZFS
Swap and Dump Devices” on page 98.
■ The dump device is disabled.
If necessary, create a new dump device and enable it by using the dumpadm -d command.
See “How to Create a Dump Volume” on page 98.
■ If the root pool is too small for the dump device, it can be added to a non-root pool as long
as the pool is not a RAIDZ pool.
When you reset the dump device, the output includes a message similar to the following:
dump is not supported on device 'dump-path':

'pool' has multiple top level vdevs

Booting From a ZFS Root File System
Adding a dump device to pools with multiple top-level devices is not supported. Add
the dump device to the root pool instead. Root pools support only a single top-level
configuration.
■ A crash dump was not created automatically.
In this case, use the savecore command to save the crash dump.
Both SPARC based and x86 based systems boot with a boot archive, which is a file system
image that contains the files required for booting. The root file system that is selected for
booting contains the path names of both the boot archive and the kernel file.
In the case of a ZFS boot, a device specifier identifies a storage pool, not a single root file
system. A storage pool can contain multiple bootable ZFS root file systems. Thus, you must
specify a boot device and a root file system within the pool that was identified by the boot
device.
By default, a ZFS boot process uses the file system that is defined in the pool's bootfs property.
However, you can override the default file system. On SPARC systems, you can use the boot
-Z command and specify an alternate bootable file system. On x86 systems, you can select an
alternate boot device from the BIOS.
If you replace a root pool disk with the zpool replace command, you must install the boot
information on the replacement disk. However, installing the boot information is not required if
you merely attach additional disks to the root pool.
To install the boot information, use the bootadm command in one of the following ways:
■ To install the boot information on the existing root pool's disk, use the following command:
■ To install the boot information on an alternate pool, use the following command:
$ bootadm install-bootloader -P alt-root-pool
Booting From an Alternate Root Pool Disk
Note - The information in this section applies only to mirrored root pools.
When booting from an alternate root pool disk, ensure that all the root pool's disks are attached
and online so you can boot from any of the disks, if necessary. On most systems, you cannot
boot directly from a disk that has been detached, or boot from an active root pool disk that is
currently offline.
Alternate Boot Disks on SPARC Systems

The primary disk in a mirrored root pool is typically the default boot device. To boot from a
different device, you must specify that disk when issuing the command to boot.
If you want to change the default boot device, first display the pool's configuration to select the
device you want. Then, at the OK prompt, update the system's PROM with the selected device.
Boot the system and confirm that your selected device is the active boot device.
The following example assigns c1t1d0 as the default boot device.

$ zpool status
pool: rpool
state: ONLINE
config:

rpool ONLINE 0 0 0
c1t0d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c1t1d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
...
ok boot /pci@7c0/pci@0/pci@1/pci@0,2/LSILogic,sas@2/disk@1
After the system is rebooted, you would confirm which active boot device is in the system.
$ prtconf -vp | grep bootpath
bootpath: '/pci@7c0/pci@0/pci@1/pci@0,2/LSILogic,sas@2/disk@1,0:a'
Alternate Boot Disks on x86 Systems

On x86 based systems with a modern BIOS where the boot disk order is properly set, the
system boots automatically from the second device if the primary root pool disk is detached,
offline, or unavailable. In such systems, you merely need to confirm which active boot device is
in the system, as shown in the following example.
$ prtconf -v|sed -n '/bootpath/,/value/p'
name='bootpath' type=string items=1

How to Select the Boot Environment for Booting
value='/pci@0,0/pci8086,25f8@4/pci108e,286@0/disk@0,0:a'
Booting From a ZFS Root File System on a SPARC

Based System
On a system with multiple ZFS BEs, you can boot from any BE by using the beadm activate
command. Both the installation process and the beadm activation process automatically set the
bootfs property.
By default, the bootfs property identifies the bootable file system entry in the /pool-
name/boot/menu.lst file. However, a menu.lst entry can contain a bootfs command that
specifies an alternate file system in the pool. Thus, the menu.lst file can contain entries for
multiple root file systems within the pool.
When a ZFS root file system is installed, an entry similar to the following example is added to
the menu.lst file:
title release-version SPARC

bootfs rpool/ROOT/solaris
When a new BE is created, the menu.lst file is updated automatically.
title release-version SPARC

bootfs rpool/ROOT/solaris
title solaris
bootfs rpool/ROOT/solaris2
SPARC: How to Select the Boot Environment for Booting

1. After a ZFS BE is activated, display a list of bootable file systems within a ZFS
pool.
$ boot -L
2. Select one of the bootable file systems in the list.

Detailed instructions for booting that file system are displayed.
3. Boot the selected file system by following the instructions.
4. Use the boot -Z file system command to boot a specific ZFS file system.
5. (Optional) To make the selected BE persistent across reboots, activate the BE.
Example 27 Booting From a Specific ZFS Boot Environment
If you have multiple ZFS BEs in a ZFS storage pool on your system's boot device, use the
beadm activate command to specify a default BE.
In this example, the beadm lists following available ZFS BEs:
$ beadm list
-- ------ ---------- ----- ------ -------
solaris NR / 3.80G static 2012-07-20 10:25
solaris-2 - - 7.68M static 2012-07-19 13:44
To select a specific BE, you would use the boot -L command. For example:
ok boot -L
Boot device: /pci@7c0/pci@0/pci@1/pci@0,2/LSILogic,sas@2/disk@0,0:a File and args: -L
1 release-version SPARC
2 solaris
Select environment to boot: [ 1 - 2 ]: 1
To boot the selected entry, invoke:

boot [<root-device>] -Z rpool/ROOT/solaris-2
Program terminated
ok boot -Z rpool/ROOT/solaris-2
To boot automatically from the selected BE, activate that BE.
Booting From a ZFS Root File System on an x86

Based System
Starting in Oracle Solaris 11.1, x86 based systems are installed with GRUB2. The menu.lst file
is replaced by the /rpool/boot/grub/grub.cfg file. Do not edit this file manually. Instead, use
the bootadm sub commands to add, change, and remove menu entries.
Note - If your system's Oracle Solaris version still uses legacy GRUB, see Booting From a ZFS
Root File System on an x86 Based System, which describes ZFS root file system entries in the
menu.lst file.
For more information about modifying the GRUB menu items, see Booting and Shutting Down
Oracle Solaris 11.4 Systems.

x86: Displaying the Root File System

When booting from a ZFS root file system on a GRUB2 system, the root device is specified as
follows:
$ bootadm list-menu
the location of the boot loader configuration files is: /rpool/boot/grub
default 0
console text
timeout 30
0 release-version
x86: Fast Rebooting a ZFS Root File System
The fast reboot feature provides the ability to reboot within seconds on x86 based systems. With
the fast reboot feature, you can reboot to a new kernel without experiencing the long delays that
can be imposed by the BIOS and boot loader.
You must still use the init 6 command when transitioning between BEs with the beadm
activate command. For other system operations, use the reboot command as appropriate.
Booting for Recovery Purposes in a ZFS Root

Environment
You might need to boot the system to resolve a corrupt bootloader problem, a root password
problem, or a bad shell. For the recovery procedures for each of these cases, see “Shutting
Down and Booting a System for Recovery Purposes” in Booting and Shutting Down Oracle
Solaris 11.4 Systems.
If you need to replace a disk in root pool, see “Replacing Disks in a ZFS Root
Pool” on page 91. If you need to perform complete system (bare metal) recovery, see Using
Unified Archives for System Recovery and Cloning in Oracle Solaris 11.4.
♦ ♦ ♦
7
C H A P T E R 7
Managing Oracle Solaris ZFS File Systems
This chapter provides detailed information about managing Oracle Solaris ZFS file systems.
Concepts such as the hierarchical file system layout, property inheritance, and automatic mount
point management and share interactions are included.
This chapter discusses the following topics:
■ “Introduction to ZFS File Systems”
■ “Creating ZFS File Systems”
■ “Destroying or Renaming a ZFS File System”
■ “Introducing ZFS Properties”
■ “Querying ZFS File System Information”
■ “Managing ZFS Properties”
■ “Mounting ZFS File Systems”
■ “Sharing and Unsharing ZFS File Systems”
■ “Setting ZFS Quotas”
■ “Setting Reservations on ZFS File Systems”
■ “Setting I/O Bandwidth Limits”
■ “Compressing ZFS File Systems”
■ “Encrypting ZFS File Systems”
■ “Migrating ZFS File Systems”
■ “Upgrading ZFS File Systems”
Note - The term dataset is used in this chapter as a generic term to refer to a file system,
snapshot, clone, or volume.
Introduction to ZFS File Systems
You build a ZFS file system on top of a storage pool. ZFS file systems can be dynamically
created and destroyed without requiring you to allocate or format any underlying disk space.
Chapter 7 • Managing Oracle Solaris ZFS File Systems 105

Creating ZFS File Systems
Because these file systems are so lightweight and because they are the central point of
administration in ZFS, you are likely to create many of them.
You can administer ZFS file systems by using the zfs command. The zfs command provides
a set of subcommands that perform specific operations on file systems. This chapter describes
these subcommands in detail. Snapshots, clones, and volumes are also managed by using this
command, but these features are only covered briefly in this chapter. For detailed information
about snapshots and clones, see Chapter 8, “Working With Oracle Solaris ZFS Snapshots and
Clones”. For detailed information about ZFS volumes, see “ZFS Volumes” on page 219.
All invocations of the zfs command require the name of the file system. The file system name
is specified as a path name starting from the name of the pool as follows:
pool-name/[dataset-path]/filesystem-name
The pool name and the dataset path identify the location of the file system in the hierarchy.
The last part in the name identifies the file system name. The file system name must satisfy the
naming requirements in “Naming ZFS Components” on page 24. For example, the tank/home/
sueb file system name would refer to a ZFS file system named sueb, in the /home dataset path,
in the tank pool,
Creating ZFS File Systems

This section provides steps and examples for creating ZFS file systems.
How to Create a ZFS File System
The zfs create command automatically mounts the newly created file system, if it is created
successfully. By default, file systems are mounted as /dataset, using the dataset name provided
with the create subcommand. In this example, the newly created sueb file system is mounted
at /tank/home/sueb. For more information about automatically managed mount points, see
“Managing ZFS Mount Points” on page 134.
Note - Encrypting a ZFS file system must be enabled when the file system is created.
For information about encrypting a ZFS file system, see “Encrypting ZFS File
Systems” on page 161.
For more information about the zfs create command, see the zfs(8) man page.
Destroying or Renaming a ZFS File System
profile.
2. Create the ZFS file system.
Example 28 Creating a Simple ZFS File System
In the following example, a file system named sueb is created in the tank/home file system.
$ zfs create tank/home/sueb
Example 29 Creating a ZFS File System Using File System Properties
You can set file system properties when a file system is created. In the following example, a
mount point of /export/zfs is created for the tank/home file system:
$ zfs create -o mountpoint=/export/zfs tank/home
For more information about file system properties, see “Introducing ZFS
Properties” on page 109.
Destroying or Renaming a ZFS File System

You can destroy a file system or dataset even if the dataset has dependent clones. Snapshots of
the destroyed dataset automatically become hidden and no longer appear in the dataset listings.
Being hidden, these snapshots cannot be cloned, held, or sent. Further, you cannot roll back to
these snapshots.
By default, the destroy operation is performed asynchronously. The destroyed datasets are
immediately reclaimed after the operation is completed and the destroy command returns
to the caller. To perform a synchronous destroy operation, use the -s option when issuing the
command.
How to Destroy a ZFS File System
To destroy a ZFS file system, use the zfs destroy command. By default, all of the snapshots
for the dataset will be destroyed. The destroyed file system is automatically unmounted
and unshared. For more information about automatically managed mounts or automatically
managed shares, see “Automatic Mount Points” on page 134.

How to Destroy a ZFS File System
profile.
2. Destroy the ZFS file system.
$ zfs destroy [-rRsf] filesystem
-r Recursively destroys children datasets.
-R Recursively destroys dependent datasets, including cloned file systems

that are outside the target hierarchy.
-s Performs a synchronous destroy operation where the command control

does not return to the caller until the blocks occupied by the destroyed
datasets are completely freed.
-f Forces a file system to be unmounted in order to be destroyed.
filesystem Is in the format pool-name/[dataset-path]/filesystem-name.
Caution - No confirmation prompt appears with the destroy subcommand either by itself
or with options. Use this command with extreme caution, especially when using the -f and
-r options. These options can destroy large portions of the pool and consequently cause
unexpected behavior for the mounted file systems that are in use.
Example 30 Synchronously Destroying an Active ZFS File System
If the file system to be destroyed is busy and cannot be unmounted, the zfs destroy command
fails. To destroy an active file system, use the -f option. Use this option with caution as it can
unmount, unshare, and destroy active file systems, causing unexpected application behavior.
$ zfs destroy -fs tank/home/matt
Example 31 Destroying a ZFS File System with Descendents
The zfs destroy command also fails if a file system has descendents. To recursively destroy a
file system and all its descendents, use the -r option.
$ zfs destroy tank/ws

cannot destroy 'tank/ws': filesystem has children
use '-r' to destroy the following datasets:
tank/ws/sueb
tank/ws/bhall
tank/ws/mork
How to Rename a ZFS File System
$ zfs destroy -r tank/ws
File systems can be renamed by using the zfs rename command. With the rename
subcommand, you can perform the following operations:
■ Change the name of a file system.
■ Relocate the file system within the ZFS hierarchy.
The new location must be within the same pool and must have enough disk space to
accommodate the new file system.
Note - Quota limits might become a contributing factor to insufficient disk space. See
“Setting ZFS Quotas” on page 151.
■ Change the name of a file system and relocate it within the ZFS hierarchy.
The rename operation attempts an unmount/remount sequence for the file system and any
descendent file systems. The rename command fails if the operation is unable to unmount an
active file system. If this problem occurs, you must forcibly unmount the file system.
profile.
2. Rename the ZFS file system.

For example, to change the name of the file system only, you would type:
$ zfs rename tank/home/soloh tank/home/mindy_old
To relocate a file system, you would type:

$ zfs rename tank/home/mork tank/ws/mork
Introducing ZFS Properties
Properties are the main mechanism that you use to control the behavior of file systems,
volumes, snapshots, and clones. Unless stated otherwise, the properties defined in this section
apply to all the dataset types.

Properties are divided into two types, native properties and user-defined properties.
Native properties either provide internal statistics or control ZFS file system behavior. In
addition, native properties are either settable or read-only. User properties have no effect
on ZFS file system behavior, but you can use them to annotate datasets in a way that is
meaningful in your environment. For more information about user properties, see “ZFS User
Most settable properties are also inheritable. An inheritable property is a property that, when set
on a parent file system, is propagated down to all of its descendents.
All inheritable properties have an associated source that indicates how a property was obtained.
The source of a property can have the following values:
local Indicates that the property was explicitly set on the dataset
by using the zfs set command as described in “Setting ZFS
inherited from Indicates that the property was inherited from the named ancestor.
dataset-name
default Indicates that the property value was not inherited or set locally. This
source is a result of no ancestor having the property set as source local.
The following table identifies both read-only and settable native ZFS file system properties.
Read-only native properties are identified as such. All other native properties listed in this table
are settable. For information about user properties, see “ZFS User Properties” on page 124.
TABLE 3 ZFS Native Property Descriptions

Property Name Type Default Value Description
aclinherit String secure Controls how ACL entries are inherited when files and directories are created. The
values are discard, noallow, secure, and passthrough. For a description of these
values, see “ACL Properties” in Securing Files and Verifying File Integrity in Oracle
Solaris 11.4.
aclmode String groupmask Controls how an ACL entry is modified during a chmod operation. The values are
discard, groupmask, and passthrough. For a description of these values, see “ACL
Properties” in Securing Files and Verifying File Integrity in Oracle Solaris 11.4.
atime Boolean on Controls whether the access time for files is updated when they are read. Turning
this property off avoids producing write traffic when reading files and can result in
significant performance gains, though it might confuse mailers and similar utilities.
available Number N/A Read-only property that identifies the amount of disk space available to a file system
and all its children, assuming no other activity in the pool. Because disk space is
shared within a pool, available space can be limited by various factors including
physical pool size, quotas, reservations, and other datasets within the pool.
The property abbreviation is avail.
canmount Boolean on Controls whether a file system can be mounted with the zfs mount command. This
property can be set on any file system, and the property itself is not inheritable.
However, when this property is set to off, a mount point can be inherited to
descendent file systems, but the file system itself is never mounted.
When the noauto option is set, a file system can only be mounted and unmounted
explicitly. The file system is not mounted automatically when the file system is
created or imported, nor is it mounted by the zfs mount-a command or unmounted
by the zfs unmount-a command.
For more information, see “The canmount Property” on page 118.

casesensitivity String mixed This property indicates whether the file name matching algorithm used by the file
system should be casesensitive, caseinsensitive, or allow a combination of both
styles of matching (mixed). Traditionally, UNIX and POSIX file systems have case-
sensitive file names.
The mixed value for this property indicates the file system can support requests
for both case-sensitive and case-insensitive matching behavior. Currently, case-
insensitive matching behavior on a file system that supports mixed behavior is limited
to the Oracle Solaris SMB server product. For more information about using the
mixed value, see “The casesensitivity Property” on page 118.
Regardless of the casesensitivity property setting, the file system preserves the
case of the name specified to create a file. This property cannot be changed after the
file system is created.
checksum String on Controls the checksum used to verify data integrity. The default value is on, which
automatically selects an appropriate algorithm, currently fletcher4. The values are
on, off, fletcher2, fletcher4, sha256, sha3-256, and sha256+mac. A value of
off disables integrity checking on user data. A value of off is not recommended.
compression String off Enables or disables compression for a dataset. The values are on, off, lzjb, lz4,
gzip, and gzip-N. Currently, setting this property to lzjb, gzip, or gzip-N has the
same effect as setting this property to on. Enabling compression on a file system with
existing data only compresses new data. Existing data remains uncompressed.
The property abbreviation is compress.

compressratio Number N/A Read-only property that identifies the compression ratio achieved for a
dataset, expressed as a multiplier. Compression can be enabled by the zfs set
compression=on dataset command.
The value is calculated from the logical size of all files and the amount of referenced
physical data. It includes explicit savings through the use of the compression
property.
copies Number 1 Sets the number of copies of user data per file system. Available values are 1, 2, or
3. These copies are in addition to any pool-level redundancy. Disk space used by
multiple copies of user data is charged to the corresponding file and dataset, and
counts against quotas and reservations. In addition, the used property is updated
when multiple copies are enabled. Consider setting this property when the file system
is created because changing this property on an existing file system only affects
newly written data.

creation String N/A Read-only property that identifies the date and time that a dataset was created.
dedup String off Controls the ability to remove duplicate data in a ZFS file system. Possible values are
on, off, verify, and sha256[,verify]. The default checksum for deduplication is
sha256.
For more information, see “The dedup Property” on page 120.

defaultgroupquota String None Sets a default group quota. The value applies to all groups who do not have an
explicit group quota specified. The default value is none. For more information, see
“Setting Default User and Group Quotas” on page 155.
defaultuserquota String None Sets a default user quota. The value applies to all users who do not have an explicit
user quota specified. The default value is none. For more information, see “Setting
Default User and Group Quotas” on page 155.
devices Boolean on Controls whether device files in a file system can be opened.
encryption Boolean off Controls whether a file system is encrypted. An encrypted file system means that data
is encoded and a key is needed by the file system owner to access the data.
exec Boolean on Controls whether programs in a file system are allowed to be executed. Also, when
set to off, mmap(2) calls with PROT_EXEC are disallowed.
keychangedate String none Read-only property that identifies the date of the last wrapping key change from a
zfs key -c operation for the specified file system. If no key change operation has
occurred, the value of this property is the same as the file system's creation date.
keysource String none Identifies the format and location of the key that wraps the file system keys. The
valid property values are raw, hex, passphrase,prompt, or file. The key must be
present when the file system is created, mounted, or loaded by using the zfs key -l
command. If encryption is enabled for a new file system, the default keysource is
passphrase,prompt.
keystatus String none Read-only property that identifies the file system's encryption key status. The
availability of a file system's key is indicated by available or unavailable. For file
systems that do not have encryption enabled, none is displayed.
logbias String latency Controls how ZFS optimizes synchronous requests for this file system. If logbias
is set to latency, ZFS uses the pool's separate log devices, if any, to handle the
requests at low latency. If logbias is set to throughput, ZFS does not use the pool's
separate log devices. Instead, ZFS optimizes synchronous operations for global pool
throughput and efficient use of resources. The default value is latency.
mlslabel String None Provides a sensitivity label that determines if a file system can be mounted in a zone.
If the labeled file system matches the labeled zone, the file system can be mounted
and accessed from the labeled zone. The default value is none. This property can only
be modified with the appropriate privilege.
The behavior of the mlslabel property changes depending if Trusted

Extensions is enabled or if the multilevel property is set. See “The mlslabel
Property” on page 122 for more information.
mounted Boolean N/A Read-only property that indicates whether a file system, clone, or snapshot is
currently mounted. This property does not apply to volumes. The value can be either
yes or no.
mountpoint String N/A Controls the mount point used for this file system. When the mountpoint property
is changed for a file system, the file system and any descendents that inherit the

mount point are unmounted. If the new value is legacy, then they remain unmounted.
Otherwise, they are automatically remounted in the new location if the property was
previously legacy or none, or if they were mounted before the property was changed.
In addition, any shared file systems are unshared and shared in the new location.
For more information about using this property, see “Managing ZFS Mount
Points” on page 134.
multilevel Boolean off The multilevel property is used to enable the use of labels on the objects in a
ZFS file system. Objects in a multilevel file system are individually labeled with
an explicit sensitivity label attribute that is automatically generated. Objects can
be relabeled in place by changing this label attribute, by using the setlabel or
setflabel commands.
A root file system, an Oracle Solaris Zone file system, or a file system that contains
packaged Oracle Solaris code should not be multilevel.
See “The mlslabel Property” on page 122 for more information.

nbmand Boolean off Controls whether the file system should be mounted with nbmand (Non-blocking
mandatory) locks. This property is for SMB clients only. Changes to this property
only take effect when the file system is unmounted and remounted.
normalization String None This property indicates whether a file system should perform a unicode normalization
of file names whenever two file names are compared, and which normalization
algorithm should be used. File names are always stored unmodified, names are
normalized as part of any comparison process. If this property is set to a legal value
other than none, and the utf8only property was left unspecified, the utf8only
property is automatically set to on. The default value of the normalization property
is none. This property cannot be changed after the file system is created.
origin String N/A Read-only property for cloned file systems or volumes that identifies the snapshot
from which the clone was created. The origin cannot be destroyed (even with the -r
or -f option) as long as a clone exists.
Non-cloned file systems have an origin of none.

primarycache String all Controls what is cached in the primary cache (ARC). Possible values are all, none,
and metadata. If set to all, both user data and metadata are cached. If set to none,
neither user data nor metadata is cached. If set to metadata, only metadata is cached.
When these properties are set on existing file systems, only new I/O is cache based
on the values of these properties. Some database environments might benefit from not
caching user data. You must determine if setting cache properties is appropriate for
your environment.
quota Number (or none Limits the amount of disk space a file system and its descendents can consume. This
none) property enforces a hard limit on the amount of disk space used, including all space
consumed by descendents, such as file systems and snapshots. Setting a quota on a
descendent of a file system that already has a quota does not override the ancestor's
quota, but rather imposes an additional limit. Quotas cannot be set on volumes, as the
volsize property acts as an implicit quota.
For information about setting quotas, see “Setting Quotas on ZFS File

readonly Boolean off Controls whether a dataset can be modified. When set to on, no modifications can be
made.
The property abbreviation is rdonly.

recordsize Number 128K Specifies a suggested block size for files in a file system.
The property abbreviation is recsize. For a detailed description, see “The

recordsize Property” on page 123.
referenced Number N/A Read-only property that identifies the amount of data accessible by a dataset, which
might or might not be shared with other datasets in the pool.
When a snapshot or clone is created, it initially references the same amount of disk
space as the file system or snapshot it was created from, because its contents are
identical.
The property abbreviation is refer.

refquota Number (or none Sets the amount of disk space that a dataset can consume. This property enforces a
none) hard limit on the amount of space used. This hard limit does not include disk space
used by descendents, such as snapshots and clones.
refreservation Number (or none Sets the minimum amount of disk space that is guaranteed to a dataset, not including
none) descendents, such as snapshots and clones. When the amount of disk space used is
below this value, the dataset is treated as if it were taking up the amount of space
specified by refreservation. The refreservation reservation is accounted for in
the parent dataset's disk space used, and counts against the parent dataset's quotas and
reservations.
If refreservation is set, a snapshot is only allowed if enough free pool space is

available outside of this reservation to accommodate the current number of referenced
bytes in the dataset.
The property abbreviation is refreserv.

rekeydate String N/A Read-only property that indicates the date of the last data encryption key change from
a zfs key -K or zfs clone -K operation on this file system. If no rekey operation has
been performed, the value of this property is the same as the creation date.
reservation Number (or none Sets the minimum amount of disk space guaranteed to a file system and its
none) descendents. When the amount of disk space used is below this value, the file
system is treated as if it were using the amount of space specified by its reservation.
Reservations are accounted for in the parent file system's disk space used, and count
against the parent file system's quotas and reservations.
The property abbreviation is reserv.
For more information, see “Setting Reservations on ZFS File

rstchown Boolean on Indicates whether the file system owner can grant file ownership changes. The
default is to restrict chown operations. When rstchown is set to off, the user has the
PRIV_FILE_CHOWN_SELF privilege for chown operations.
secondarycache String all Controls what is cached in the secondary cache (L2ARC). Possible values are all,
none, and metadata. If set to all, both user data and metadata are cached. If set to

none, neither user data nor metadata is cached. If set to metadata, only metadata is
cached.
setuid Boolean on Controls whether the setuid bit is honored in a file system.
shadow String None Identifies a ZFS file system as a shadow of the file system described by the URI.
Data is migrated to a shadow file system with this property set from the file system
identified by the URI. The file system to be migrated must be read-only for a
complete migration.
share.nfs String off Controls whether an NFS share of a ZFS file system is created and published and
what options are used. You can also publish and unpublish an NFS share by using
the zfs share and zfs unshare commands. Using the zfs share command
to publish an NFS share requires that an NFS share property is also set. For
information about setting NFS share properties, see “Sharing and Unsharing ZFS File
For more information about sharing ZFS file systems, see “Sharing and Unsharing
ZFS File Systems” on page 138.
share.smb String off Controls whether a SMB share of a ZFS file system is created and published and
what options are used. You can also publish and unpublish an SMB share by using
the zfs share and zfs unshare commands. Using the zfs share command
to publish an SMB share require that an SMB share property is also set. For
information about setting SMB share properties, see “Sharing and Unsharing ZFS
File Systems” on page 138.
snapdir String hidden Controls whether the .zfs directory is hidden or visible in the root of the file
system. For more information about using snapshots, see “Overview of ZFS
Snapshots” on page 175.
sync String standard Determines the synchronous behavior of a file system's transactions. Possible values
are:
■ standard, the default value, which means synchronous file system transactions,
such as fsync, O_DSYNC, O_SYNC, and so on, are written to the intent log.
■ always, ensures that every file system transaction is written and flushed to stable
storage by a returning system call. This value has a significant performance
penalty.
■ disabled, means that synchronous requests are disabled. File system transactions
are only committed to stable storage on the next transaction group commit, which
might be after many seconds. This value gives the best performance, with no risk
of corrupting the pool.
Caution - This disabled value is very dangerous because ZFS is ignoring
the synchronous transaction demands of applications, such as databases or
NFS operations. Setting this value on the currently active root or /var file
system might result in unexpected behavior, application data loss, or increased
vulnerability to replay attacks. You should only use this value if you fully
understand all the associated risks.
type String N/A Read-only property that identifies the dataset type as filesystem (file system or
clone), volume, or snapshot.
used Number N/A Read-only property that identifies the amount of disk space consumed by a dataset
and all its descendents.


For a detailed description, see “ZFS Read-Only Native Properties” on page 117.
usedbychildren Number off Read-only property that identifies the amount of disk space that is used by children
of this dataset, which would be freed if all the dataset's children were destroyed. The
property abbreviation is usedchild.
usedbydataset Number off Read-only property that identifies the amount of disk space that is used by a dataset
itself, which would be freed if the dataset was destroyed, after first destroying any
snapshots and removing any refreservation reservations. The property abbreviation
is usedds.
usedbyrefreservationNumber off Read-only property that identifies the amount of disk space that is used by a
refreservation set on a dataset, which would be freed if the refreservation was
removed. The property abbreviation is usedrefreserv.
usedbysnapshots Number off Read-only property that identifies the amount of disk space that is consumed by
snapshots of a dataset. In particular, it is the amount of disk space that would be freed
if all of this dataset's snapshots were destroyed. Note that this value is not simply
the sum of the snapshots' used properties, because space can be shared by multiple
snapshots. The property abbreviation is usedsnap.
utf8only Boolean Off This property indicates whether a file system should reject file names that include
characters that are not present in the UTF-8 character code set. If this property is
explicitly set to off, the normalization property must either not be explicitly set
or be set to none. The default value for the utf8only property is off. This property
cannot be changed after the file system is created.
version Number N/A Identifies the on-disk version of a file system, which is independent of the pool
version. This property can only be set to a later version that is available from the
supported software release. For more information, see the zfs upgrade command.
volblocksize Number 8 KB For volumes, specifies the block size of the volume. The block size cannot be
changed after the volume has been written, so set the block size at volume creation
time. The default block size for volumes is 8 KB. Any power of 2 from 512 bytes to
128 KB is valid.
The property abbreviation is volblock.

volsize Number N/A For volumes, specifies the logical size of the volume.
For a detailed description, see “The volsize Property” on page 123.

vscan Boolean Off Controls whether regular files should be scanned for viruses when a file is opened
and closed. In addition to enabling this property, a virus scanning service must also be
enabled for virus scanning to occur if you have third-party virus scanning software.
The default value is off.
xattr Boolean on Indicates whether extended attributes are enabled (on) or disabled (off) for this file
system.
zoned Boolean N/A Indicates whether a file system has been added to a non-global zone. If this property
is set, then the mount point is not honored in the global zone, and ZFS cannot mount
such a file system when requested. When a zone is first installed, this property is set
for any added file systems.
For more information about using ZFS with zones installed, see “Using ZFS on an
Oracle Solaris System With Zones Installed” on page 222.
ZFS Read-Only Native Properties
Read-only native properties can be retrieved but not set. Read-only native properties are not
inherited. Some native properties are specific to a particular type of dataset. In such cases, the
dataset type is mentioned in the description in Table 3, “ZFS Native Property Descriptions,” on
page 110.
The used property is an example of a read-only property. This property identifies the amount of
disk space consumed by this dataset and all its descendents. This value is checked against the
dataset's quota and reservation. The disk space used does not include the dataset's reservation,
but does consider the reservation of any descendent datasets. The amount of disk space that a
dataset consumes from its parent, as well as the amount of disk space that is freed if the dataset
is recursively destroyed, is the greater of its space used and its reservation.
When snapshots are created, their disk space is initially shared between the snapshot and the file
system, and possibly with previous snapshots. As the file system changes, disk space that was
previously shared becomes unique to the snapshot and is counted in the snapshot's space used.
The disk space that is used by a snapshot accounts for its unique data. Additionally, deleting
snapshots can increase the amount of disk space unique to (and used by) other snapshots.
The amount of disk space used, available, and referenced does not include pending changes.
Pending changes are generally accounted for within a few seconds. Committing a change to a
disk using the fsync(3c) or O_SYNC function does not necessarily guarantee that the disk space
usage information will be updated immediately.
The usedbychildren, usedbydataset, usedbyrefreservation, and usedbysnapshots property

information can be displayed with the zfs list -o space command. These properties identify
the used property into disk space that is consumed by descendents. For more information, see
Table 3, “ZFS Native Property Descriptions,” on page 110.
Settable ZFS Native Properties
Settable native properties are properties whose values can be both retrieved and set. Settable
native properties are set by using the zfs set command, as described in “Setting ZFS
Properties” on page 128 or by using the zfs create command as described in “How to
Create a ZFS File System” on page 106. With the exceptions of quotas and reservations,
settable native properties are inherited. For more information about quotas and reservations, see
“Setting ZFS Quotas” on page 151.
Some settable native properties are specific to a particular type of dataset. In such cases, the
dataset type is mentioned in the description in Table 3, “ZFS Native Property Descriptions,” on

page 110. If not specifically mentioned, a property applies to all dataset types: file systems,
volumes, clones, and snapshots.
The canmount Property
If the canmount property is set to off, the file system cannot be mounted by using the zfs
mount or zfs mount -a commands. Setting this property to off is similar to setting the
mountpoint property to none, except that the file system still has a normal mountpoint property
that can be inherited. For example, you can set this property to off, establish inheritable
properties for descendent file systems, but the parent file system itself is never mounted nor is it
accessible to users. In this case, the parent file system is serving as a container so that you can
set properties on the container, but the container itself is never accessible.
In the following example, userpool is created, and its canmount property is set to off. Mount
points for descendent user file systems are set to one common mount point, /export/home.
Properties that are set on the parent file system are inherited by descendent file systems, but the
parent file system itself is never mounted.
$ zpool create userpool mirror c0t5d0 c1t6d0
$ zfs set canmount=off userpool
$ zfs set mountpoint=/export/home userpool
$ zfs set compression=on userpool
$ zfs create userpool/user1
$ zfs create userpool/user2
$ zfs mount
userpool/user1 /export/home/user1
userpool/user2 /export/home/user2
Setting the canmount property to noauto means that the file system can only be mounted
explicitly, not automatically.
The casesensitivity Property
This property indicates whether the file name matching algorithm used by the file system
should be casesensitive, caseinsensitive, or allow a combination of both styles of matching
(mixed).
When a case-insensitive matching request is made of a mixed sensitivity file system, the
behavior is generally the same as would be expected of a purely case-insensitive file system.
The difference is that a mixed sensitivity file system might contain directories with multiple
names that are unique from a case-sensitive perspective, but not unique from the case-
insensitive perspective.
For example, a directory might contain files foo, Foo, and FOO. If a request is made to case-
insensitively match any of the possible forms of foo, (for example foo, FOO, FoO, fOo, and so
on) one of the three existing files is chosen as the match by the matching algorithm. Exactly
which file the algorithm chooses as a match is not guaranteed, but what is guaranteed is that the
same file is chosen as a match for any of the forms of foo. The file chosen as a case-insensitive
match for foo, FOO, foO, Foo, and so on, is always the same, so long as the directory remains
unchanged.
The utf8only, normalization, and casesensitivity properties also provide new permissions
that can be assigned to non-privileged users by using ZFS delegated administration. For more
information, see “Delegating ZFS Permissions” on page 206.
The copies Property
As a reliability feature, ZFS file system metadata is automatically stored multiple times across
different disks, if possible. This feature is known as ditto blocks.
In this release, you can also store multiple copies of user data is also stored per file system by
using the zfs set copies command. For example:
$ zfs set copies=2 users/home

$ zfs get copies users/home
users/home copies 2 local
Available values are 1, 2, or 3. The default value is 1. These copies are in addition to any pool-
level redundancy, such as in a mirrored or RAID-Z configuration.
The benefits of storing multiple copies of ZFS user data are as follows:
■ Improves data retention by enabling recovery from unrecoverable block read faults, such as
media faults (commonly known as bit rot) for all ZFS configurations.
■ Provides data protection, even when only a single disk is available.
■ Enables you to select data protection policies on a per-file system basis, beyond the
capabilities of the storage pool.
Note - Depending on the allocation of the ditto blocks in the storage pool, multiple copies might
be placed on a single disk. A subsequent full disk failure might cause all ditto blocks to be
unavailable.
You might consider using ditto blocks when you accidentally create a non-redundant pool and
when you need to set data retention policies.

The dedup Property
The dedup property controls whether duplicate data is removed from a file system. If a file
system has the dedup property enabled, duplicate data blocks are removed synchronously. The
result is that only unique data is stored and common components are shared between files.
Do not enable the dedup property on file systems that reside on production systems until you
review the following considerations:
1. Determine if your data would benefit from deduplication space savings. You can run the
zdb -S command to simulate the potential space savings of enabling dedup on your pool.
This command must be run on a quiet pool. If your data is not dedup-able, then there's not
point in enabling dedup. For example:
$ zdb -S tank
Simulated DDT histogram:
bucket allocated referenced
______ ______________________________ ______________________________
refcnt blocks LSIZE PSIZE DSIZE blocks LSIZE PSIZE DSIZE
------ ------ ----- ----- ----- ------ ----- ----- -----
1 2.27M 239G 188G 194G 2.27M 239G 188G 194G
2 327K 34.3G 27.8G 28.1G 698K 73.3G 59.2G 59.9G
4 30.1K 2.91G 2.10G 2.11G 152K 14.9G 10.6G 10.6G
8 7.73K 691M 529M 529M 74.5K 6.25G 4.79G 4.80G
16 673 43.7M 25.8M 25.9M 13.1K 822M 492M 494M
32 197 12.3M 7.02M 7.03M 7.66K 480M 269M 270M
64 47 1.27M 626K 626K 3.86K 103M 51.2M 51.2M
128 22 908K 250K 251K 3.71K 150M 40.3M 40.3M
256 7 302K 48K 53.7K 2.27K 88.6M 17.3M 19.5M
512 4 131K 7.50K 7.75K 2.74K 102M 5.62M 5.79M
2K 1 2K 2K 2K 3.23K 6.47M 6.47M 6.47M
8K 1 128K 5K 5K 13.9K 1.74G 69.5M 69.5M
Total 2.63M 277G 218G 225G 3.22M 337G 263G 270G
dedup = 1.20, compress = 1.28, copies = 1.03, dedup * compress / copies = 1.50
If the estimated dedup ratio is greater than 2, then you might see dedup space savings.
In the above example, the dedup ratio is less than 2, so enabling dedup is not recommended.
2. Make sure your system has enough memory to support dedup.
■ Each in-core dedup table entry is approximately 320 bytes
■ Multiply the number of allocated blocks times 320. For example:
in-core DDT size = 2.63M x 320 = 841.60M
3. Dedup performance is best when the deduplication table fits into memory. If the dedup table
has to be written to disk, then performance will decrease. For example, removing a large
file system with dedup enabled will severely decrease system performance if the system
does not meet the memory requirements described above.
4. You cannot use deduplication in the case of datasets with encryption. For example, a
filesystem and a volume are two different datasets and deduplication cannot match the two
together.
When dedup is enabled, the dedup checksum algorithm overrides the checksum property. Setting
the property value to verify is equivalent to specifying sha256,verify. If the property is set to
verify and two blocks have the same signature, ZFS does a byte-by-byte comparison with the
existing block to ensure that the contents are identical.
This property can be enabled per file system. For example:
$ zfs set dedup=on tank/home
You can use the zfs get command to determine if the dedup property is set.
Although deduplication is set as a file system property, the scope is pool-wide. For example,
you can identify the deduplication ratio. For example:
$ zpool list tank

rpool 136G 55.2G 80.8G 40% 2.30x ONLINE -
The DEDUP column indicates how much deduplication has occurred. If the dedup property is
not enabled on any file system or if the dedup property was just enabled on the file system, the
DEDUP ratio is 1.00x.
You can use the zpool get command to determine the value of the dedupratio property. For
example:
$ zpool get dedupratio export

rpool dedupratio 3.00x -
This pool property illustrates how much data deduplication this pool has achieved.
The encryption Property
You can use the encryption property to encrypt ZFS file systems. For more information, see
“Encrypting ZFS File Systems” on page 161.

The mlslabel Property
The behavior of the mlslabel property changes depending if Trusted Extensions is enabled or if
the multilevel property is set.
If Trusted Extensions is not enabled, then the mlslabel has no meaning unless the multilevel
property is also set. If both properties are set, the mlslabel property is automatically updated
so that it is the maximum label of all files that have been explicitly labeled in the file system.
In this configuration, the mlslabel property cannot be set by an administrator and cannot be
lowered.
When Trusted Extensions is enabled, the mlslabel property should be set by an administrator.
For single-level file systems, that is when the multilevel property is not set, the mlslabel
property specifies the label of the zone in which the file system can be mounted. If the
mlslabel property value matches the labeled zone, the file system can be mounted and accessed
from the labeled zone.
If the multilevel property is set, the mlslabel property specifies the maximum label that can
be set on any file in the file system. An attempt to create a file at (or relabel a file to) a label
higher than the mlslabel property value is not allowed. Mount policy based on the mlslabel
property does not apply to a multilevel file system.
Also, for a multilevel file system, the mlslabel property can be set explicitly when the file
system is created. Otherwise, a default mlslabel property of ADMIN_HIGH is automatically
created. After creating a multilevel file system, the mlslabel property can be changed, but it
cannot be set to a lower label, it cannot not be set to none, nor can it be removed.
When Trusted Extensions is enabled, the automatic label that is applied to newly created objects
is the label of the zone in which the caller is executing, and the maximum label that can be set
explicitly is the label of the zone. If Trusted Extensions is not enabled, the automatic label of
newly created objects is the label of their parent directory, and the maximum label is the label
corresponding to the caller’s clearance.
The multilevel Property
The multilevel property is used to enable the use of labels on the objects in a ZFS file system.
Objects in a multilevel file system are individually labeled with an explicit sensitivity label
attribute that is automatically generated. Objects can be relabeled in place by changing this
label attribute, by using the setlabel or setflabel commands.
A root file system, an Oracle Solaris Zone file system, or a file system that contains packaged
Oracle Solaris code should not be multilevel.
The recordsize Property
The recordsize property specifies a suggested block size for files in the file system.
This property is designed solely for use with database workloads that access files in fixed-size
records. ZFS automatically adjust block sizes according to internal algorithms optimized for
typical access patterns. For databases that create very large files but access the files in small
random chunks, these algorithms might be suboptimal. Specifying a recordsize value greater
than or equal to the record size of the database can result in significant performance gains. Use
of this property for general purpose file systems is strongly discouraged and might adversely
affect performance. The size specified must be a power of 2 greater than or equal to 512 bytes
and less than or equal to 1 MB. Changing the file system's recordsize value only affects files
created afterward. Existing files are unaffected.
The property abbreviation is recsize.
The share.smb Property

This property enables sharing of ZFS file systems with the Oracle Solaris SMB service, and
identifies options to be used.
When the property is changed from off to on, any shares that inherit the property are re-shared
with their current options. When the property is set to off, the shares that inherit the property are
unshared.For examples of using the share.smb property, see “Sharing and Unsharing ZFS File
The volsize Property
The volsize property specifies the logical size of the volume. By default, creating a volume
establishes a reservation for the same amount. Any changes to volsize are reflected in an
equivalent change to the reservation. These checks are used to prevent unexpected behavior
for users. A volume that contains less space than it claims is available can result in undefined
behavior or data corruption, depending on how the volume is used. These effects can also occur
when the volume size is changed while the volume is in use, particularly when you shrink the
size. Use extreme care when adjusting the volume size.

For more information about using volumes, see “ZFS Volumes” on page 219.
ZFS User Properties
In addition to the native properties, ZFS supports arbitrary user properties. User properties have
no effect on ZFS behavior, but you can use them to annotate datasets with information that is
meaningful in your environment.
User property names must conform to the following conventions:
■ They must contain a colon (':') character to distinguish them from native properties.
■ They must contain lowercase letters, numbers, or the following punctuation characters: ':',
'+','.', '_'.
■ The maximum length of a user property name is 256 characters.
The expected convention is that the property name is divided into the following two
components but this namespace is not enforced by ZFS:
module:property
When making programmatic use of user properties, use a reversed DNS domain name for the
module component of property names to reduce the chance that two independently developed
packages will use the same property name for different purposes. Property names that begin
with com.oracle. are reserved for use by Oracle Corporation.
The values of user properties must conform to the following conventions:
■ They must consist of arbitrary strings that are always inherited and are never validated.
■ The maximum length of the user property value is 1024 characters.
For example:
$ zfs set dept:users=finance userpool/user1

$ zfs set dept:users=general userpool/user2
$ zfs set dept:users=itops userpool/user3
All of the commands that operate on properties, such as zfs list, zfs get, zfs set, and so
on, can be used to manipulate both native properties and user properties.
For example:
zfs get -r dept:users userpool
Querying ZFS File System Information

userpool dept:users all local
userpool/user1 dept:users finance local
userpool/user2 dept:users general local
userpool/user3 dept:users itops local
To clear a user property, use the zfs inherit command. For example:
$ zfs inherit -r dept:users userpool
If the property is not defined in any parent dataset, it is removed entirely.

The zfs list command provides an extensible mechanism for viewing and querying dataset
information. Both basic and complex queries are explained in this section.
Listing Basic ZFS Information
You can list basic dataset information by using the zfs list command with no options.
This command displays the names of all datasets on the system and the values of their used,
available, referenced, and mountpoint properties. For more information about these
properties, see “Introducing ZFS Properties” on page 109.
For example:
$ zfs list
users 2.00G 64.9G 32K /users
users/home 2.00G 64.9G 35K /users/home
users/home/kaydo 548K 64.9G 548K /users/home/kaydo
users/home/mork 1.00G 64.9G 1.00G /users/home/mork
users/home/nneke 1.00G 64.9G 1.00G /users/home/nneke
You can also use this command to display specific datasets by providing the dataset name on
the command line. Additionally, use the -r option to recursively display all descendents of that
dataset. For example:
$ zfs list -t all -r users/home/mork

users/home/mork@yesterday 0 - 1.00G -

users/home/mork@today 0 - 1.00G -
You can use the zfs list command with the mount point of a file system. For example:
$ zfs list /user/home/mork

The following example shows how to display basic information about tank/home/gina and all
of its descendent file systems:
$ zfs list -r users/home/gina

users/home/gina 2.00G 62.9G 32K /users/home/gina
users/home/gina/projects 2.00G 62.9G 33K /users/home/gina/projects
users/home/gina/projects/fs1 1.00G 62.9G 1.00G /users/home/gina/projects/fs1
users/home/gina/projects/fs2 1.00G 62.9G 1.00G /users/home/gina/projects/fs2
For additional information about the zfs list command, see the see zfs(8) man page.
Creating Complex ZFS Queries

The zfs list output can be customized by using the -o, -t, and -H options.
You can customize property value output by using the -o option and a comma-separated list
of desired properties. You can supply any dataset property as a valid argument. For a list of
all supported dataset properties, see “Introducing ZFS Properties” on page 109. In addition
to the properties defined, the -o option list can also contain the literal name to indicate that the
output should include the name of the dataset.
The following example uses zfs list to display the dataset name, along with the share.nfs
and mountpoint property values.
$ zfs list -r -o name,share.nfs,mountpoint users/home

NAME NFS MOUNTPOINT
users/home on /users/home
users/home/kaydo on /users/home/kaydo
users/home/gina on /users/home/gina
users/home/gina/projects on /users/home/gina/projects
users/home/gina/projects/fs1 on /users/home/gina/projects/fs1
users/home/gina/projects/fs2 on /users/home/gina/projects/fs2
users/home/mork on /users/home/mork
users/home/nneke on /users/home/nneke
You can use the -t option to specify the types of datasets to display. The valid types are:
filesystem
share
snapshot
volume
The -t options takes a comma-separated list of the types of datasets to be displayed. The
following example uses the -t and -o options simultaneously to show the name and used
property for all file systems:
$ zfs list -r -t filesystem -o name,used users/home

NAME USED
users/home 4.00G
users/home/kaydo 548K
users/home/gina 2.00G
users/home/gina/projects 2.00G
users/home/gina/projects/fs1 1.00G
users/home/gina/projects/fs2 1.00G
users/home/mork 1.00G
users/home/nneke 1.00G
You can use the -H option to omit the zfs list header from the generated output. With the -H
option, all white space is replaced by the Tab character. This option can be useful when you
need parseable output, for example, when scripting. The following example shows the output
generated from using the zfs list command with the -H option:
$ zfs list -r -H -o name users/home

users/home
users/home/kaydo
users/home/gina
users/home/gina/projects
users/home/gina/projects/fs1
users/home/gina/projects/fs2
users/home/mork
users/home/nneke
Listing Incomplete ZFS Datasets

An incomplete dataset is created when a dataset transfer started by running zfs receive is
interrupted. The zfs list -I command can be used to show which datasets are incomplete. The
state for each dataset can be either receiving or resumable. Arguments with the -I option are all,
resumable or receiving.
$ zfs list -I all

NAME USED AVAIL REFER TYPE STATE

Managing ZFS Properties
users/home/dst 189M 910G 189M volume resumable
You can use the following command to show just the names of the resumable datasets,
$ zfs list -HI resumable

users/home/dst
Creating Parsable Output with zfs list

The zfs list -o command can be used with the -p option to create exact machine-parsable
numeric output. For example:
$ zfs list -o guid users/home

GUID
3.30E
$ zfs list -po guid users/home
GUID
3807001345661527925

Dataset properties are managed through the zfs command's set, inherit, and get
subcommands.
Setting ZFS Properties
You can use the zfs set command to modify any settable dataset property. Or, you can use the
zfs create command to set properties when a dataset is created. For a list of settable dataset
properties, see “Settable ZFS Native Properties” on page 117.
The zfs set command takes a property/value sequence in the format of property=value
followed by a dataset name. Only one property can be set or modified during each zfs set
invocation.
The following example sets the atime property to off for tank/home.
$ zfs set atime=off tank/home
In addition, any file system property can be set when a file system is created. For example:
$ zfs create -o atime=off tank/home
You can specify numeric property values by using the following easy-to-understand suffixes (in
increasing sizes): BKMGTPEZ. Any of these suffixes can be followed by an optional b, indicating
bytes, with the exception of the B suffix, which already indicates bytes. The following four
invocations of zfs set are equivalent numeric expressions that set the quota property be set to
the value of 20GB on the users/home/mork file system:
$ zfs set quota=20G users/home/mork

$ zfs set quota=20g users/home/mork
$ zfs set quota=20GB users/home/mork
$ zfs set quota=20gb users/home/mork
If you attempt to set a property on a file system that is 100% full, you will see a message similar
to the following:
$ zfs set quota=20gb users/home/mork

cannot set property for '/users/home/mork': out of space
The values of non-numeric properties are case-sensitive and must be in lowercase letters, with
the exception of mountpoint. The values of this property can have mixed upper and lower case
letters.
For more information about the zfs set command, see the zfs(8) man page.
Inheriting ZFS Properties
All settable properties, with the exception of quotas and reservations, inherit their value from
the parent file system, unless a quota or reservation is explicitly set on the descendent file
system. If no ancestor has an explicit value set for an inherited property, the default value for
the property is used. You can use the zfs inherit command to clear a property value, thus
causing the value to be inherited from the parent file system.
The following example uses the zfs set command to turn on compression for the tank/
home/sueb file system. Then, zfs inherit is used to clear the compression property, thus
causing the property to inherit the default value of off. Because neither home nor tank has the
compression property set locally, the default value is used. If both had compression enabled,
the value set in the most immediate ancestor would be used (home in this example).
$ zfs set compression=on tank/home/sueb

$ zfs get -r compression tank/home

tank/home compression off default

tank/home/glori compression off default
tank/home/glori@today compression - -
tank/home/sueb compression on local
$ zfs inherit compression tank/home/sueb
$ zfs get -r compression tank/home
tank/home/glori compression off default
tank/home/glori@today compression - -
tank/home/sueb compression off default
The inherit subcommand is applied recursively when the -r option is specified. In the
following example, the command causes the value for the compression property to be inherited
by tank/home and any descendents it might have:
$ zfs inherit -r compression tank/home
Note - Be aware that the use of the -r option clears the current property setting for all
descendent file systems.
For more information about the zfs inherit command, see the see zfs(8) man page.
Querying ZFS Properties
The simplest way to query property values is by using the zfs list command. For more
information, see “Listing Basic ZFS Information” on page 125. However, for complicated
queries and for scripting, use the zfs get command to provide more detailed information in a
customized format.
You can use the zfs get command to retrieve any dataset property. The following example
shows how to retrieve a single property value on a dataset:
$ zfs get checksum tank/ws

tank/ws checksum on default
The fourth column, SOURCE, indicates the origin of this property value. The possible values for
SOURCE are:
default This property value was never explicitly set for this dataset or any of its
ancestors. The default value for this property is being used.
inherited from This property value is inherited from the parent dataset specified in
dataset-name dataset-name.
local This property value was explicitly set for this dataset by using zfs set.
temporary This property value was set by using the zfs mount -o option and is
only valid for the duration of the mount. For more information about
temporary mount point properties, see “Using Temporary Mount
- (none) This property is read-only. Its value is generated by ZFS.
You can use the special keyword all to retrieve all dataset property values. The following
examples use the all keyword:
$ zfs get all tank/home

tank/home aclinherit restricted default
tank/home aclmode discard default
tank/home atime on default
tank/home available 274G -
tank/home canmount on default
tank/home casesensitivity mixed -
tank/home checksum on default
tank/home compressratio 1.00x -
tank/home copies 1 default
tank/home creation Tue Jul 30 10:08 2013 -
tank/home dedup off default
tank/home defaultgroupquota none -
tank/home defaultuserquota none -
tank/home devices on default
tank/home encryption off -
tank/home exec on default
tank/home keychangedate - default
tank/home keysource none default
tank/home keystatus none -
tank/home logbias latency default
tank/home mlslabel none -
tank/home mounted yes -
tank/home mountpoint /tank/home default
tank/home multilevel off -
tank/home nbmand off default
tank/home normalization none -
tank/home primarycache all default
tank/home quota none default
tank/home readonly off default

tank/home recordsize 128K default

tank/home referenced 31K -
tank/home refquota none default
tank/home refreservation none default
tank/home rekeydate - default
tank/home reservation none default
tank/home rstchown on default
tank/home secondarycache all default
tank/home setuid on default
tank/home shadow none -
tank/home share.* ... default
tank/home snapdir hidden default
tank/home sync standard default
tank/home type filesystem -
tank/home used 31K -
tank/home usedbychildren 0 -
tank/home usedbydataset 31K -
tank/home usedbyrefreservation 0 -
tank/home usedbysnapshots 0 -
tank/home utf8only off -
tank/home version 6 -
tank/home vscan off default
tank/home xattr on default
tank/home zoned off default
The -s option to zfs get enables you to specify, by source type, the properties to display. This
option takes a comma-separated list indicating the desired source types. Only properties with
the specified source type are displayed. The valid source types are local, default, inherited,
temporary, and none. The following example shows all properties that have been locally set on
tank/ws.
$ zfs get -s local all tank/ws

tank/ws compression on local
Any of the above options can be combined with the -r option to recursively display the
specified properties on all children of the specified file system. In the following example, all
temporary properties on all file systems within tank/home are recursively displayed:
$ zfs get -r -s temporary all tank/home

tank/home atime off temporary
tank/home/sueb atime off temporary
tank/home/mork quota 20G temporary
You can query property values by using the zfs get command without specifying a target file
system, which means the command operates on all pools or file systems. For example:
Mounting ZFS File Systems
$ zfs get -s local all

tank/home atime off local
tank/home/sueb atime off local
tank/home/mork quota 20G local
For more information about the zfs get command, see the zfs(8) man page.
Querying ZFS Properties for Scripting
The zfs get command supports the -H and -o options, which are designed for scripting. You
can use the -H option to omit header information and to replace white space with the Tab
character. Uniform white space allows for easily parsable data. You can use the -o option to
customize the output in the following ways:
■ The literal name can be used with a comma-separated list of properties as defined in the
“Introducing ZFS Properties” on page 109 section.
■ A comma-separated list of literal fields, name, value, property, and source, to be output
followed by a space and an argument, which is a comma-separated list of properties.
The following example shows how to retrieve a single value by using the -H and -o options of
zfs get:
$ zfs get -H -o value compression tank/home

on
The -p option reports numeric values as their exact values. For example, 1 MB would be
reported as 1000000. This option can be used as follows:
$ zfs get -H -o value -p used tank/home

182983742
You can use the -r option, along with any of the preceding options, to recursively retrieve the
requested values for all descendents. The following example uses the -H, -o, and -r options
to retrieve the file system name and the value of the used property for export/home and its
descendents, while omitting the header output:
$ zfs get -H -o name,value -r used export/home

This section describes how ZFS mounts file systems.

Managing ZFS Mount Points
By default, a ZFS file system is automatically mounted when it is created. You can determine
specific mount-point behavior for a file system as described in this section.
You can also set the default mount point for a pool's file system at creation time by using zpool
create's -m option. For more information about creating pools, see “Creating ZFS Storage
Pools” on page 27.
All ZFS file systems are mounted by ZFS at boot time by using the Service Management
Facility's (SMF) svc://system/filesystem/local service. File systems are mounted under
/path, where path is the name of the file system.
You can override the default mount point by using the zfs set command to set the mountpoint
property to a specific path. ZFS automatically creates the specified mount point, if needed, and
automatically mounts the associated file system.
ZFS file systems are automatically mounted at boot time without requiring you to edit the /etc/
vfstab file.
The mountpoint property is inherited. For example, if pool/home has the mountpoint property
set to /export/stuff, then pool/home/user inherits /export/stuff/user for its mountpoint
property value.
To prevent a file system from being mounted, set the mountpoint property to none. In addition,
the canmount property can be used to control whether a file system can be mounted. For more
information about the canmount property, see “The canmount Property” on page 118.
File systems can also be explicitly managed through legacy mount interfaces by using zfs set
to set the mountpoint property to legacy. Doing so prevents ZFS from automatically mounting
and managing a file system. Legacy tools including the mount and umount commands, and the
/etc/vfstab file must be used instead. For more information about legacy mounts, see “Legacy
Mount Points” on page 135.
Automatic Mount Points

■ When you change the mountpoint property from legacy or none to a specific path, ZFS
automatically mounts the file system.
■ If ZFS is managing a file system but it is currently unmounted, and the mountpoint property
is changed, the file system remains unmounted.
Any file system whose mountpoint property is not legacy is managed by ZFS. In the following
example, a file system is created whose mount point is automatically managed by ZFS:
$ zfs create pool/filesystem
$ zfs get mountpoint pool/filesystem
pool/filesystem mountpoint /pool/filesystem default
$ zfs get mounted pool/filesystem
pool/filesystem mounted yes -
You can also explicitly set the mountpoint property as shown in the following example:
$ zfs set mountpoint=/mnt pool/filesystem
$ zfs get mountpoint pool/filesystem
pool/filesystem mountpoint /mnt local
$ zfs get mounted pool/filesystem
pool/filesystem mounted yes -
When the mountpoint property is changed, the file system is automatically unmounted from the
old mount point and remounted to the new mount point. Mount-point directories are created as
needed. If ZFS is unable to unmount a file system due to it being active, an error is reported,
and a forced manual unmount is necessary.
Legacy Mount Points

You can manage ZFS file systems with legacy tools by setting the mountpoint property to
legacy. Legacy file systems must be managed through the mount and umount commands and
the /etc/vfstab file. ZFS does not automatically mount legacy file systems at boot time, and
the ZFS mount and umount commands do not operate on file systems of this type. The following
examples show how to set up and manage a ZFS file system in legacy mode:
$ zfs set mountpoint=legacy tank/home/glori
$ mount -F zfs tank/home/eschrock /mnt
To automatically mount a legacy file system at boot time, you must add an entry to the /etc/
vfstab file. The following example shows what the entry in the /etc/vfstab file might look
like:
$device device mount FS fsck mount mount
#to mount to fsck point type pass at boot options
#
tank/home/glori - /mnt zfs - yes -

The device to fsck and fsck pass entries are set to - because the fsck command is not
applicable to ZFS file systems.

ZFS automatically mounts file systems when file systems are created or when the system boots.
Use of the zfs mount command is necessary only when you need to change mount options, or
explicitly mount or unmount file systems.
The zfs mount command with no arguments shows all currently mounted file systems that are
managed by ZFS. Legacy managed mount points are not displayed. For example:
$ zfs mount | grep tank/home
zfs mount | grep tank/home
tank/home /tank/home
tank/home/sueb /tank/home/sueb
You can use the -a option to mount all ZFS managed file systems. Legacy managed file systems
are not mounted. For example:
$ zfs mount -a
By default, ZFS does not allow mounting on top of a nonempty directory. For example:
$ zfs mount tank/home/glori
cannot mount 'tank/home/glori': filesystem already mounted
Legacy mount points must be managed through legacy tools. An attempt to use ZFS tools
results in an error. For example:
$ zfs mount tank/home/bhall
cannot mount 'tank/home/bhall': legacy mountpoint
use mount(8) to mount this filesystem
$ mount -F zfs tank/home/bhallm
When a file system is mounted, it uses a set of mount options based on the property values
associated with the file system. The correlation between ZFS properties and mount options is as
follows:
atime atime/noatime
devices devices/nodevices
exec exec/noexec
nbmand nbmand/nonbmand
readonly ro/rw
setuid setuid/nosetuid
xattr xattr/noaxttr
The mount option nosuid is an alias for nodevices,nosetuid.
You can use the NFSv4 mirror mount features to help you better manage NFS-mounted ZFS
home directories.
When file systems are created on the NFS server, the NFS client can automatically discover
these newly created file systems within their existing mount of a parent file system.
For example, if the server neo already shares the tank file system and client zee has it mounted,
/tank/baz is automatically visible on the client after it is created on the server.
zee$ mount neo:/tank /mnt

zee$ ls /mnt
baa bar
neo$ zfs create tank/baz
zee% ls /mnt
baa bar baz
zee% ls /mnt/baz
file1 file2
Using Temporary Mount Properties

If any of the mount options described in the preceding section are set explicitly by using the-o
option with the zfs mount command, the associated property value is temporarily overridden.
These property values are reported as temporary by the zfs get command and revert back to
their original values when the file system is unmounted. If a property value is changed while the
file system is mounted, the change takes effect immediately, overriding any temporary setting.
In the following example, the read-only mount option is temporarily set on the tank/home/
nneke file system. The file system is assumed to be unmounted.
$ zfs mount -o ro users/home/nneke
To temporarily change a property value on a file system that is currently mounted, you must
use the special remount option. In the following example, the atime property is temporarily
changed to off for a file system that is currently mounted:

Sharing and Unsharing ZFS File Systems
$ zfs mount -o remount,noatime users/home/nneke

users/home/nneke atime off temporary
$ zfs get atime users/home/perrin
For more information about the zfs mount command, see the zfs(8) man page.
Unmounting ZFS File Systems
You can unmount ZFS file systems by using the zfs unmount subcommand. The unmount
command can take either the mount point or the file system name as an argument.
In the following example, a file system is unmounted by its file system name:
$ zfs unmount users/home/mork
In the following example, the file system is unmounted by its mount point:
$ zfs unmount /users/home/mork
The unmount command fails if the file system is busy. To forcibly unmount a file system, you
can use the -f option. Be cautious when forcibly unmounting a file system if its contents are
actively being used. Unpredictable application behavior can result.
$ zfs unmount tank/home/glori

cannot unmount '/tank/home/glori': Device busy
$ zfs unmount -f tank/home/glori
To provide for backward compatibility, the legacy umount command can be used to unmount
ZFS file systems. For example:
$ umount /tank/home/glori
For more information about the zfs umount command, see the zfs(8) man page.
The Oracle Solaris 11.1 release simplifies ZFS share administration by leveraging ZFS property
inheritance. The new share syntax is enabled on pools running pool version 34.
The following are the file system packages for NFS and SMB:
■ NFS client and server packages
■ service/file-system/nfs (server)
■ service/file-system/nfs (client)
For additional NFS configuration information, see Managing Network File Systems in
Oracle Solaris 11.4.
■ SMB client and server packages
■ service/file-system/smb (server)
■ service/file-system/smb (client)
For additional SMB configuration information including SMB password management, see
“Managing SMB Mounts in Your Local Environment” in Managing SMB File Sharing and
Windows Interoperability in Oracle Solaris 11.4.
Multiple shares can be defined per file system. A share name uniquely identifies each share.
You can define the properties that are used to share a particular path in a file system. By default,
all file systems are unshared. In general, the NFS server services are not started until a share
is created. If you create a valid share, the NFS services are started automatically. If a ZFS file
system's mountpoint property is set to legacy, the file system can only be shared by using the
legacy share command.
■ The share.nfs property replaces the sharenfs property in previous releases to define and
publish an NFS share.
■ The share.smb property replaces the sharesmb property in previous releases to define and
publish an SMB share.
■ Both the sharenfs property and sharesmb property are aliases to the share.nfs property
and the sharenfs property.
■ The /etc/dfs/dfstab file is no longer used to share file systems at boot time. Setting these
properties share file systems automatically. SMF manages ZFS or UFS share information so
that file systems are shared automatically when the system is rebooted. This feature means
that all file systems whose sharenfs or sharesmb property are not set to off are shared at
boot time.
■ The sharemgr interface is no longer available. The legacy share command is still available
to create a legacy share. See the examples below.
■ The share -a command is like the previous share -ap command so that sharing a file
system is persistent. The share -p option is no longer available.
For example, if you want to share the tank/home file system, use syntax similar to the
following:
$ zfs set share.nfs=on tank/home

In preceding example, where the share.nfs property is set on the tank/home file system, the
share.nfs property value is inherited to any descendent file systems. For example:
$ zfs create tank/home/userA

$ zfs create tank/home/userB
You can also specify additional property values or modify existing property values on existing
file system shares. For example:
$ zfs set share.nfs.nosuid=on tank/home/userA

$ zfs set share.nfs=on tank/home/userA
About Sharing Labeled File Systems

To protect their sensitive contents, your company can label files and file systems With labeled
file systems, stricter security requirements such as encryption and access controls are enforced.
Oracle Solaris 11.4, by default, prohibits sharing of labeled NFS files. You can grant sharing
permissions to these files through the share.nfs.labeled property. See examples in “Changing
ZFS Share Property Values” on page 145.
For more information about labeled file systems, see the following resources:
■ Chapter 3, “Labeling Files for Data Loss Protection” in Securing Files and Verifying File
Integrity in Oracle Solaris 11.4
■ “Sharing a Labeled File System” in Managing Network File Systems in Oracle Solaris 11.4
Legacy ZFS Sharing Syntax
Oracle Solaris 11 syntax is still supported so that you can share file systems in two steps. This
syntax is supported in all pool versions.
■ First, use the zfs set share command to create an NFS or SMB share of ZFS file system.
$ zfs create rpool/fs1

$ zfs set share=name=fs1,path=/rpool/fs1,prot=nfs rpool/fs1
name=fs1,path=/rpool/fs1,prot=nfs
■ Then, set the sharenfs or sharesmb property to on to publish the share. For example:
$ zfs set sharenfs=on rpool/fs1

$ grep fs1 /etc/dfs/sharetab
/rpool/fs1 fs1 nfs sec=sys,rw
File system shares can be displayed with the legacy zfs get share command.
$ zfs get share rpool/fs1

rpool/fs1 share name=fs1,path=/rpool/fs1,prot=nfs local
In addition, the share command to share a file system, similar to the syntax in the Oracle
Solaris 10 release, is still supported to share any directory within a file system. For example, to
share a ZFS file system:
$ share -F nfs /tank/zfsfs

$ grep zfsfs /etc/dfs/sharetab
/tank/zfsfs tank_zfsfs nfs sec=sys,rw
The above syntax is identical to sharing a UFS file system:
$ share -F nfs /ufsfs

$ grep ufsfs /etc/dfs/sharetab
/ufsfs - nfs rw
/tank/zfsfs tank_zfsfs nfs rw
New ZFS Sharing Syntax

The zfs set command is used to share and publish a ZFS file system over the NFS or SMB
protocols. Or, you can set the share.nfs or share.smb property when the file system is created.
For example, the tank/sales file system is created and shared. The default share permissions
are read-write for everyone. The descendent tank/sales/logs file system is also shared
automatically because the share.nfs property is inherited to descendent file systems and the
tank/sales/log file system is set to read-only access.
$ zfs create -o share.nfs=on tank/sales

$ zfs create -o share.nfs.ro=\* tank/sales/logs
$ zfs get -r share.nfs tank/sales
tank/sales share.nfs on local
tank/sales% share.nfs on inherited from tank/sales
tank/sales/log share.nfs on inherited from tank/sales
tank/sales/log% share.nfs on inherited from tank/sales
You can provide root access to a specific system for a shared file system as follows:
$ zfs set share.nfs=on tank/home/data

$ zfs set share.nfs.sec.default.root=neo.daleks.com tank/home/data

ZFS Sharing with Per-Property Inheritance

In pools that have been upgraded to the latest pool version 34, new sharing syntax is
available that makes use of ZFS property inheritance to ease share maintenance. Each sharing
characteristic becomes a separate share property. The share properties are identified by names
that start with the share. prefix. Examples of share properties include share.desc, share.
nfs.nosuid, and share.smb.guestok.
The share.nfs property controls whether NFS sharing is enabled. The share.smb property
controls whether SMB sharing is enabled. The legacy sharenfs and sharesmb property names
can still be used, because in new pools, sharenfs is an alias for share.nfs and sharesmb is an
alias for share.smb. If you want to share the tank/home file system, use syntax similar to the
following:
$ zfs set share.nfs=on tank/home
In this example, the share.nfs property value is inherited to any descendent file systems. For
example:
$ zfs create tank/home/userB
$ grep tank/home /etc/dfs/sharetab
/tank/home tank_home nfs sec=sys,rw
/tank/home/userA tank_home_userA nfs sec=sys,rw
/tank/home/userB tank_home_userB nfs sec=sys,rw
ZFS Sharing Inheritance in Older Pools

In older pools, only the sharenfs and sharesmb properties are inherited by descendent file
systems. Other sharing characteristics are stored in the .zfs/shares file for each share and are
not inherited.
A special rule is that whenever a new file system is created that inherits sharenfs or sharesmb
from its parent, a default share is created for that file system from the sharenfs or sharesmb
value. Note that when sharenfs is simply on, the default share that is created in a descendent
file system has only the default NFS characteristics. For example:
$ zpool get version tank
tank version 33 default
$ zfs create -o sharenfs=on tank/home
/tank/home tank_home nfs sec=sys,rw
/tank/home/userA tank_home_userA nfs sec=sys,r
ZFS Named Shares
You can also create a named share, which provides more flexibility in setting permissions and
properties in an SMB environment. For example:
$ zfs share -o share.smb=on tank/workspace%myshare
In the preceding example, the zfs share command creates an SMB share called myshare of
the tank/workspace file system. You can access the SMB share and display or set specific
permissions or ACLs through the .zfs/shares directory of the file system. Each SMB share is
represented by a separate .zfs/shares file. For example:
$ ls -lv /tank/workspace/.zfs/shares
-rwxrwxrwx+ 1 root root 0 May 15 10:31 myshare
0:everyone@:read_data/write_data/append_data/read_xattr/write_xattr
/execute/delete_child/read_attributes/write_attributes/delete
/read_acl/write_acl/write_owner/synchronize:allow
Named shares inherit sharing properties from the parent file system. If you add the share.smb.
guestok property to the parent file system in the previous example, this property is inherited to
the named share. For example:
$ zfs get -r share.smb.guestok tank/workspace
tank/workspace share.smb.guestok on inherited from tank
tank/workspace%myshare share.smb.guestok on inherited from tank
Named shares can be helpful in the NFS environment when defining shares for a subdirectory
of the file system. For example:
$ zfs create -o share.nfs=on -o share.nfs.anon=99 -o share.auto=off tank/home
$ mkdir /tank/home/userA
$ mkdir /tank/home/userB
$ zfs share -o share.path=/tank/home/userA tank/home%userA
$ zfs share -o share.path=/tank/home/userB tank/home%userB
/tank/home/userA userA nfs anon=99,sec=sys,rw
/tank/home/userB userB nfs anon=99,sec=sys,rw
The above example also illustrates that setting the share.auto to off for a file system turns off
the auto share for that file system while leaving all other property inheritance intact. Unlike
most other sharing properties, the share.auto property is not inheritable.
Named shares are also used when creating a public NFS share. A public share can only be
created on a named NFS share. For example:
$ zfs create -o mountpoint=/pub tank/public

$ zfs share -o share.nfs=on -o share.nfs.public=on tank/public%pubshare

$ grep pub /etc/dfs/sharetab
/pub pubshare nfs public,sec=sys,rw
See the share_nfs(8) and share_smb(8) man pages for a detailed description of NFS and SMB
share properties.
ZFS Automatic Shares
When an automatic (auto) share is created, a unique resource name is constructed from the file
system name. The constructed name is a copy of the file system name except that the characters
in the file system name that would be illegal in the resource name, are replaced with underscore
(_) characters. For example, the resource name of data/home/john is data_home_john.
Setting a share.autoname property name allows you to replace the file system name with a
specific name when creating the auto share. The specific name is also used to replace the prefix
file system name in the case of inheritance. For example:
$ zfs create -o share.smb=on -o share.autoname=john data/home/john

$ zfs create data/home/john/backups
$ grep john /etc/dfs/sharetab
/data/home/john john smb
/data/home/john/backups john_backups smb
If a legacy share command or the zfs set share command is used on a file system that has
not yet been shared, its share.auto value is automatically set to off. The legacy commands
always create named shares. This special rule prevents the auto share from interfering with the
named share that is being created.
Displaying ZFS Share Information

Display the value of the file sharing properties by using zfs get command. The following
example shows how to display the share.nfs property for a single file system:
$ zfs get share.nfs tank/sales

The following example shows how to display the share.nfs property for descendent file
systems:
$ zfs get -r share.nfs tank/sales


tank/sales% share.nfs on inherited from tank/sales
tank/sales/log share.nfs on inherited from tank/sales
tank/sales/log% share.nfs on inherited from tank/sales
The extended share property information is not available in the zfs get all command syntax.
You can display specific details about NFS or SMB share information by using the following
syntax:
$ zfs get share.nfs.all tank/sales

tank/sales share.nfs.aclok off default
tank/sales share.nfs.anon default
tank/sales share.nfs.charset.* ... default
tank/sales share.nfs.cksum default
tank/sales share.nfs.index default
tank/sales share.nfs.log default
tank/sales share.nfs.noaclfab off default
tank/sales share.nfs.nosub off default
tank/sales share.nfs.nosuid off default
tank/sales share.nfs.public - -
tank/sales share.nfs.sec default
tank/sales share.nfs.sec.* ... default
Because there are many share properties, consider displaying the properties with a non-default
value. For example:
$ zfs get -e -s local,received,inherited share.all tank/home

tank/home share.auto off local
tank/home share.nfs on local
tank/home share.nfs.anon 99 local
tank/home share.protocols nfs local
tank/home share.smb.guestok on inherited from tank
Changing ZFS Share Property Values

You can change share property values by specifying new or modified properties on a file system
share. For example, if the read-only property is set when the file system is created, the property
can be set to off.
$ zfs create -o share.nfs.ro=\* tank/data

$ zfs get share.nfs.ro tank/data
tank/data share.nfs.sec.sys.ro * local
$ zfs set share.nfs.ro=none tank/data

$ zfs get share.nfs.ro tank/data

tank/data share.nfs.sec.sys.ro off local
If you create an SMB share, you can also add the NFS share protocol. For example:
$ zfs set share.smb=on tank/multifs
$ zfs set share.nfs=on tank/multifs
$ grep multifs /etc/dfs/sharetab
/tank/multifs tank_multifs nfs sec=sys,rw
/tank/multifs tank_multifs smb -
Remove the SMB protocol:

$ zfs set share.smb=off tank/multifs
/tank/multifs tank_multifs nfs sec=sys,rw
You can rename a named share. For example:

$ zfs share -o share.smb=on tank/home/abc%abcshare
$ grep abc /etc/dfs/sharetab
/tank/home/abc abcshare smb -
$ zfs rename tank/home/abc%abcshare tank/home/abc%a1share
/tank/home/abc a1share smb -
You can grant sharing access to labeled file systems. In the following example, rpool/export/
home is a labeled file system which is configured to be shared.
$ zfs create -o multilevel=on -o encryption=on rpool/ftp-files
$ zfs set =/ftpsource rpool/ftp-files
$ setlabel "Conf - Internal Use Only" /ftpsource
$ zfs set share.nfs.labeled=on rpool/ftp-files

$ zfs set share.nfs=on rpool/ftp-files
You can also enable sharing of labeled file systems with the zfs share command.
$ zfs share -o nfs=on -o share.nfs.labeled=on rpool/ftp-files
Publishing and Unpublishing ZFS Shares

You can temporarily unshare a named share without destroying it by using the zfs unshare
$ zfs unshare tank/home/abc%a1share

#
$ zfs share tank/home/abc%a1share
/tank/home/abc a1share smb -
When the zfs unshare command is issued, all file system shares are unshared. These shares
remain unshared until the zfs share command is issued for the file system or the share.nfs or
share.smb property is set for the file system.
Defined shares are not removed when the zfs unshare command is issued, and they are re-
shared the next time the zfs share command is issued for the file system or the share.nfs or
share.smb property is set for the file system.
Removing a ZFS Share

You can unshare a file system share by setting the share.nfs or share.smb property to off. For
example:
$ zfs set share.nfs=off tank/multifs

#
You can permanently remove a named share by using the zfs destroy command. For example:
$ zfs destroy tank/home/abc%a1share
ZFS File Sharing Within a Non-Global Zone

Starting with Oracle Solaris 11, you can create and publish NFS shares in a non-global zone.
■ If a ZFS file system is mounted and available in a non-global zone, it can be shared in that
zone.
■ A file system can be shared in the global zone if it is not delegated to a non-global zone and
is not mounted in a non-global zone. If a file system is added to a non-global zone, it can
only be shared by using the legacy share command.
For example, the /export/home/data and /export/home/data1 file systems are available in
the zfszone.
zfszone$ share -F nfs /export/home/data

zfszone# cat /etc/dfs/sharetab
zfszone$ zfs set share.nfs=on tank/zones/export/home/data1

zfszone$ cat /etc/dfs/sharetab
ZFS Sharing Migration/Transition Issues

Review the following transition issues:
■ Importing file systems with older sharing properties - When importing a pool or
receiving a file system stream that was created before Oracle Solaris 11, the sharenfs and
sharesmb properties include all the share properties directly in the property value. In most
cases, these legacy share properties are converted to an equivalent set of named shares as
soon as each file system is shared. Since import operations trigger mounting and sharing in
most cases, the conversion to named shares happens directly during the import process.
■ Upgrading from Oracle Solaris 11 - The first file system sharing after a pool upgrade to
version 34 can take a long time because the named shares are converted to the new format.
The named shares created by the upgrade process are correct but cannot take advantage of
share property inheritance.
■ Display share property values:
$ zfs get share.nfs filesystem

$ zfs get share.smb filesystem
■ If you boot back to an older BE, reset the sharenfs and sharesmb properties to their
original values.
■ Upgrading from Oracle Solaris 11 – In Oracle Solaris 11 and Oracle Solaris 11.1, the
sharenfs and sharesmb properties can have only off and on values. These properties are no
longer used to define share characteristics.
The /etc/dfs/dfstab file is no longer used to share file systems at boot time. At boot
time, all mounted ZFS file systems that include enabled file system shares are automatically
shared. A share is enabled when it sharenfs or sharesmb is set to on.
The sharemgr interface is no longer available. The legacy share command is still available
to create a legacy share. The share -a command is like the previous share -ap command so
that sharing a file system is persistent. The share -p option is no longer available.
■ Upgrading your system – ZFS shares are incorrect if you boot back to an Oracle Solaris
11 BE due to property changes in this release. Non-ZFS shares are unaffected. If you plan
to boot back to an older BE, first save a copy of the existing share configuration prior to the
pkg update operation to be able to restore the ZFS share configuration.
In the older BE, use the sharemgr show -vp command to list all shares and their
configuration.
Use the following commands to display share property values:
$ zfs get sharenfs filesystem
$ zfs get sharesmb filesystem
If you back to an older BE, reset the sharenfs and sharesmb properties and any shares
defined with sharemgr to their original values.
■ Legacy unsharing behavior – Using the unshare -a command or unshareall command
unshares a file system, but does not update the SMF shares repository. If you try to re-share
the existing share, the shares repository is checked for conflicts, and an error is displayed.
Troubleshooting ZFS File System Sharing

Problems
Review the following share error conditions:
■ New shares or previous shares are not shared

■ Confirm the pool and the file system versions are current - If new shares are not
shared by setting the share.nfs or share.smb property, then confirm that the pool
version is 34 and the file system version is 6.
■ Share must exist before NFS services start- NFS server services do not run until a
file system is shared. Create the NFS share first and then attempt to access the share
remotely.
■ System with existing shares was upgraded but shares are not available - A system
with existing shares is upgraded but attempts to reshare the shares fail. The shares might
not be shared because the share.auto property is disabled. If share.auto is set to
off, only named shares are available, which enforces compatibility with earlier sharing
syntax. The existing shares might look like this:
$ zfs get share

tank/data share name=data,path=/tank/data,prot=nfs local
1. Ensure that the share.auto property is enabled. If not, enable it.
$ zfs get -r share.auto tank/data

$ zfs set share.auto=on tank/data
2. Reshare the file system.
$ zfs set -r share.nfs=on tank/data

3. You might also need to remove named shares and recreate them before the preceding
command is successful.
$ zfs list -t share -Ho name -r tank/data | xargs -n1 zfs destroy

4. If necessary, recreate the named shares.
$ zfs create -o share.nfs=on tank/data%share

■ Sharing properties including named shares are not included in snapshots - Share
properties and .zfs/shares files are treated differently in zfs clone and zfs send
operations. The .zfs/shares files are included in snapshots and are preserved in zfs clone
and zfs send operations. For a description of the behavior of properties during zfs send
and zfs receive operations, see “Applying Different Property Values to a ZFS Snapshot
Stream” on page 194. After a clone operation, all files are from the pre-clone snapshot,
whereas the properties are inherited from the clone's new position in the ZFS file system
hierarchy.
■ Named share request fails - If a request to create a named share fails because the share
would conflict with the auto share, you may have to disable the auto.share property.
■ Pool with shares was previously exported - When a pool is imported read-only, neither
its properties nor its files can be modified so creating a new share fails. If the shares existed
before the pool was exported, the existing sharing characteristics are used, if possible.
The following table identifies know share states and how to resolve them.
Share State Description Resolution
INVALID The share is invalid because it is Attempt to re-share the invalid share by using the
internally inconsistent or because it following command:
conflicts with another share.
$ zfs share FS%share
Using this command displays an error message
about which aspect of the share is failing
validation. Correct this, then retry the share.
SHARED The share is shared. None needed.
UNSHARED The share is valid but is unshared. Use the zfs share command to re-share either the
individual share or the parent file system.
UNVALIDATED The share is not yet validated. The Use the zfs share command to re-share the
file system that contains the share individual share or the parent file system. If the
might not be in a shareable state. For file system itself is shareable, an attempt to re-
example, it is not mounted or it is share will either succeed in sharing (and transition
delegated to a zone other than the the state to shared) or fail to share (and transition
current zone. Alternatively, the ZFS the state to invalid). Or, you can use the share
properties representing the desired -A command to list all shares in all mounted file
share have been created, but have not systems. This will cause all shares in mounted file
yet been validated as a legal share. systems to be resolved as either unshared (valid but
not yet shared) or invalid.
Setting ZFS Quotas
Setting ZFS Quotas
You can use the quota property to set a limit on the amount of disk space a file system can use.
In addition, you can use the reservation property to guarantee that a specified amount of disk
space is available to a file system. Both properties apply to the file system on which they are set
and all descendents of that file system.
That is, if a quota is set on the tank/home file system, the total amount of disk space used by
tank/home and all of its descendents cannot exceed the quota. Similarly, if tank/home is given
a reservation, tank/home and all of its descendents draw from that reservation. The amount of
disk space used by a file system and all of its descendents is reported by the used property.
The refquota and refreservation properties are used to manage file system space without
accounting for disk space consumed by descendents, such as snapshots and clones.
In this Oracle Solaris release, you can set a user or a group quota on the amount of disk space
consumed by files that are owned by a particular user or group. The user and group quota
properties cannot be set on a volume, on a file system before file system version 4, or on a pool
before pool version 15.
Consider the following points to determine which quota and reservation features might best
help you manage your file systems:
■ The quota and reservation properties are convenient for managing disk space consumed
by file systems and their descendents.
■ The refquota and refreservation properties are appropriate for managing disk space
consumed by file systems.
■ Setting the refquota or refreservation property higher than the quota or reservation
property has no effect. If you set the quota or refquota property, operations that try to
exceed either value fail. It is possible to a exceed a quota that is greater than the refquota.
For example, if some snapshot blocks are modified, you might actually exceed the quota
before you exceed the refquota.
■ User and group quotas provide a way to more easily manage disk space with many user
accounts, such as in a university environment.
■ A convenient way to set a quota on a large file system for many different users is to set a
default user or group quota.
For more information about setting quotas and reservations, see “Setting Quotas on ZFS File
Systems” on page 152 and “Setting Reservations on ZFS File Systems” on page 156.

Setting ZFS Quotas
Setting Quotas on ZFS File Systems
Quotas on ZFS file systems can be set and displayed by using the zfs set and zfs get
commands. In the following example, a quota of 10GB is set on tank/home/sueb:
$ zfs set quota=10G tank/home/sueb

$ zfs get quota tank/home/sueb
tank/home/sueb quota 10G local
Quotas also affect the output of the zfs list and df commands. For example:
$ zfs list -r tank/home

tank/home 1.45M 66.9G 36K /tank/home
tank/home/glori 547K 66.9G 547K /tank/home/glori
tank/home/sueb 322K 10.0G 291K /tank/home/sueb
tank/home/sueb/ws 31K 10.0G 31K /tank/home/sueb/ws
tank/home/mork 31K 66.9G 31K /tank/home/mork
$ df -h /tank/home/sueb
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
tank/home/sueb 10G 306K 10G 1% /tank/home/sueb
Note that although tank/home has 66.9GB of disk space available, tank/home/sueb and tank/
home/sueb/ws each have only 10GB of disk space available, due to the quota on tank/home/
sueb.
You can set a refquota on a file system that limits the amount of disk space that the file system
can consume. This limit does not include disk space that is consumed by descendents. For
example, studentA's 10GB quota is not impacted by space that is consumed by snapshots.
$ zfs set refquota=10g students/studentA

$ zfs list -t all -r students
students 150M 66.8G 32K /students
students/studentA 150M 9.85G 150M /students/studentA
students/studentA@yesterday 0 - 150M -
$ zfs snapshot students/studentA@today
students/studentA@yesterday 50.0M - 150M -
students/studentA@today 0 - 100M -
For additional convenience, you can set another quota on a file system to help manage the disk
space that is consumed by snapshots. For example:
Setting ZFS Quotas
$ zfs set quota=20g students/studentA

students/studentA@yesterday 50.0M - 150M -
students/studentA@today 0 - 100M -
In this scenario, studentA might reach the refquota (10GB) hard limit, but studentA can
remove files to recover, even if snapshots exist.
In the preceding example, the smaller of the two quotas (10GB as compared to 20GB) is
displayed in the zfs list output. To view the value of both quotas, use the zfs get command.
For example:
$ zfs get refquota,quota students/studentA

students/studentA refquota 10G local
students/studentA quota 20G local
Enforcement of a file system quota might be delayed by several seconds. This delay means that
a user might exceed the file system quota before the system notices that the file system is over
quota and refuses additional writes with the EDQUOT error message.
Setting User and Group Quotas on a ZFS File

System
You can set a user quota or a group quota by using the zfs userquota or zfs groupquota
commands, respectively. For example:
$ zfs create students/compsci

$ zfs set userquota@student1=10G students/compsci
$ zfs create students/labstaff
$ zfs set groupquota@labstaff=20GB students/labstaff
Display the current user quota or group quota as follows:
$ zfs get userquota@student1 students/compsci

students/compsci userquota@student1 10G local
$ zfs get groupquota@labstaff students/labstaff
students/labstaff groupquota@labstaff 20G local
You can display general user or group disk space usage by querying the following properties:

Setting ZFS Quotas
$ zfs userspace students/compsci

TYPE NAME USED QUOTA
POSIX User root 350M none
POSIX User student1 426M 10G
$ zfs groupspace students/labstaff
POSIX Group labstaff 250M 20G
POSIX Group root 350M none
To identify individual user or group disk space usage, query the following properties:
$ zfs get userused@student1 students/compsci
students/compsci userused@student1 550M local
$ zfs get groupused@labstaff students/labstaff
students/labstaff groupused@labstaff 250 local
The user and group quota properties are not displayed by using the zfs get all dataset
command, which displays a list of all of the other file system properties.
You can remove a user quota or group quota as follows:

$ zfs set userquota@student1=none students/compsci
$ zfs set groupquota@labstaff=none students/labstaff
User and group quotas on ZFS file systems provide the following features:
■ A user quota or group quota that is set on a parent file system is not automatically inherited
by a descendent file system.
■ However, the user or group quota is applied when a clone or a snapshot is created from a
file system that has a user or group quota. Likewise, a user or group quota is included with
the file system when a stream is created by using the zfs send command, even without the
-R option.
■ Unprivileged users can only access their own disk space usage. The root user or a user who
has been granted the userused or groupused privilege, can access everyone's user or group
disk space accounting information.
■ The userquota and groupquota properties cannot be set on ZFS volumes, on a file system
prior to file system version 4, or on a pool prior to pool version 15.
Enforcement of user and group quotas might be delayed by several seconds. This delay means
that a user might exceed the user quota before the system notices that the user is over quota and
refuses additional writes with the EDQUOT error message.
You can use the legacy quota command to review user quotas in an NFS environment, for
example, where a ZFS file system is mounted. Without any options, the quota command only
displays output if the user's quota is exceeded. For example:
Setting ZFS Quotas
$ zfs set userquota@student1=10m students/compsci

POSIX User student1 550M 10M
$ quota student1
Block limit reached on /students/compsci
If you reset the user quota and the quota limit is no longer exceeded, you can use the quota -v
command to review the user's quota. For example:
$ zfs set userquota@student1=10GB students/compsci
POSIX User student1 550M 10G
$ quota student1
$ quota -v student1
Disk quotas for student1 (uid 102):
Filesystem usage quota limit timeleft files quota limit timeleft
/students/compsci
563287 10485760 10485760 - - - - -
Setting Default User and Group Quotas

Starting in the Oracle Solaris 11.3 release, you can set a default user quota or a default group
quota that is applied automatically for anyone who does not have a specific quota defined.
Similar to specific user and group quotas, default user and group quotas are not inheritable to
descendent file systems. In addition, if a default user or group quota is set on a top-level file
system, space consumed in descendent file systems is not charged to the top-level file system's
default quota.
You can set a default user quota on a large shared file system. For example:
$ zfs set defaultuserquota=30gb students/labstaff/admindata
Using a default user quota on a large shared file system allows you to restrict growth without
specifying individual user quotas. You can also monitor who is using the top-level file system.
$ zfs userspace students/labstaff/admindata
TYPE NAME USED QUOTA SOURCE
POSIX User admin1 2.00G 30G default
POSIX User admin2 4.00G 30G default
POSIX User root 3K 30G default
In the above example, each user that does not have an existing quota is allowed 30GB of disk
space in students/labstaff/admindata. Contrasting this behavior to setting a 30GB file

Setting Reservations on ZFS File Systems
system quota on students/labstaff/admindata, means that a cumulative quota of 30GB

would apply to all users who didn't have an existing quota.
You can set a default group quota in a similar way. For example, the following syntax sets a
120GB quota on the students/math file system. You can use the zfs groupspace command to
track usage of a top-level file system with a default group quota.
$ zfs set defaultgroupquota=120g students/math

$ zfs groupspace students/math
TYPE NAME USED QUOTA SOURCE
POSIX Group root 6K 120G default
POSIX Group students 40.0G 120G default
A ZFS reservation is an allocation of disk space from the pool that is guaranteed to be available
to a dataset. As such, you cannot reserve disk space for a dataset if that space is not currently
available in the pool. The total amount of all outstanding, unconsumed reservations cannot
exceed the amount of unused disk space in the pool. ZFS reservations can be set and displayed
by using the zfs set and zfs get commands. For example:
$ zfs set reservation=5G tank/home/bhall

$ zfs get reservation tank/home/bhall
tank/home/bhall reservation 5G local
Reservations can affect the output of the zfs list command. For example:
$ zfs list -r tank/home

tank/home 5.00G 61.9G 37K /tank/home
tank/home/bhall 31K 66.9G 31K /tank/home/bhall
tank/home/sueb 337K 10.0G 306K /tank/home/sueb
tank/home/glori 547K 61.9G 547K /tank/home/glori
tank/home/mork 31K 61.9G 31K /tank/home/mork
Note that tank/home is using 5GB of disk space, although the total amount of space referred
to by tank/home and its descendents is much less than 5GB. The used space reflects the space
reserved for tank/home/bhall. Reservations are considered in the used disk space calculation
of the parent file system and do count against its quota, reservation, or both.
$ zfs set quota=5G pool/filesystem
$ zfs set reservation=10G pool/filesystem/user1

cannot set reservation for 'pool/filesystem/user1': size is greater than
available space
A dataset can use more disk space than its reservation, as long as unreserved space is available
in the pool, and the dataset's current usage is below its quota. A dataset cannot consume disk
space that has been reserved for another dataset.
Reservations are not cumulative. That is, a second invocation of zfs set to set a reservation
does not add its reservation to the existing reservation. Rather, the second reservation replaces
the first reservation. For example:

$ zfs get reservation tank/home/bhall
tank/home/bhall reservation 5G local
You can set a refreservation reservation to guarantee disk space for a dataset that does not
include disk space consumed by snapshots and clones. This reservation is accounted for in
the parent dataset's space used calculation, and counts against the parent dataset's quotas and
reservations. For example:
$ zfs set refreservation=10g profs/prof1

$ zfs list
profs 10.0G 23.2G 19K /profs
profs/prof1 10G 33.2G 18K /profs/prof1
You can also set a reservation on the same dataset to guarantee dataset space and snapshot
space. For example:
$ zfs set reservation=20g profs/prof1

$ zfs list
profs 20.0G 13.2G 19K /profs
profs/prof1 10G 33.2G 18K /profs/prof1
Regular reservations are accounted for in the parent's used space calculation.
In the preceding example, the smaller of the two quotas (10GB as compared to 20GB) is
displayed in the zfs list output. To view the value of both quotas, use the zfs get command.
For example:
$ zfs get reservation,refreserv profs/prof1

profs/prof1 reservation 20G local

Setting I/O Bandwidth Limits
profs/prof1 refreservation 10G local
If refreservation is set, a snapshot is only allowed if sufficient unreserved pool space exists
outside of this reservation to accommodate the current number of referenced bytes in the
dataset.
Setting the size of a ZFS dataset can ensure an appropriate allocation of space in a configuration
that contains multiple volumes to service different ZFS clients. However, ZFS clients of a
specific dataset can still monopolize the system's bandwidth if the I/O operations within the
dataset surpasses those operations in other datasets. Monopoly of bandwidth use effectively
denies other ZFS clients of other datasets from accessing the data. By using the read and write
limiting properties, you can assign limits to the I/O operations in datasets to provide bandwidth
to all datasets for their respective clients to use.
■ writelimit – Sets the maximum bytes per second that a dataset can write to disk
■ readlimit – Sets the maximum bytes per second that a dataset can read from a disk
■ defaultwritelimit – Sets the maximum bytes per second that the descendants of a dataset
can write to disk
■ defaultreadlimit – Sets the maximum bytes per second that the descendants of a dataset
can read from a disk
■ effectivewritelimit – Reports the maximum bytes per second that a dataset can write to
disk
■ effectivereadlimit – Reports the maximum bytes per second that a dataset can read from
a disk
Note - These values are not guaranteed bandwidth and the actual bandwidth may be limited by
other factors including usage and limits set on other datasets in the hierarchy. Enforcement of
these limits may be delayed by several seconds.
The default limits on the descendants of a dataset can be overwritten with the writelimit or
readlimit properties. They can be set to any value, but the throughput on a descendant dataset
will not be more than the rate of a parent dataset. The minimum value for these properties is
500K.
$ zfs get -r writelimit,defaultwritelimit,effectivewritelimit users/home

users/home writelimit default default
users/home defaultwritelimit none default

users/home effectivewritelimit none local
users/home/kaydo writelimit default default
users/home/kaydo defaultwritelimit none default
users/home/kaydo effectivewritelimit none local
The writelimit or readlimit properties can be set to none to inherit the limit set on the parent
dataset. Also they can be set to default to use the default limit set on the parent dataset.
EXAMPLE 32 Default Settings for Bandwidth Limiting Properties
If a new dataset is created, it uses the bandwidth limits established by the parent dataset. In this
example, the parent dataset had no bandwidth limiting properties set.

users/home writelimit default default
users/home defaultwritelimit none default
users/home effectivewritelimit none local
users/home/nneke writelimit default default
users/home/nneke defaultwritelimit none default
users/home/nneke effectivewritelimit none local
In this example. the parents' defaultwritelimit properties was set to 500K, so that is the
effective write limit for the descendant dataset.

users/home writelimit 1M local
users/home defaultwritelimit 500K local
users/home effectivewritelimit 1M local
users/home/nneke writelimit default default
users/home/nneke defaultwritelimit 500K inherited from users/home
users/home/nneke effectivewritelimit 500K local
EXAMPLE 33 Using the Bandwidth Limiting Properties From the Parent Dataset
By default, descendant datasets use the bandwidth limiting values set in the parents'
defaultwritelimit and defaultreadlimit properties. If you want to use the same write
values as the parent dataset instead of the default settings, set the writelimit property for the
descendant dataset to none. In this case, the effective write limit will be reported as the same
as the parent datasets' writelimit property. In this example the effective write limit for the
descendant dataset is 1M which is the effective write limit of the parent, instead of 500K which is
the default write limit set in the parent dataset.
$ zfs set writelimit=none users/home/kaydo

Compressing ZFS File Systems

users/home/kaydo writelimit none local
users/home/kaydo defaultwritelimit 500K inherited from users/home
users/home/kaydo effectivewritelimit 1M local
In this example, the descendants' properties are limited by the write limit set by on the parent
dataset. The descendant dataset will not be given higher bandwidth values than the parent.
$ zfs create -o writelimit=2M users/home/mork

users/home/mork writelimit 2M local
users/home/mork defaultwritelimit 500K inherited from users/home
users/home/mork effectivewritelimit 1M local
Compressing ZFS File Systems
Compression is the process where data is stored using less disk space. The following
compression algorithms are available:
■ gzip - standard UNIX compression.

■ gzip-N - selects a specific gzip level. gzip-1 provides the fastest gzip compression. gzip-9
provides the best data compression. gzip-6 is the default.
■ lz4 - provides better compression with lower CPU overhead
■ lzjb - optimized for performance while providing decent compression
■ zle - zero length encoding is useful for datasets with large blocks of zeros
Note - Currently, neither lz4 or gzip compression is supported on root pools.
You can choose a specific compression algorithm by setting the compression ZFS property. To
use the LZ4 algorithm, use a command like the following:
$ zfs set compress=lz4 pool/fs
Encrypting ZFS File Systems
Encryption is the process where data is encoded for privacy and a key is needed by the data
owner to access the encoded data. The benefits of using ZFS encryption are as follows:
■ ZFS encryption is integrated with the ZFS command set. Like other ZFS operations,
encryption operations such as key changes and rekey are performed online.
■ You can use your existing storage pools as long as they are upgraded. You have the
flexibility of encrypting specific file systems.
■ Data is encrypted using AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) with key lengths of 128, 192,
and 256 in the CCM and GCM operation modes.
■ ZFS encryption uses the Oracle Solaris Cryptographic Framework, which gives it access
to any available hardware acceleration or optimized software implementations of the
encryption algorithms automatically.
■ Currently, you cannot encrypt the ZFS root file system or other OS components, such as the
/var directory, even if it is a separate file system.
■ ZFS encryption is inheritable to descendent file systems.
■ A regular user can create an encrypted file system and manage key operations if create,
mount, keysource, checksum, and encryption permissions are assigned to him.
Note - ZFS wrapping and data encryption keys use AES while Trusted Platform Module (TPM)
support in Oracle Solaris 11 can only store RSA keys. Consequently, ZFS encryption can not
use TPM as the root of trust for storing keys. As best practice, use a remote key management
system instead of TPM, such as Oracle Key Management, Oracle Key Vault, or any third party
product that supports the KMIP standard.
For Oracle Key Manager documentation, see the Storage Encryption section in Tape Storage
Products Documentation Library (https://docs.oracle.com/cd/F24623_01/index.
html#crypto).
For Oracle Key Vault documentation, see the Database Security section in https://docs.
oracle.com/en/database/related-products.html.
You can set an encryption policy when a ZFS file system is created, but the policy cannot be
changed. For example, the tank/home/megr file system is created with the encryption property
enabled. The default encryption policy is to prompt for a passphrase, which must be a minimum
of 8 characters in length.
$ zfs create -o encryption=on tank/home/megr

Enter passphrase for 'tank/home/megr': xxxxxxx
Enter again: xxxxxxxx

Confirm that the file system has encryption enabled. For example:
$ zfs get encryption tank/home/megr
tank/home/megr encryption on local
The default encryption algorithm is aes-128-ccm when a file system's encryption value is on.
A wrapping key is used to encrypt the actual data encryption keys. The wrapping key is passed
from the zfs command, as in the above example when the encrypted file system is created,
to the kernel. A wrapping key is either in a file (in raw or hex format) or it is derived from a
passphrase.
The format and location of the wrapping key are specified in the keysource property as
follows:
keysource=format,location
■ Format is one of the following:

■ raw – The raw key bytes
■ hex – A hexadecimal key string
■ passphrase – A character string that generates a key
■ Location is one of the following:
■ prompt – You are prompted for a key or a passphrase when the file system is created or
mounted
■ file:///filename – The key or a passphrase file location in a file system
■ pkcs11 – A URI describing the location of a key or a passphrase in a PKCS#11 token
■ https://location – The key or a passphrase file location on a secure server.
Transporting key information in the clear using this method is not recommended. A
GET on the URL returns just the key value or the passphrase, according to what was
requested in the format part of the keysource property.
When using an https:// locator for the keysource, the certificate that the ZFS server
presents must be one that is trusted by libcurl and OpenSSL. Add your own trust
anchor or self signed certificate to the certificate store in /etc/openssl/certs. Place
the PEM format certificate into the /etc/certs/CA directory and run the following
command:
$ svcadm refresh ca-certificates
If the keysource format is passphrase, then the wrapping key is derived from the passphrase.
Otherwise, the keysource property value points to the actual wrapping key, as raw bytes or in
hexadecimal format. You can specify that the passphrase is stored in a file or stored in a raw
stream of bytes that are prompted for, which is likely only suitable for scripting.
When a file system's keysource property values identifies passphrase, then the wrapping key
is derived from the passphrase using PKCS#5 PBKD2 and a per file system randomly generated
salt. This means that the same passphrase generates a different wrapping key if used on
descendent file systems.
A file system's encryption policy is inherited by descendent file systems and cannot be
removed. For example:
$ zfs snapshot tank/home/megr@now
$ zfs clone tank/home/megr@now tank/home/megr-new
Enter passphrase for 'tank/home/megr-new': xxxxxxx
$ zfs set encryption=off tank/home/megr-new
cannot set property for 'tank/home/megr-new': 'encryption' is readonly
If you need to copy or migrate encrypted or unencrypted ZFS file systems, then consider the
following points:
■ Currently, you cannot send an unencrypted dataset stream and receive it as an encrypted
stream even if the receiving pool's dataset has encryption enabled.
■ You can use the following commands to migrate unencrypted data to a pool/file system with
encryption enabled:
■ cp -r
■ find | cpio
■ tar
■ rsync
■ A replicated encrypted file system stream can be received into a encrypted file system and
the data remains encrypted. For more information, see Example 37, “Sending and Receiving
an Encrypted ZFS File System,” on page 169.
Note - Although ZFS encrypted filesystems can restrict access to data at rest, that protection
is lost when the filesystem is mounted. Users who can assume the root role or use the sudo
command can have unconstrained access to these files. To add a layer of security, use file
and process labeling to implement access control especially to sensitive files. See Chapter 3,
“Labeling Files for Data Loss Protection” in Securing Files and Verifying File Integrity in
Oracle Solaris 11.4.
Changing an Encrypted ZFS File System's Keys
You can change an encrypted file system's wrapping key by using the zfs key -c command.
The existing wrapping key must have been loaded first, either at boot time or by explicitly

loading the file system key (zfs key -l) or by mounting the file system (zfs mount filesystem).
For example:
$ zfs key -c tank/home/megr
Enter new passphrase for 'tank/home/megr': xxxxxxxx
In the following example, the wrapping key is changed and the keysource property value is
changed to specify that the wrapping key comes from a file.
$ zfs key -c -o keysource=raw,file:///media/stick/key tank/home/megr
The data encryption key for an encrypted file system can be changed by using the zfs key -K
command, but the new encryption key is only used for newly written data. This feature can be
used to provide compliance with NIST 800-57 guidelines on a data encryption key's time limit.
For example:
$ zfs key -K tank/home/megr
In the above example, the data encryption key is not visible nor is it directly managed by you.
In addition, you need the keychange delegation to perform a key change operation.
The following encryption algorithms are available:

■ aes-128-ccm, aes-192-ccm, aes-256-ccm
■ aes-128-gcm, aes-192-gcm, aes-256-gcm
The ZFS keysource property identifies the format and location of the key that wraps the file
system's data encryption keys. For example:
$ zfs get keysource tank/home/megr
tank/home/megr keysource passphrase,prompt local
The ZFS rekeydate property identifies the date of the last zfs key -K operation. For example:
$ zfs get rekeydate tank/home/megr
tank/home/megr rekeydate Wed Jul 25 16:54 2012 local
If an encrypted file system's creation and rekeydate properties have the same value, the file
system has never been rekeyed by an zfs key -K operation.
Managing ZFS Encryption Keys

ZFS encryption keys can be managed in different ways, depending on your needs, either on the
local system or remotely, if a centralized location is needed.
■ Locally – The above examples illustrate that the wrapping key can be either a passphrase
prompt or a raw key that is stored in a file on the local system.
■ Remotely – Key information can be stored remotely by using a centralized key
management system like Oracle Key Manager or by using a web service that supports
a simple GET request on an http or https URI. Oracle Key Manager key information is
accessible to an Oracle Solaris system by using a PKCS#11 token.
For information about managing ZFS encryption keys, see How to Manage ZFS Data
Encryption (https://www.oracle.com/technical-resources/articles/solaris/how-to-
manage-zfs-encryption.html)
For information about using Oracle Key Manager to manage key information, see:
https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E50985_03/index.html
Delegating ZFS Key Operation Permissions

Review the following permission descriptions for delegating key operations:
■ Loading or unloading a file system key by using the zfs key -l and zfs key -u commands
require the key permission. In most cases, you will need the mount permission as well.
■ Changing a file system key by using the zfs key -c and zfs key -K commands require the
keychange permission.
Consider delegating separate permissions for key use (load or unload) and key change, which
allows you to have a two-person key operation model. For example, determine which users can
use the keys verses which users can change them. Or, both users need to be present for a key
change. This model also allows you to build a key escrow system.
Mounting an Encrypted ZFS File System

Review the following considerations when attempting to mount an encrypted ZFS file system:
■ If an encrypted file system key is not available during boot time, the file system is not
mounted automatically. For example, a file system with an encryption policy set to
passphrase,prompt will not mount during boot time because the boot process is not
interrupted to prompt for a passphrase.
■ If you want to mount a file system with an encryption policy set to passphrase,prompt
at boot time, you will need to either explicitly mount it with the zfs mount command and
specify the passphrase or use the zfs key -l command to be prompted for the key after the
system is booted.

For example:
$ zfs mount -a
Enter passphrase for 'tank/home/megr': xxxxxxxx
Enter passphrase for 'tank/home/ws': xxxxxxxx
Enter passphrase for 'tank/home/mork': xxxxxxxx
■ If an encrypted file system's keysource property points to a file in another file system, the
mount order of the file systems can impact whether the encrypted file system is mounted at
boot, particularly if the file is on removable media.
Upgrading Encrypted ZFS File Systems

Before you upgrade an Oracle Solaris 11 system to Oracle Solaris 11.1, ensure that your
encrypted file systems are mounted. Mount the encrypted file systems and provide the
passphrases, if prompted.
$ zfs mount -a
Enter passphrase for 'pond/jaust': xxxxxxxx
Enter passphrase for 'pond/rori': xxxxxxxx
$ zfs mount | grep pond
pond /pond
pond/jaust /pond/jaust
pond/rori /pond/rori
Then, upgrade the encrypted file systems.
$ zfs upgrade -a
If you attempt to upgrade encrypted ZFS file systems that are unmounted, a message similar to
the following is displayed:
$ zfs upgrade -a
cannot set property for 'pond/jaust': key not present
In addition, the zpool status output might show corrupted data.
$ zpool status -v pond

.
.
.
pond/jaust:<0x1>
pond/rori:<0x1>
If the above errors occur, remount the encrypted file systems as directed above. Then, scrub and
clear the pool errors.
$ zpool scrub pond

$ zpool clear pond
For more information about upgrading file systems, see “Upgrading ZFS File
Interactions Between ZFS Compression,

Deduplication, and Encryption Properties
Review the following considerations when using the ZFS compression, deduplication, and
encryption properties:
■ When a file is written, the data is compressed, encrypted, and the checksum is verified.
Then, the data is deduplicated, if possible.
■ When a file is read, the checksum is verified and the data is decrypted. Then, the data is
decompressed, if required.
■ If the dedup property is enabled on an encrypted file system that is also cloned and the zfs
key -Kor zfs clone -K commands have not been used on the clones, data from all the clones
will be deduplicated, if possible.
Examples of Encrypting ZFS File Systems

EXAMPLE 34 Encrypting a ZFS File System by Using a Raw Key
In the following example, an aes-256-ccm encryption key is generated by using the pktool
command and is written to a file, /kaydo.file.
$ pktool genkey keystore=file outkey=/kaydokey.file keytype=aes keylen=256
Then, the /kaydokey.file is specified when the tank/home/kaydo file system is created.
$ zfs create -o encryption=aes-256-ccm -o keysource=raw,file:///kaydokey.file

tank/home/kaydo
EXAMPLE 35 Encrypting a ZFS File System With a Different Encryption Algorithm
You can create a ZFS storage pool and have all the file systems in the storage pool inherit an
encryption algorithm. In this example, the users pool is created and the users/home file system

is created and encrypted by using a passphrase. The default encryption algorithm is aes-128-
ccm.
Then, the users/home/mork file system is created and encrypted by using the aes-256-ccm
encryption algorithm.
$ zpool create -O encryption=on users mirror c0t1d0 c1t1d0 mirror c2t1d0 c3t1d0
Enter passphrase for 'users': xxxxxxxx
$ zfs create users/home
$ zfs get encryption users/home
users/home encryption on inherited from users
$ zfs create -o encryption=aes-256-ccm users/home/mork
$ zfs get encryption users/home/mork
users/home/mork encryption aes-256-ccm local
EXAMPLE 36 Cloning an Encrypted ZFS File System
If the clone file system inherits the keysource property from the same file system as its
origin snapshot, then a new keysource is not necessary, and you are not prompted for a new
passphrase if keysource=passphrase,prompt. The same keysource is used for the clone. For
example:
By default, you are not prompted for a key when cloning a descendent of an encrypted file
system.
$ zfs create -o encryption=on tank/ws

Enter passphrase for 'tank/ws': xxxxxxxx
$ zfs create tank/ws/fs1
$ zfs snapshot tank/ws/fs1@snap1
$ zfs clone tank/ws/fs1@snap1 tank/ws/fs1clone
If you want to create a new key for the clone file system, use the zfs clone -K command.
If you clone an encrypted file system rather than a descendent encrypted file system, you are
prompted to provide a new key. For example:
$ zfs create -o encryption=on tank/ws

Enter passphrase for 'tank/ws': xxxxxxxx
$ zfs snapshot tank/ws@1
$ zfs clone tank/ws@1 tank/ws1clone
Enter passphrase for 'tank/ws1clone': xxxxxxxx
Migrating ZFS File Systems
EXAMPLE 37 Sending and Receiving an Encrypted ZFS File System
In the following example, the tank/home/megr@snap1 snapshot is created from the encrypted
/tank/home/megr file system. Then, the snapshot is sent to bpool/snaps, with the encryption
property enabled so the resulting received data is encrypted. However, the tank/home/
megr@snap1 stream is not encrypted during the send process.
$ zfs get encryption tank/home/megr
tank/home/megr encryption on local
$ zfs snapshot tank/home/megr@snap1
$ zfs get encryption bpool/snaps
bpool/snaps encryption on inherited from bpool
$ zfs send tank/home/megr@snap1 | zfs receive bpool/snaps/megr
$ zfs get encryption bpool/snaps/megr
bpool/snaps/megr encryption on inherited from bpool
In this case, a new key is automatically generated for the received encrypted file system.
Migrating ZFS File Systems
To migrate a local or remote ZFS or UFS file system to a target ZFS file system, use shadow
migration. The target file system is also called the shadow file system.
Use the following commands to manage shadow migration:
■ The shadowadm command stops, resumes, or cancels shadow migration.
■ The shadowstat command with its options monitors migrations running on the system.
Use the shadowstat command without options to monitor the progress of migrations. The
displayed information is continuously updated until you type Ctrl-C.
The command's -E and -e options are particularly useful.
■ To list all currently running migrations and identify those that could not be completed
because of errors, use the -E option.
■ To list a specific migration and check if errors are causing the migration to fail, use the
-e option.
For an example that shows how these commands are used, see Example 38, “Starting and
Monitoring File System Migrations,” on page 171.

How to Migrate a File System to a ZFS File System
Caution - When migrating file systems, observe the following rules:
■ Do not add or remove data from the file system while it is being migrated. Otherwise, those
changes are excluded from migration.
■ Do not change the mountpoint property of the shadow file system while migration is in
progress.
1. If you are migrating data from a remote NFS server, confirm that the name
service information is accessible on both remote and local systems.
For a large migration using NFS, you might consider doing a test migration of a subset of the
data to ensure that the UID, GUID, and ACL information migrates correctly.
2. If necessary, install the shadow-migration package on the target system.
$ pkg install shadow-migration
3. Enable the shadowd service.
$ svcadm enable shadowd
4. Set the local or remote file system to be migrated to read-only.
■ If you are migrating a local ZFS file system, set it to read-only. For example:
$ zfs set readonly=on tank/home/data

■ If you are migrating a remote file system, share it as read-only. For example:
$ share -F nfs -o ro /export/home/ufsdata
5. Create the target file system while setting the shadow file to the file system to be
migrated.
Note - The new target ZFS file system must be completely empty. Otherwise, migration will not
start.
Specify the shadow setting depending on the type of system you are migrating.
■ If you are migrating a local file system, specify the source path.
For example:
$ zfs create -o shadow=file:///west/home/data users/home/shadow
■ If you are migrating a NFS file system. specify the source host name and path.
For example:
$ zfs create -o shadow=nfs://neo/export/home/ufsdata users/home/shadow2
6. (Optional) To check the progress of the migration, issue the shadowstat

command.
For examples of how to monitor migrations, see Example 38, “Starting and Monitoring File
System Migrations,” on page 171.
Note - Migrating file system data over NFS can be slow, depending on your network
bandwidth. If the system is rebooted during migration, the migration continues after the system
boot completes.
Example 38 Starting and Monitoring File System Migrations
In this example, multiple migrations are initiated. The shadowadm command lists ongoing
migrations while the shadowstat command monitors their progress.
$ zfs create -o shadow=nfs://system2/rpool/data/jsmith/archive rpool/data/copyarchive
$ shadowadm list
PATH STATE
/rpool/data/copyarchive ACTIVE
$ zfs create -o shadow=nfs://system2/rpool/data/jsmith/datalogs rpool/data/logcopy

$ shadowadm list
PATH STATE
/rpool/data/copyarchive ACTIVE
/rpool/data/logcopy ACTIVE
$ shadowstat
EST
BYTES BYTES ELAPSED
DATASET XFRD LEFT ERRORS TIME
rpool/data/copyarchive 34.4M 3.37G - 00:00:36
rpool/data/logcopy 1.12K 155K 1 (completed) Errors are detected.
rpool/data/logcopy 1.12K 155K 1 (completed)

Upgrading ZFS File Systems
^C
The previous shadowstat output indicates errors in the migration to rpool/data/logcopy.
The following output from the shadowstat -E and -e command options shows that migration to
rpool/data/logcopy could not be completed because socket migration is not supported. The
shadowadm command cancels the migration.
$ shadowstat -E
rpool/data/copyarchive:
No errors encountered.
rpool/data/logcopy:
PATH ERROR
errdir/cups-socket Operation not supported
$ shadowstat -e /rpool/data/logcopy
rpool/data/logcopy:
PATH ERROR
errdir/cups-socket Operation not supported
$ shadowadm cancel /rpool/data/logcopy
The following output shows information about the migration to rpool/data/copyarchive,

which continues toward completion.
$ shadowadm list
PATH STATE
/rpool/data/copyarchive ACTIVE$ shadowstat
EST
BYTES BYTES ELAPSED
DATASET XFRD LEFT ERRORS TIME
rpool/data/copyarchive 251M 3.16G - 00:01:27
^C
$ shadowstat
No migrations in progress.
$ shadowadm list
$ exit
If you have ZFS file systems from a previous Oracle Solaris release, you can upgrade your file
systems with the zfs upgrade command to take advantage of the file system features in the
current release. In addition, this command notifies you when your file systems are running older
versions.
For example, this file system is at the current version 5.
$ zfs upgrade
This system is currently running ZFS filesystem version 5.
All filesystems are formatted with the current version.
Use this command to identify the features that are available with each file system version.
$ zfs upgrade -v
The following filesystem versions are supported:
VER DESCRIPTION
--- --------------------------------------------------------
1 Initial ZFS filesystem version
2 Enhanced directory entries
3 Case insensitive and File system unique identifier (FUID)
4 userquota, groupquota properties
5 System attributes
6 Multilevel file system support
For more information about a particular version, including supported releases,

see the ZFS Administration Guide.
For information about upgrading encrypted file systems, see “Upgrading Encrypted ZFS File

♦ ♦ ♦
8
C H A P T E R 8
Working With Oracle Solaris ZFS Snapshots

and Clones
This chapter describes how to create and manage Oracle Solaris ZFS snapshots and clones. It
also provides information about saving snapshots.
The chapter covers the following topics:
■ “Overview of ZFS Snapshots”.

■ “Creating and Destroying ZFS Snapshots”.
■ “Displaying and Accessing ZFS Snapshots”.
■ “Rolling Back a ZFS Snapshot”.
■ “Overview of ZFS Clones”.
■ “Creating a ZFS Clone”.
■ “Destroying a ZFS Clone”.
■ “Replacing a ZFS File System With a ZFS Clone”.
■ “Saving, Sending, and Receiving ZFS Data”.
■ “Monitoring ZFS Pool Operations” on page 200
Overview of ZFS Snapshots
A snapshot is a read-only copy of a file system or volume. Snapshots can be created almost
instantly, and they initially consume no additional disk space within the pool. However, as data
within the active dataset changes, the snapshot consumes disk space by continuing to reference
the old data, thus preventing the disk space from being freed.
A clone is a writable volume or file system whose initial contents are the same as the dataset
from which it was created. Clones can be created only from a snapshot.
ZFS snapshots include the following features:
Chapter 8 • Working With Oracle Solaris ZFS Snapshots and Clones 175
■ They persist across system reboots.

■ The theoretical maximum number of snapshots is 264.
■ Snapshots use no separate backing store. Snapshots consume disk space directly from the
same storage pool as the file system or volume from which they were created.
■ Recursive snapshots are created quickly as one atomic operation. The snapshots are created
together (all at once) or not created at all. The benefit of atomic snapshot operations is
that the snapshot data is always taken at one consistent time, even across descendant file
systems.
Snapshots of volumes cannot be accessed directly, but they can be cloned, backed up, rolled
back to, and so on. For information about backing up a ZFS snapshot, see “Saving, Sending,
and Receiving ZFS Data” on page 186.
This section covers the following topics:
■ “Creating and Destroying ZFS Snapshots” on page 176

■ “Displaying and Accessing ZFS Snapshots” on page 180
■ “Rolling Back a ZFS Snapshot” on page 181
Note - Certain snapshot operations can be set by using the Desktop's Time Slider. See
Appendix A, “Using Time Slider”.
Creating and Destroying ZFS Snapshots

You create snapshots by using the zfs snapshot or the zfs snap command, which takes as its
only argument the name of the snapshot to create. The snapshot name uses one of the following
conventions:
■ filesystem@snapname
■ volume@snapname
The snapshot name must satisfy the naming requirements in “Naming ZFS
Components” on page 24.
The following example creates a snapshot of system1/home/kaydo that is named friday.
$ zfs snapshot system1/home/kaydo@friday
To create snapshots for all descendant file systems, use the -r option. For example:
$ zfs snapshot -r system1/home@snap1
$ zfs list -t snapshot -r system1/home

system1/home@snap1 0 - 2.11G -
system1/home/kaydo@snap1 0 - 115M -
system1/home/glori@snap1 0 - 2.00G -
system1/home/hsolo@snap1 0 - 2.00G -
system1/home/cpark@snap1 0 - 57.3M -
Snapshots have no modifiable properties, nor can dataset properties be applied to a snapshot.
For example:
$ zfs set compression=on system1/home/kaydo@friday

cannot set property for 'system1/home/kaydo@friday':
this property can not be modified for snapshots
To destroy snapshots, use the zfs destroy command. For example:
$ zfs destroy system1/home/kaydo@friday
You cannot destroy a dataset if snapshots of the dataset exist. For example:
$ zfs destroy system1/home/kaydo

cannot destroy 'system1/home/kaydo': filesystem has children
use '-r' to destroy the following datasets:
system1/home/kaydo@tuesday
system1/home/kaydo@wednesday
system1/home/kaydo@thursday
In addition, if clones have been created from a snapshot, then you must destroy them before you
can destroy the snapshot.
For more information about the destroy subcommand, see “How to Destroy a ZFS File
System” on page 107.
Holding ZFS Snapshots
Older snapshots are sometimes inadvertently destroyed due to different automatic snapshot
or data retention policies. If a removed snapshot is part of an ongoing ZFS send and receive
operation, then the operation might fail. To avoid this scenario, consider placing a hold on a
snapshot.
Holding a snapshot prevents it from being destroyed. In addition, this feature allows a snapshot
with clones to be deleted pending the removal of the last clone by using the zfs destroy -d
command. Each snapshot has an associated user-reference count, which is initialized to zero.
This count increases by 1 whenever a hold is put on a snapshot and decreases by 1 whenever a
hold is released.
In the previous Oracle Solaris release, you could destroy a snapshot only by using the zfs
destroy command if it had no clones. In this Oracle Solaris release, the snapshot must also
have a zero user-reference count.
You can hold a snapshot or set of snapshots. For example, the following syntax puts a hold tag,
keep, on system1/home/kaydo/snap@1:
$ zfs hold keep system1/home/kaydo@snap1
To recursively hold the snapshots of all descendant file systems, use the -r option. For example:
$ zfs snapshot -r system1/home@now

$ zfs hold -r keep system1/home@now
This syntax adds a single reference, keep, to the given snapshot or set of snapshots. Each
snapshot has its own tag namespace and hold tags must be unique within that space. If a hold
exists on a snapshot, attempts to destroy that held snapshot by using the zfs destroy command
will fail. For example:
$ zfs destroy system1/home/kaydo@snap1

cannot destroy 'system1/home/kaydo@snap1': dataset is busy
To destroy a held snapshot, use the -d option. For example:
$ zfs destroy -d system1/home/kaydo@snap1
To display a list of held snapshots, use the zfs holds command. For example:
$ zfs holds system1/home@now

NAME TAG TIMESTAMP
system1/home@now keep Fri Aug 3 15:15:53 2012
$ zfs holds -r system1/home@now

NAME TAG TIMESTAMP
system1/home/kaydo@now keep Fri Aug 3 15:15:53 2012
system1/home/glori@now keep Fri Aug 3 15:15:53 2012
system1/home/hsolo@now keep Fri Aug 3 15:15:53 2012
system1/home/cpark@now keep Fri Aug 3 15:15:53 2012
system1/home@now keep Fri Aug 3 15:15:53 2012
To release a hold on a snapshot or set of snapshots, use the zfs release command. For
example:
$ zfs release -r keep system1/home@now
If the snapshot is released, the snapshot can be destroyed by using the zfs destroy command.
For example:
$ zfs destroy -r system1/home@now
Two properties identify snapshot hold information.
■ The destroyer property is set to on if the snapshot has been marked for deferred destruction
by using the zfs destroy -d command. Otherwise, the property is set to off.
■ The userrefs property is set to the number of holds on this snapshot.
Renaming ZFS Snapshots
You can rename snapshots, but only within the same pool and dataset from which they were
created. For example:
$ zfs rename system1/home/kaydo@snap1 system1/home/kaydo@today
You can also use the following shortcut syntax:
$ zfs rename system1/home/kaydo@snap1 today
The following snapshot rename operation is not supported because the target pool and file
system name are different from the pool and file system where the snapshot was created:
$ zfs rename system1/home/kaydo@today pool/home/kaydo@saturday

cannot rename to 'pool/home/kaydo@today': snapshots must be part of same
dataset
You can recursively rename snapshots by using the zfs rename -r command. For example:
$ zfs list -t snapshot -r users/home

users/home@now 23.5K - 35.5K -
users/home@yesterday 0 - 38K -
users/home/glori@yesterday 0 - 2.00G -
users/home/hsolo@yesterday 0 - 1.00G -
users/home/nneke@yesterday 0 - 2.00G -
$ zfs rename -r users/home@yesterday @2daysago
$ zfs list -t snapshot -r users/home
users/home@now 23.5K - 35.5K -
users/home@2daysago 0 - 38K -
users/home/glori@2daysago 0 - 2.00G -
users/home/hsolo@2daysago 0 - 1.00G -
users/home/nneke@2daysago 0 - 2.00G -
Displaying and Accessing ZFS Snapshots
By default, snapshots no longer appear in the zfs list output. You must use the zfs list -t
snapshot command to display snapshot information. You can also enable the listsnapshots
pool property instead. For example:
$ zpool get listsnapshots system1

system1 listsnapshots off default
$ zpool set listsnapshots=on system1
$ zpool get listsnapshots system1
system1 listsnapshots on local
Snapshots of file systems are placed in the .zfs/snapshot directory within the root of the file
system. For example, if system1/home/kaydo is mounted on /home/kaydo, then the system1/
home/kaydo@thursday snapshot data is accessible in the /home/kaydo/.zfs/snapshot/
thursday directory.
$ ls /system1/home/kaydo/.zfs/snapshot
thursday tuesday wednesday
The following examples shows how to list snapshots.
$ zfs list -t snapshot -r system1/home

system1/home/kaydo@tuesday 45K - 2.11G -
system1/home/kaydo@wednesday 45K - 2.11G -
system1/home/kaydo@thursday 0 - 2.17G -
The following example shows how to list snapshots that were created for a particular file
system.
$ zfs list -r -t snapshot -o name,creation system1/home

NAME CREATION
system1/home/kaydo@tuesday Fri Aug 3 15:18 2012
system1/home/kaydo@wednesday Fri Aug 3 15:19 2012
system1/home/kaydo@thursday Fri Aug 3 15:19 2012
system1/home/glori@today Fri Aug 3 15:24 2012
system1/home/hsolo@today Fri Aug 3 15:24 2012
Disk Space Accounting for ZFS Snapshots
When you create a snapshot, its disk space is initially shared between the snapshot and the file
system, and possibly with previous snapshots. As the file system changes, disk space that was
previously shared becomes unique to the snapshot, and thus is counted in the snapshot's used
property. Additionally, deleting snapshots can increase the amount of disk space unique to (and
thus used by) other snapshots.
A snapshot's space referenced property value is the same as the file system's value was when
the snapshot was created.
You can identify additional information about how the values of the used property are
consumed. New read-only file system properties describe disk space usage for clones, file
systems, and volumes. For example:
$ zfs list -o space -r rpool

NAME AVAIL USED USEDSNAP USEDDS USEDREFRESERV USEDCHILD
rpool 124G 9.57G 0 302K 0 9.57G
rpool/ROOT 124G 3.38G 0 31K 0 3.38G
rpool/ROOT/solaris 124G 20.5K 0 0 0 20.5K
rpool/ROOT/solaris/var 124G 20.5K 0 20.5K 0 0
rpool/ROOT/solaris-1 124G 3.38G 66.3M 3.14G 0 184M
rpool/ROOT/solaris-1/var 124G 184M 49.9M 134M 0 0
rpool/VARSHARE 124G 39.5K 0 39.5K 0 0
rpool/dump 124G 4.12G 0 4.00G 129M 0
rpool/export 124G 63K 0 32K 0 31K
rpool/export/home 124G 31K 0 31K 0 0
rpool/swap 124G 2.06G 0 2.00G 64.7M 0
For a description of these properties, see the used properties in the zfs(8) man page.
Rolling Back a ZFS Snapshot
You can to discard all changes made to a file system since a specific snapshot was created by
using the zfs rollback command. The file system reverts to its state at the time the snapshot
was taken. By default, the command cannot roll back to a snapshot other than the most recent
snapshot.
To roll back to an earlier snapshot, you must destroy all intermediate snapshots by specifying
the -r option.
If clones of any intermediate snapshots exist, use the -R option to destroy the clones as well.
Note - The file system that you want to roll back must be unmounted and remounted, if it is
currently mounted. If the file system cannot be unmounted, the rollback fails. Use the -f option
to force the file system to be unmounted, if necessary.
In the following example, the system1/home/kaydo file system is rolled back to the tuesday
snapshot.
$ zfs rollback system1/home/kaydo@tuesday

cannot rollback to 'system1/home/kaydo@tuesday': more recent snapshots exist
use '-r' to force deletion of the following snapshots:
system1/home/kaydo@wednesday
system1/home/kaydo@thursday
$ zfs rollback -r system1/home/kaydo@tuesday
In the following example, the wednesday and thursday snapshots are destroyed because the file
system is rolled back to the earlier tuesday snapshot.
$ zfs list -r -t snapshot -o name,creation system1/home/kaydo

NAME CREATION
system1/home/kaydo@tuesday Fri Aug 3 15:18 2012
Identifying ZFS Snapshot Differences (zfs diff)

You can determine ZFS snapshot differences by using the zfs diff command.
For example, assume that the following two snapshots are created:
$ ls /system1/home/kaydo
fileA
$ zfs snapshot system1/home/cpark@snap1
$ ls /system1/home/kaydo
fileA fileB
$ zfs snapshot system1/home/cpark@snap2
To identify the differences between the two snapshots, you would use syntax similar to the
following example:
$ zfs diff system1/home/cpark@snap1 system1/home/cpark@snap2

M /system1/home/kaydo/
+ /system1/home/kaydo/fileB
In the output, the M indicates that the directory has been modified. The + indicates that fileB
exists in the later snapshot.
The R in the following output indicates that a file in a snapshot has been renamed.
$ mv /system1/kaydo/fileB /system1/kaydo/fileC
$ zfs snapshot system1/kaydo@snap2
$ zfs diff system1/kaydo@snap1 system1/kaydo@snap2
M /system1/kaydo/
R /system1/kaydo/fileB -> /system1/kaydo/fileC
The following table summarizes the file or directory changes that are identified by the zfs diff
command.
File or Directory Change Identifier

File or directory has been modified or file or directory link has changed M
File or directory is present in the older snapshot but not in the more recent snapshot --
File or directory is present in the more recent snapshot but not in the older snapshot +
File or directory has been renamed R
For more information, see the zfs(8) man page.
If you compare different snapshots by using thezfs diff command, the high level differences
are displayed such as a new file system or directory. For example, the sales file system has 2
descendant file systems, data and logs with files within each descendant file system.
$ zfs list -r sales
sales 1.75M 66.9G 33K /sales
sales/data 806K 66.9G 806K /sales/data
sales/logs 806K 66.9G 806K /sales/logs
The high-level differences can be displayed between sales@snap1 and sales@snap2, where the
primary difference is addition of the sales/logs file system.
$ zfs diff sales@snap1 sales@snap2
M /sales/
+ /sales/logs
You can recursively identify snapshot differences including file names by using syntax similar
to the following:
$ zfs diff -r -E sales@snap1
D /sales/ (sales)
+ /sales/data
D /sales/data/ (sales/data)
+ /sales/data/dfile.1
$ zfs diff -r -E sales@snap2
Overview of ZFS Clones
D /sales/ (sales)
+ /sales/data
+ /sales/logs
D /sales/logs/ (sales/logs)
+ /sales/logs/lfile.1
D /sales/data/ (sales/data)
In the output, the lines that begin with D and end with (name) indicate a file system (dataset) and
mount point.
A clone is a writable volume or file system whose initial contents are the same as the dataset
from which it was created. As with snapshots, creating a clone is nearly instantaneous and
initially consumes no additional disk space. In addition, you can snapshot a clone.
Clones do not inherit the properties of the dataset from which they were created. Use the zfs
get and zfs set commands to view and change the properties of a cloned dataset. For more
information, see “Setting ZFS Properties” on page 128.
Because a clone initially shares all its disk space with the original snapshot, its used property
value is initially zero. As changes are made to the clone, it uses more disk space. The used
property of the original snapshot does not include the disk space consumed by the clone.
■ “Creating a ZFS Clone” on page 184.
■ “Destroying a ZFS Clone” on page 185.
■ “Replacing a ZFS File System With a ZFS Clone” on page 185.
Creating a ZFS Clone
To create a clone, use the zfs clone command, specifying the snapshot or dataset from which
to create the clone and the name of the new file system or volume, which can be located
anywhere in the ZFS hierarchy. The new dataset is the same type (for example, file system or
volume) as the snapshot from which the clone was created. You cannot create a clone of a file
system in a pool that is different from where the original file system snapshot resides.
The following example creates a new clone named system1/home/megra/bug123 with the same
initial contents as the snapshot system1/ws/gate@yesterday.
$ zfs snapshot system1/ws/gate@yesterday

$ zfs clone system1/ws/gate@yesterday system1/home/megra/bug123
The following example creates a cloned workspace from the projects/newproject@today

snapshot for a temporary user as projects/teamA/tempuser. Properties then are set on the
cloned workspace.
$ zfs snapshot projects/newproject@today

$ zfs clone projects/newproject@today projects/teamA/tempuser
$ zfs set share.nfs=on projects/teamA/tempuser
$ zfs set quota=5G projects/teamA/tempuser
Destroying a ZFS Clone
You destroy ZFS clones by using the zfs destroy command. For example:
$ zfs destroy system1/home/megra/bug123
Replacing a ZFS File System With a ZFS Clone
To replace an active ZFS file system with a clone of that file system, use the zfs promote
command. This feature enables you to clone and replace file systems so that the original file
system becomes the clone of the specified file system. In addition, you can destroy the file
system from which the clone was originally created. Without clone promotion, you cannot
destroy an original file system of active clones. For more information, see “Destroying a ZFS
Clone” on page 185.
In the following example, the system1/test/productA file system is cloned and then the clone
file system, system1/test/productAbeta, becomes the original system1/test/productA file
system.
$ zfs create system1/test

$ zfs create system1/test/productA
$ zfs snapshot system1/test/productA@today
$ zfs clone system1/test/productA@today system1/test/productAbeta
Saving, Sending, and Receiving ZFS Data
$ zfs list -r system1/test

system1/test 104M 66.2G 23K /system1/test
system1/test/productA 104M 66.2G 104M /system1/test/productA
system1/test/productA@today 0 - 104M -
system1/test/productAbeta 0 66.2G 104M /system1/test/productAbeta
$ zfs promote system1/test/productAbeta
system1/test 104M 66.2G 24K /system1/test
system1/test/productA 0 66.2G 104M /system1/test/productA
system1/test/productAbeta 104M 66.2G 104M /system1/test/productAbeta
system1/test/productAbeta@today 0 - 104M -
In this zfs list output, note that the disk space accounting information for the original
productA file system has been replaced with the productAbeta file system.
You can complete the clone replacement process by renaming the file systems. For example:
$ zfs rename system1/test/productA system1/test/productAlegacy
$ zfs rename system1/test/productAbeta system1/test/productA
Optionally, you can remove the legacy file system. For example:
$ zfs destroy system1/test/productAlegacy
The zfs send command creates a stream representation of a snapshot that is written to standard
output. By default, a full stream is generated. You can redirect the output to a file or to a
different system. The zfs receive command creates a snapshot whose contents are specified
in the stream that is provided on standard input. If a full stream is received, a new file system
is created as well. You can also send ZFS snapshot data and receive ZFS snapshot data and file
systems.
In this Oracle Solaris release, the zfs send command has been enhanced with -w compress
option. This option enables a system to perform a raw data transfer. In this type of transfer, data
blocks that are compressed are read as is on the source disk and written as is on the target. No
decompression-recompression occurs during the operation.
. This system can still receive data transfers from a source that does not have the zfs send
-w compress option, such as systems running previous Oracle Solaris releases. In this case,
the default behavior applies, where the compressed data blocks are first decompressed before
they are transferred to the target system. After the transfer is complete, the blocks are then
recompressed on the receiving system. For more information, see Example 40, “Sending ZFS
Data Using Raw Transfer,” on page 192.
In addition, this release includes the ability to resume transferring ZFS data. In particular, the
transfer of large amounts of ZFS data can be interrupted due to network outages or system
failure. To prevent having to resend the whole thing again, the zfs send and zfs receive
commands can be run with the -C option to resume sending the ZFS data. For more information,
see “Using Resumable Replication” on page 193.
■ “Saving ZFS Data With Other Backup Products” on page 188.
■ “Types of ZFS Snapshot Streams” on page 188.
■ “Sending a ZFS Snapshot” on page 191.
■ “Receiving a ZFS Snapshot” on page 193.
■ “Applying Different Property Values to a ZFS Snapshot Stream” on page 194.
■ “Sending and Receiving Complex ZFS Snapshot Streams” on page 197.
■ “Remote Replication of ZFS Data” on page 199.
Note the following backup solutions for saving ZFS data:
■ Enterprise backup products – These products provide the following features:
■ Per-file restoration
■ Backup media verification
■ Media management
■ File system snapshots and rolling back snapshots – Create a copy of a file system and
revert to a previous file system version, if necessary.
For more information about creating and rolling back to a snapshot, see “Overview of ZFS
Snapshots” on page 175.
■ Saving snapshots – Using the zfs send and zfs receive commands, you can save
incremental changes between snapshots but you cannot restore files individually. You must
restore the entire file system snapshot..
■ Remote replication – Copy a file system from one system to another system. This process
is different from a traditional volume management product that might mirror devices across
a WAN. No special configuration or hardware is required. Using the zfs send and zfs
receive commands to replicate a ZFS file system enables you to re-create a file system on
a storage pool on another system, and specify different levels of configuration for the newly
created pool, such as RAID-Z, but with identical file system data.
■ Archive utilities – Save ZFS data with archive utilities such as tar, cpio, and pax or third-
party backup products. Currently, both tar and cpio translate NFSv4-style ACLs correctly,
but pax does not.
Saving ZFS Data With Other Backup Products

In addition to the zfs send and zfs receive commands, you can also use archive utilities
such as the tar and cpio commands, to save ZFS files. These utilities save and restore ZFS file
attributes and ACLs. Check the appropriate options for both the tar and cpio commands.
Types of ZFS Snapshot Streams
The zfs send command can be used to create a stream of one or more snapshots. Then, you
can use the snapshot stream to re-create a ZFS file system or volume by using the zfs receive
command.
The zfs send options used to create the snapshot stream determine the stream format type that
is generated.
■ Full stream – Consists of all dataset content from the time that the dataset was created up to
the specified snapshot.
The default stream generated by the zfs send command is a full stream. It contains one file
system or volume, up to and including the specified snapshot. The stream does not contain
snapshots other than the snapshot specified in the command.
■ Incremental stream – Consists of the differences between one snapshot and another
snapshot.
A stream package is a stream type that contains one or more full or incremental streams. The
types of stream packages are:
■ Replication stream package – Consists of the specified dataset and its descendants. It
includes all intermediate snapshots. If the origin of a cloned dataset is not a descendant of
the snapshot specified on the command line, that origin dataset is not included in the stream
package. To receive the stream, the origin dataset must exist in the destination storage pool.
Note - A self-contained replication stream does not have external dependencies. See the
section on self-contained replication streams below.
Assume that the following list of datasets and their origins were created in the order in
which they appear.
NAME ORIGIN
pool/a -
pool/a/1 -
pool/a/1@clone -
pool/b -
pool/b/1 pool/a/1@clone
pool/b/1@clone2 -
pool/b/2 pool/b/1@clone2
pool/b@pre-send -
pool/b/1@pre-send -
pool/b/2@pre-send -
pool/b@send -
pool/b/1@send -
pool/b/2@send -
Suppose you have a replication stream package created with the following syntax:
$ zfs send -R pool/b@send ....
This package would consist of the following full and incremental streams:
TYPE SNAPSHOT INCREMENTAL FROM

full pool/b@pre-send -
incr pool/b@send pool/b@pre-send
incr pool/b/1@clone2 pool/a/1@clone
incr pool/b/1@pre-send pool/b/1@clone2
incr pool/b/1@send pool/b/1@send
incr pool/b/2@send pool/b/2@pre-send
In the output, the pool/a/1@clone snapshot is not included in the replication stream
package. Therefore, this replication stream package can only be received in a pool that
already has pool/a/1@clone snapshot.
■ Self-contained replication stream package - This type of package is not dependent on any
datasets that are not included in the stream package. You create a replication stream package
with syntax similar to the following example:
$ zfs send -Rc pool/b@send ...
This example package would consist of the following full and incremental streams:

full pool/b@pre-send -
full pool/b/1@clone2 -
incr pool/b@send pool/b@pre-send
incr pool/b/1@send pool/b/1@send

incr pool/b/2@send pool/b/2@pre-send
Comparing with the non-self-contained replication stream, notice that this self-contained
replication stream has an integrated full stream of the pool/b/1@clone2 snapshot. This
snapshot is an integrated dataset that has clone origin bits merged into it as data; clone2 is
no longer a full clone with a separate origin. This makes it possible to receive the pool/b/1
snapshot with no external dependencies.
■ Recursive stream package – Consists of the specified dataset and its descendants. Unlike
replication stream packages, intermediate snapshots are not included unless they are the
origin of a cloned dataset that is included in the stream. By default, if the origin of a dataset
is not a descendant of the snapshot specified in the command, the behavior is similar to
replication streams. Note that a self-contained recursive stream does not have external
dependencies.
Note - A self-contained recursive stream does not have external dependencies. See the
section on self-contained recursive streams below.
You create a recursive stream package with syntax similar to the following example:
$ zfs send -r pool/b@send ...

full pool/b@send -
incr pool/b/1@clone2 pool/a/1@clone
incr pool/b/1@send pool/b/1@clone2
In the output, the pool/a/1@clone snapshot is not included in the recursive stream package.
Therefore, similar to the replication stream package,this recursive stream package can only
be received in a pool that already has pool/a/1@clone snapshot. This behavior is similar to
the replication stream package scenario described above.
■ Self-contained recursive stream package - This type of package is not dependent on any
datasets that are not included in the stream package. You create a recursive stream package
with syntax similar to the following example:
$ zfs send -rc pool/b@send ...

full pool/b@send -
full pool/b/1@clone2 -
Sending a ZFS Snapshot
You can use the zfs send command to send a copy of a snapshot stream and receive the
snapshot stream in another pool on the same system or in another pool on a different system
that is used to store backup data. For example, to send the snapshot stream on a different pool to
the same system, use a command similar to the following example:
$ zfs send pool/diant@snap1 | zfs recv spool/ds01
Tip - You can use zfs recv as an alias for the zfs receive command.
If you are sending the snapshot stream to a different system, pipe the zfs send output through
the ssh command. For example:
sys1$ zfs send pool/diant@snap1 | ssh sys2 zfs recv pool/hsolo
When you send a full stream, the destination file system must not exist.
If you need to store many copies, consider compressing a ZFS snapshot stream representation
with the gzip command. For example:
$ zfs send pool/fs@snap | gzip > backupfile.gz
EXAMPLE 39 Sending Incremental ZFS Data
You can send incremental data by using the zfs send -i option. For example:
sys1$ zfs send -i pool/diant@snap1 system1/diant@snap2 | ssh system2 zfs recv pool/hsolo
The first argument (snap1) is the earlier snapshot and the second argument (snap2) is the later
snapshot. In this case, the pool/hsolo file system must already exist for the incremental receive
to be successful.
You can specify the incremental snap1 source as the last component of the snapshot name. You
would then have to specify only the name after the @ sign for snap1, which is assumed to be
from the same file system as snap2. For example:
sys1$ zfs send -i snap1 pool/diant@snap2 | ssh system2 zfs recv pool/hsolo
This shortcut syntax is equivalent to the incremental syntax.
The following message is displayed if you attempt to generate an incremental stream from a
different file system snapshot1:
cannot send 'pool/fs@name': not an earlier snapshot from the same fs
Accessing file information in the original received file system can cause the incremental
snapshot receive operation to fail with a message similar to this one:
cannot receive incremental stream of pool/diant@snap2 into pool/hsolo:
most recent snapshot of pool/diant@snap2 does not match incremental source
Consider setting the atime property to off if you need to access file information in the original
received file system and if you also need to receive incremental snapshots into the received file
system.
If you need to store many copies, consider compressing a ZFS snapshot stream representation
with the gzip command. For example:
$ zfs send pool/fs@snap | gzip > backupfile.gz
EXAMPLE 40 Sending ZFS Data Using Raw Transfer
To send the stream in raw mode, use the -w compress option.
The following example shows that the raw transfer stream for a given snapshot is smaller, even
though the file system created after receiving the stream is the same as the original. First, create
a file system called pool/compressed-fs which you fill with data.
$ zfs create -o compression=gzip-6 pool/compressed-fs
$ cp /usr/dict/words /pool/compressed-fs/
Next, create a snapshot and check the compression ratio. For comparison purposes, create two
streams to see the difference in sizes between a regular transfer and a raw transfer, Note that the
rawstream file is smaller.
$ zfs snapshot pool/compressed-fs@snap
$ zfs get compressratio pool/compressed-fs@snap
pool/compressed-fs@snap compressratio 2.80x -
$ zfs send pool/compressed-fs@snap > /tmp/stream
$ zfs send -w compress pool/compressed-fs@snap > /tmp/rawstream
$ ls -lh /tmp/*stream
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 100K Dec 23 18:23 /tmp/rawstream
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 304K Dec 23 18:23 /tmp/stream
Next, receive the raw transfer stream on its new location. Then to verify that the content is
identical, compare the new file system to the original.
$ zfs receive pool/rawrecv </tmp/rawstream
$ diff -r /pool/compressed-fs/ /pool/rawrecv/
#
EXAMPLE 41 Sending ZFS Data From a Oracle Solaris 11.4.0 Dataset
The ability to use per record checksums in the output data stream is enabled by default. To
transfer data to older systems, you must disable this feature using the nocheck argument.
$ zfs send -s nocheck pool/diant@snap1 | zfs recv pool/ds01
Using Resumable Replication

If the transfer of data using zfs receive is interrupted, you can restart the process. For
instance, if you started the transfer with this command.
system1$ zfs send pool/diant@snap1 | ssh system2 zfs recv pool/hsolo
If the transfer is interrupted, you will have an incomplete dataset. You can resume the transfer
using this series of commands:
system1$ ssh system2 zfs receive -C pool/hsolo | zfs send -C pool/diant@snap1 | \
ssh system2 zfs receive pool/hsolo
To see which datasets are incomplete use the zfs list -I command, see “Listing Incomplete
ZFS Datasets” on page 127.
Receiving a ZFS Snapshot
Keep the following key points in mind when you receive a file system snapshot:
■ Both the snapshot and the file system are received.
■ The file system and all descendant file systems are unmounted.
■ The file systems are inaccessible while they are being received.
■ A file system with the same name as the source file system to be received must not exist on
the target system. If the file system name exists on the target system, rename the file system.
For example:
$ zfs send system1/gozer@0830 > /bkups/gozer.083006

$ zfs receive system1/gozer2@today < /bkups/gozer.083006
$ zfs rename system1/gozer system1/gozer.old
$ zfs rename system1/gozer2 system1/gozer
If you make a change to the destination file system and you want to perform another
incremental send of a snapshot, you must first roll back the receiving file system.
Consider the following example. First, make a change to the file system as follows:
sys2$ rm newsys/hsolo/file.1
Then, perform an incremental send of system1/diant@snap3. Note that either you must first
roll back the receiving file system to receive the new incremental snapshot or eliminate the
rollback step by using the -F option. For example:
sys1$ zfs send -i system1/diant@snap2 system1/diant@snap3 | ssh sys2 zfs recv -F newsys/
hsolo
When you receive an incremental snapshot, the destination file system must already exist.
If you make changes to the file system and you do not roll back the receiving file system
to receive the new incremental snapshot or you use the -F option, a message similar to the
following example is displayed:
sys1$ zfs send -i system1/diant@snap4 system1/diant@snap5 | ssh sys2 zfs recv newsys/
hsolo
cannot receive: destination has been modified since most recent snapshot
The following checks are performed before the -F option is successful:

■ If the most recent snapshot does not match the incremental source, neither the rollback nor
the receive is completed, and an error message is returned.
■ If you accidentally provide the name of different file system that does not match the
incremental source specified in the zfs receive command, neither the rollback nor the
receive is completed, and the following error message is returned:
cannot send 'pool/fs@name': not an earlier snapshot from the same fs
Applying Different Property Values to a ZFS

Snapshot Stream
You can send a ZFS snapshot stream with a certain file system property value, and then either
specify a different local property value when the snapshot stream is received or specify that the
original property value be used when the snapshot stream is received to re-create the original
file system. In addition, you can disable a file system property when the snapshot stream is
received.
■ To revert a local property value to the received value, if any, use the zfs inherit -S
command. If a property does not have a received value, the behavior of the -S option is the
same as if you did not include the option. If the property does have a received value, the
zfs inherit command masks the received value with the inherited value until issuing a zfs
inherit -S command reverts it to the received value.
■ You can determine the columns displayed by the zfs get. Use the -o option to include the
new non-default RECEIVED column. Use the -o all option to include all columns, including
RECEIVED.
■ To include properties in the send stream without the -R option, use the -p option.
■ To use the last element of the sent snapshot name to determine the new snapshot name, use
the -e option.
The following example sends the poolA/bee/cee@1 snapshot to the poolD/eee file system
and uses only the last element (cee@1) of the snapshot name to create the received file
system and snapshot.
$ zfs list -rt all poolA

poolA 134K 134G 23K /poolA
poolA/bee 44K 134G 23K /poolA/bee
poolA/bee/cee 21K 134G 21K /poolA/bee/cee
poolA/bee/cee@1 0 - 21K -
$ zfs send -R poolA/bee/cee@1 | zfs receive -e poolD/eee
$ zfs list -rt all poolD
poolD 134K 134G 23K /poolD
poolD/eee 44K 134G 23K /poolD/eee
poolD/eee/cee 21K 134G 21K /poolD/eee/cee
poolD/eee/cee@1 0 - 21K -
Retaining Original Property Values

In some cases, file system properties in a send stream might not apply to the receiving file
system or local file system properties, such as the mountpoint property value, might interfere
with a restore.
For example, suppose that the system1/data file system has the compression property
disabled. A snapshot of the system1/data file system is sent with properties (-p option) to a
backup pool and is received with the compression property enabled.
$ zfs get compression system1/data

system1/data compression off default
$ zfs snapshot system1/data@snap1
$ zfs send -p system1/data@snap1 | zfs recv -o compression=on -d bpool
$ zfs get -o all compression bpool/data
NAME PROPERTY VALUE RECEIVED SOURCE
bpool/data compression on off local
In the example, the compression property is enabled when the snapshot is received into bpool.
So, for bpool/data, the compression value is on.
If this snapshot stream is sent to a new pool, restorepool, for recovery purposes, you might
want to keep all the original snapshot properties. In this case, you would use the zfs send -b
option to restore the original snapshot properties. For example:
$ zfs send -b bpool/data@snap1 | zfs recv -d restorepool
$ zfs get -o all compression restorepool/data
NAME PROPERTY VALUE RECEIVED SOURCE
restorepool/data compression off off received
In the example, the compression value is off, which represents the snapshot compression value
from the original system1/data file system.
Disabling Original Property Values

If you have a local file system property value in a snapshot stream and you want to disable
the property when it is received, use the zfs receive -x option. For example, the following
command sends a recursive snapshot stream of home directory file systems with all file system
properties reserved to a backup pool but without the quota property values:
$ zfs send -R system1/home@snap1 | zfs recv -x quota bpool/home
$ zfs get -r quota bpool/home
bpool/home quota none local
bpool/home@snap1 quota - -
bpool/home/glori quota none default
bpool/home/glori@snap1 quota - -
bpool/home/hsolo quota none default
bpool/home/hsolo@snap1 quota - -
If the recursive snapshot was not received with the -x option, the quota property would be set in
the received file systems.
$ zfs send -R system1/home@snap1 | zfs recv bpool/home
$ zfs get -r quota bpool/home
bpool/home quota none received

bpool/home@snap1 quota - -
bpool/home/glori quota 10G received
bpool/home/glori@snap1 quota - -
bpool/home/hsolo quota 10G received
bpool/home/hsolo@snap1 quota - -
Sending and Receiving Complex ZFS Snapshot

Streams
This section describes how to use the -I and -R options with the zfs send command to send and
receive more complex snapshot streams.
Keep the following points in mind when sending and receiving complex ZFS snapshot streams:
■ To send all incremental streams from one snapshot to a cumulative snapshot, use the
-I option. You can also use this option to send an incremental stream from the original
snapshot to create a clone. The original snapshot must already exist on the receiving side to
accept the incremental stream.
■ To send a replication stream of all descendant file systems, use the -R option. When the
replication stream is received, all properties, snapshots, descendant file systems, and clones
are preserved.
■ Using the zfs send -r command or the zfs send -R command to send package streams
without the -c option will omit the origin of clones in some circumstances. For more
information, see “Types of ZFS Snapshot Streams” on page 188.
■ Use both options to send an incremental replication stream.
■ Changes to properties are preserved, as are snapshot and file system rename and
destroy operations.
■ If the -F option is not specified when receiving the replication stream, dataset destroy
operations are ignored. Thus, if necessary, you can undo the receive operation and
restore the file system to its previous state.
■ When sending incremental streams, if -I is used, all snapshots between snapA and snapD
are sent. If -i is used, only snapD (for all descendants) snapshots are sent.
■ To receive any of these types of zfs send streams, the receiving system must be running a
software version capable of sending them. The stream version is incremented.
EXAMPLE 42 Sending and Receiving Complex ZFS Snapshot Streams
You can combine A group of incremental snapshots into one snapshot by using the -I option.
For example:
$ zfs send -I pool/fs@snapA pool/fs@snapD > /snaps/fs@all-I
You would then remove the incremental snapB, snapC, and snapD snapshots.
$ zfs destroy pool/fs@snapB
$ zfs destroy pool/fs@snapC
$ zfs destroy pool/fs@snapD
To receive the combined snapshot, you would use the following command.
$ zfs receive -d -F pool/fs < /snaps/fs@all-I
$ zfs list
pool 428K 16.5G 20K /pool
pool/fs 71K 16.5G 21K /pool/fs
pool/fs@snapA 16K - 18.5K -
pool/fs@snapB 17K - 20K -
pool/fs@snapC 17K - 20.5K -
pool/fs@snapD 0 - 21K -
You can also use the -I command to combine a snapshot and a clone snapshot to create a
combined dataset. For example:
$ zfs create pool/fs
$ zfs snapshot pool/fs@snap1
$ zfs clone pool/fs@snap1 pool/clone
$ zfs snapshot pool/clone@snapA
$ zfs send -I pool/fs@snap1 pool/clone@snapA > /snaps/fsclonesnap-I
$ zfs destroy pool/clone@snapA
$ zfs destroy pool/clone
$ zfs receive -F pool/clone < /snaps/fsclonesnap-I
To replicate a ZFS file system and all descendant file systems up to the named snapshot, use the
-R option. When this stream is received, all properties, snapshots, descendant file systems, and
clones are preserved.
The following example creates snapshots for user file systems. One replication stream is created
for all user snapshots. Next, the original file systems and snapshots are destroyed and then
recovered.
$ zfs snapshot -r users@today
$ zfs list
users 187K 33.2G 22K /users
users@today 0 - 22K -
users/user1 18K 33.2G 18K /users/user1
users/user1@today 0 - 18K -

$ zfs send -R users@today > /snaps/users-R
$ zfs destroy -r users
$ zfs receive -F -d users < /snaps/users-R
$ zfs list
The following example uses the -R command to replicate the users file system and its
descendants, and to send the replicated stream to another pool, users2.
$ zfs create users2 mirror c0t1d0 c1t1d0

$ zfs receive -F -d users2 < /snaps/users-R
$ zfs list
users/user1@today 15K - 18K -
users2 188K 16.5G 22K /users2
users2@today 0 - 22K -
users2/user1 18K 16.5G 18K /users2/user1
users2/user1@today 0 - 18K -
Remote Replication of ZFS Data

You can use the zfs send and zfs recv commands to remotely copy a snapshot stream
representation from one system to another system. For example:
$ zfs send system1/kaydo@today | ssh newsys zfs recv sandbox/restfs@today
Monitoring ZFS Pool Operations
This command sends the system1/kaydo@today snapshot data and receives it into the sandbox/
restfs file system. The command also creates a restfs@today snapshot on the newsys system.
In this example, the user has been configured to use ssh on the remote system.
When you issue ZFS commands that initiate background tasks to run on the data such as
sending, receiving, scrubbing, or resilvering data, you can monitor the status and progress of
these tasks in real time. You can specify the frequency rate in which information is displayed.
You can also determine for how long the monitoring should run.
To monitor pool operations, you use the zpool monitor command. Depending on which
options you use, the command provides the following information about the task. The
information is provided for each individual pool.
■ Start time.
■ Current amount of data.
■ Timestamp, if appropriate on a per feature basis.
■ Amount of data at start of the task, if appropriate.
You can display information about tasks on an individual pool or on all existing pools on the
system.
Use the zpool monitor command as follows:
zpool monitor -t provider [-T d|u] [pool] [interval [count]]
-t provider Specifies one of the following providers about which the task
information is displayed. For provider, you can specify one of the
following:
■ send
■ receive or recv
■ scrub
■ resilver
Note - For an updated list of providers, type the zpool help monitor command.
-T d|u Specifies the time stamp and its display format. To display in standard
date format, specify d. To display a printed representation of the internal
representation of time, specify u. For more information about these

display formats, see the date(1) and the time(2) man pages.
interval Rate, in seconds, at which the displayed information is updated.
count Number of times the command displays task-related information within

the specified interval.
If count is specified, then the command updates the information for as
many times as specified by count before exiting. If count is not specified,
then the information is updated continuously until you press Ctrl-C.
Note - You can also customize the information to display. With the -o option, you can filter
the display fields to be included in the command output. With the -p option, you can display
information in machine-parsable format. For more information, see the zpool(8) man page.
The command output arranges the information according to specific fields:
DONE Amount of data that has been processed so far since the zpool monitor
command was issued.
OTHER Additional information depending on the specified provider, such as the

current item being processed, or the current state of the task.
PCTDONE Percentage of data that has been processed.
POOL Pool from which the information is retrieved.
PROVIDER Task that is providing the information.
SPEED Units per second, usually bytes but dependent on the unit that the
provider uses.
STRTTIME Time the provider started on the displayed task.
TAG Distinguishes whole operations. The TAG value is unique at any one
time but values can reused in subsequent operations. For example, two
simultaneous send operations would have different TAG values even if
both tasks operate on the same dataset.
TIMELEFT Relative time that a specific task will be completed.
TIMESTMP Time the monitored data snapshot is taken.
TOTAL Estimate of total amount of data to be processed.
EXAMPLE 43 Monitoring a ZFS Snapshot Stream Representation
The zfs send command creates a stream representation of a snapshot. The following example
shows how to obtain information about this task. The information would be updated two times
in a 5-second interval.
$ zpool monitor -t send 5 2

POOL PROVIDER PCTDONE TOTAL SPEED TIMELEFT OTHER
poolA send 41.7 10.0G 5.93M 16m49s poolA/fs:1/team3@all
poolB send 53.9 10.0G 7.71M 10m13s poolB/fs1/team3@all
poolC send 97.9 10.0G 14.4M 14s poolC/fs1/team1@all
poolA send 43.5 10.0G 6.17M 15m40s poolA/fs:1/team3@all
poolB send 55.8 10.0G 7.95M 9m30s poolB/fs1/team3@all
poolC send 99.2 10.0G 14.5M 5s poolC/fs1/team1@all
EXAMPLE 44 Monitoring the Reception of a Stream
This example shows how to monitor the status and progress of a receive operation. Without
a designated count, the information is continuously updated every 5 seconds. The monitoring
ends when the administrator presses Ctrl-C.
$ zpool monitor -t recv 5

pool provider pctdone total speed timeleft other
poolA receive 34.0 12.0G 6.01M 22m31s poolA/backup_all/fs2
poolA receive 68.0 6.01G 6.01M 5m28s poolA/backup_fs:1
poolB receive 20.6 10.0G 3.04M 44m39s poolB/backup_all/fs2
poolB receive 100.0 6.01G 9.48M 1s poolB/backup_fs1
poolB receive 16.7 12.0G 4.16M 41m04s poolB/pA-bkup/fs2
poolC receive 26.2 10.0G 3.98M 31m41s poolC/backup_all/fs2
^C
EXAMPLE 45 Monitoring a Resilvering Operation
This example shows how to check the status of a resilvering operation on all the three ZFS
pools on the system.
$ zpool monitor -t resilver 5 4

pool provider pctdone total speed timeleft other
poolA resilver 10.7 12.0G 37.7M 4m50s (2/2)
poolB resilver 7.1 10.0G 31.5M 5m02s (2/2)
poolC resilver 1.8 10.0G 42.9M 3m54s (2/2)
Copying ZFS Files

EXAMPLE 46 Monitoring a Scrubbing Operation
This example shows how to monitor the progress of a scrubbing operation on poolB.
$ zpool monitor -t scrub 5 poolB

pool provider pctdone total speed timeleft
poolB scrub 16.3 14.0G 35.3M 5m39s
^C
Copying ZFS Files

You can quickly copy large files using the cp -z command. The -z option copies the metadata
associated with each record, rather than copying the metadata and all of the data. For files
with record sizes of 4K or more, this method can be much faster than using the standard cp
command. It is also very useful if you need to make many copies of one large file, like an OS
image. See the reflink(3C) man page for more information.
♦ ♦ ♦
9
C H A P T E R 9
Oracle Solaris ZFS Delegated Administration
This chapter describes how to use delegated administration to allow nonprivileged users to
perform ZFS administration tasks.
The following sections are provided in this chapter:
■ “Overview of ZFS Delegated Administration” on page 205.

■ “Delegating ZFS Permissions”.
■ “Displaying ZFS Delegated Permissions Examples”.
■ “Delegating ZFS Permissions Examples”.
■ “Removing ZFS Delegated Permissions Examples”.
Overview of ZFS Delegated Administration
ZFS delegated administration enables you to distribute refined permissions to specific users,
groups, or everyone. Two types of delegated permissions are supported:
■ Individual permissions can be explicitly delegated such as create, destroy, mount,

snapshot, and so on.
■ Groups of permissions called permission sets can be defined. A permission set can later be
updated, and all of the consumers of the set automatically get the change. Permission sets
begin with the @ symbol and are limited to 64 characters in length. After the @ symbol, the
remaining characters in the set name have the same restrictions as normal ZFS file system
names.
ZFS delegated administration provides features similar to the RBAC security model. ZFS
delegation provides the following advantages for administering ZFS storage pools and file
systems:
■ Permissions follow the ZFS storage pool whenever a pool is migrated.

■ Provides dynamic inheritance where you can control how the permissions propagate
through the file systems.
Chapter 9 • Oracle Solaris ZFS Delegated Administration 205

Delegating ZFS Permissions
■ Can be configured so that only the creator of a file system can destroy the file system.
■ You can delegate permissions to specific file systems. Newly created file systems can
automatically pick up permissions.
■ Provides simple NFS administration. For example, a user with explicit permissions can
create a snapshot over NFS in the appropriate .zfs/snapshot directory.
Consider using delegated administration for distributing ZFS tasks. For information about using
RBAC to manage general Oracle Solaris administration tasks, see Chapter 1, “About Using
Rights to Control Users and Processes” in Securing Users and Processes in Oracle Solaris 11.4.
By default, the delegation property is enabled.
You control the delegated administration features by using a pool's delegation property. For
example:
$ zpool get delegation users

users delegation on default
$ zpool set delegation=off users
$ zpool get delegation users
users delegation off local

You can use the zfs allow command to delegate permissions on ZFS file systems to non-root
users in the following ways:
■ Individual permissions can be delegated to a user, group, or everyone.

■ Groups of individual permissions can be delegated as a permission set to a user, group, or
everyone.
■ Permissions can be delegated either locally to the current file system only or to all
descendants of the current file system.
The following table describes the operations that can be delegated and any dependent
permissions that are required to perform the delegated operations.
Permission Description Dependencies

(Subcommand)
allow The permission to grant permissions that Must also have the permission that is being
you have to another user. allowed.
Permission Description Dependencies

(Subcommand)
clone The permission to clone any of the dataset's Must also have the create permission and
snapshots. the mount permission in the original file
system.
create The permission to create descendant Must also have the mount permission.
datasets.
destroy The permission to destroy a dataset. Must also have the mount permission.
diff The permission to identify paths within a Non-root users need this permission to use
dataset. the zfs diff command.
hold The permission to hold a snapshot.
mount The permission to mount and unmount a
file system, and create and destroy volume
device links.
promote The permission to promote a clone to a Must also have the mount permission and
dataset. the promote permission in the original file
system.
receive The permission to create descendant file Must also have the mount permission and the
systems with the zfs receive command. create permission.
release The permission to release a snapshot hold,
which might destroy the snapshot.
rename The permission to rename a dataset. Must also have the create permission and
the mount permission in the new parent.
rollback The permission to roll back a snapshot.
send The permission to send a snapshot stream.
share The permission to share and unshare a file Must have both share and share.nfs to
system. create an NFS share.
Must have both share and share.smb to

create an SMB share.
snapshot The permission to create a snapshot of a
dataset.
You can delegate the following set of permissions but a permission might be limited to access,
read, or change permission:
■ groupquota
■ groupused
■ key
■ keychange
■ userprop
■ userquota
■ userused

In addition, you can delegate administration of the following ZFS properties to non-root users:
■ aclinherit
■ aclmode
■ atime
■ canmount
■ casesensitivity
■ checksum
■ compression
■ copies
■ dedup
■ defaultgroupquota
■ defaultuserquota
■ devices
■ encryption
■ exec
■ keysource
■ logbias
■ mountpoint
■ nbmand
■ normalization
■ primarycache
■ quota
■ readonly
■ recordsize
■ refquota
■ refreservation
■ reservation
■ rstchown
■ secondarycache
■ setuid
■ shadow
■ share.nfs
■ share.smb
■ snapdir
■ sync
■ utf8only
■ version
■ volblocksize
■ volsize
■ vscan
■ xattr
■ zoned
Some of these properties can be set only at dataset creation time. For a description of these
properties, see zfs(8).
Delegating ZFS Permissions (zfs allow)
The zfs allow syntax follows:

zfs allow -[ldugecs] everyone|user|group[,...] perm|@setname,...] filesystem| volume
The following zfs allow syntax (in bold) identifies to whom the permissions are delegated:
zfs allow [-uge]|user|group|everyone [,...] filesystem | volume
Multiple entities can be specified as a comma-separated list. If no -uge options are specified,
then the argument is interpreted preferentially as the keyword everyone, then as a user name,
and lastly, as a group name. To specify a user or group named "everyone", use the -u or -g
option. To specify a group with the same name as a user, use the -g option. The -c option
delegates create-time permissions.
The following zfs allow syntax (in bold) identifies how permissions and permission sets are
specified:
zfs allow [-s] ... perm|@setname [,...] filesystem | volume
Multiple permissions can be specified as a comma-separated list. Permission names are the
same as ZFS subcommands and properties. For more information, see the preceding section.
Permissions can be aggregated into permission sets and are identified by the -s option.
Permission sets can be used by other zfs allow commands for the specified file system and
its descendants. Permission sets are evaluated dynamically, so changes to a set are immediately
updated. Permission sets follow the same naming requirements as ZFS file systems, but the
name must begin with an at sign (@) and can be no more than 64 characters in length.
The following zfs allow syntax (in bold) identifies how the permissions are delegated:

Delegating ZFS Permissions Examples
zfs allow [-ld] ... ... filesystem | volume
The -l option indicates that the permissions are allowed for the specified file system and not its
descendants, unless the -d option is also specified. The -d option indicates that the permissions
are allowed for the descendant file systems and not for this file system, unless the -l option is
also specified. If neither option is specified, then the permissions are allowed for the file system
or volume and all of its descendants.
Removing ZFS Delegated Permissions (zfs

unallow)
You can remove previously delegated permissions with the zfs unallow command.
For example, assume that you delegated create, destroy, mount, and snapshot permissions as
follows:
$ zfs allow mindy create,destroy,mount,snapshot system1/home/mindy

$ zfs allow system1/home/mindy
---- Permissions on system1/home/mindy ----------------------------------
Local+descendant permissions:
user mindy create,destroy,mount,snapshot
To remove these permissions, you would use the following syntax:
$ zfs unallow mindy system1/home/mindy

EXAMPLE 47 Delegating Permissions to an Individual User
When you delegate create and mount permissions to an individual user, you must ensure that
the user has permissions on the underlying mount point.
For example, to delegate user mork create and mount permissions on the system1 file system,
set the permissions first:
$ chmod A+user:mork:add_subdirectory:fd:allow /system1/home
Then, use the zfs allow command to delegate create, destroy, and mount permissions. For
example:
$ zfs allow mork create,destroy,mount system1/home
Now, user mork can create his own file systems in the system1/home file system. For example:
$ su mork
mork$ zfs create system1/home/mork
mork$ ^D
$ su lp
$ zfs create system1/home/lp
cannot create 'system1/home/lp': permission denied
EXAMPLE 48 Delegating create and destroy Permissions to a Group
The following example shows how to set up a file system so that anyone in the staff group can
create and mount file systems in the system1/home file system, as well as destroy their own file
systems. However, staff group members cannot destroy anyone else's file systems.
$ zfs allow staff create,mount system1/home
$ zfs allow -c create,destroy system1/home
$ zfs allow system1/home
---- Permissions on system1/home ----------------------------------------
Create time permissions:
create,destroy
group staff create,mount
$ su mindy
mindy% zfs create system1/home/mindy/files
mindy% exit
$ su mork
mork% zfs create system1/home/mork/data
mork% exit
mindy% zfs destroy system1/home/mork/data
cannot destroy 'system1/home/mork/data': permission denied
EXAMPLE 49 Delegating Permissions at the Correct File System Level
Ensure that you delegate users permission at the correct file system level. For example, user
mork is delegated create, destroy, and mount permissions for the local and descendant file
systems. User mork is delegated local permission to snapshot the system1/home file system, but
he is not allowed to snapshot his own file system. So, he has not been delegated the snapshot
permission at the correct file system level.
$ zfs allow -l mork snapshot system1/home


create,destroy
Local permissions:
user mork snapshot
$ su mork
mork$ zfs snapshot system1/home@snap1
mork$ zfs snapshot system1/home/mork@snap1
cannot create snapshot 'system1/home/mork@snap1': permission denied
To delegate user mork permission at the descendant file system level, use the zfs allow -d
option. For example:
$ zfs unallow -l mork snapshot system1/home

$ zfs allow -d mork snapshot system1/home
create,destroy
descendant permissions:
user mork snapshot
$ su mork
$ zfs snapshot system1/home@snap2
cannot create snapshot 'system1/home@snap2': permission denied
$ zfs snapshot system1/home/mork@snappy
Now, user mork can only create a snapshot below the system1/home file system level.
EXAMPLE 50 Defining and Using Complex Delegated Permissions
You can delegate specific permissions to users or groups. For example, the following zfs
allow command delegates specific permissions to the staff group. In addition, destroy and
snapshot permissions are delegated after system1/home file systems are created.
$ zfs allow staff create,mount system1/home

$ zfs allow -c destroy,snapshot system1/home
create,destroy,snapshot
Because user mork is a member of the staff group, he can create file systems in system1/home.
In addition, user mork can create a snapshot of system1/home/mark2 because he has specific
permissions to do so. For example:
$ su mork
$ zfs create system1/home/mark2
$ zfs allow system1/home/mark2
---- Permissions on system1/home/mark2 ----------------------------------
Local permissions:
user mork create,destroy,snapshot
create,destroy,snapshot
But, user mork cannot create a snapshot in system1/home/mork because he does not have
specific permissions to do so. For example:
$ zfs snapshot system1/home/mork@snap1

cannot create snapshot 'system1/home/mork@snap1': permission denied
In this example, user mork has create permission in his home directory, which means he can
create snapshots. This scenario is helpful when your file system is NFS mounted.
$ cd /system1/home/mark2
$ ls
$ cd .zfs
$ ls
shares snapshot
$ cd snapshot
$ ls -l
total 3
drwxr-xr-x 2 mork staff 2 Sep 27 15:55 snap1
$ pwd
/system1/home/mark2/.zfs/snapshot
$ mkdir snap2
$ zfs list
# zfs list -r system1/home
system1/home/mork 63K 62.3G 32K /system1/home/mork
system1/home/mark2 49K 62.3G 31K /system1/home/mark2
system1/home/mark2@snap1 18K - 31K -
system1/home/mark2@snap2 0 - 31K -
$ ls
snap1 snap2
$ rmdir snap2
$ ls

Displaying ZFS Delegated Permissions Examples
snap1
EXAMPLE 51 Defining and Using a ZFS Delegated Permission Set
The following example shows how to create the permission set @myset and delegates the
permission set and the rename permission to the group staff for the system1 file system. User
mindy, a staff group member, has the permission to create a file system in system1. However,
user lp does not have permission to create a file system in system1.
$ zfs allow -s @myset create,destroy,mount,snapshot,promote,clone,readonly system1

$ zfs allow system1
---- Permissions on system1 ---------------------------------------------
Permission sets:
@myset clone,create,destroy,mount,promote,readonly,snapshot
$ zfs allow staff @myset,rename system1
$ zfs allow system1
Permission sets:
group staff @myset,rename
$ chmod A+group:staff:add_subdirectory:fd:allow system1
# su mindy
mindy% zfs create system1/data
mindy% zfs allow system1
Permission sets:
group staff @myset,rename
mindy% ls -l /system1
total 15
drwxr-xr-x 2 mindy staff 2 Jun 24 10:55 data
mindy% exit
$ su lp
$ zfs create system1/lp
cannot create 'system1/lp': permission denied
You can use the following command to display permissions:
$ zfs allow dataset
This command displays permissions that are set or allowed on the specified dataset. The output
contains the following components:
■ Permission sets
■ Individual permissions or create-time permissions
■ Local dataset
■ Local and descendant datasets
■ Descendant datasets only
EXAMPLE 52 Displaying Basic Delegated Administration Permissions
The following output indicates that user mindy has create, destroy, mount, snapshot
permissions on the system1/mindy file system.
$ zfs allow system1/mindy

-------------------------------------------------------------
Local+descendant permissions on (system1/mindy)
EXAMPLE 53 Displaying Complex Delegated Administration Permissions
The output in this example indicates the following permissions on the pool/glori and pool file
systems.
For the pool/glori file system:
■ Two permission sets are defined:

■ @eng (create, destroy, snapshot, mount, clone, promote, rename)
■ @simple (create, mount)
■ Create-time permissions are set for the @eng permission set and the mountpoint property.
Create-time means that after a file system set is created, the @eng permission set and the
permission to set the mountpoint property are delegated.
■ User tomi is delegated the @eng permission set, and user joe is granted create, destroy,
and mount permissions for local file systems.
■ User glori is delegated the @basic permission set, and share and rename permissions for
the local and descendant file systems.
■ User dina and the staff group are delegated the @basic permission set for descendant file
systems only.
For the pool file system:
■ The permission set @simple (create, destroy, mount) is defined.

Removing ZFS Delegated Permissions Examples
■ The group staff is granted the @simple permission set on the local file system.
Here is the output for this example:
$ zfs allow pool/glori

---- Permissions on pool/glori ----------------------------------------
Permission sets:
@eng create,destroy,snapshot,mount,clone,promote,rename
@simple create,mount
@eng,mountpoint
Local permissions:
user tomi @eng
user joe create,destroy,mount
user glori @basic,share,rename
user dina @basic
group staff @basic
---- Permissions on pool ---------------------------------------------
Permission sets:
@simple create,destroy,mount
Local permissions:
group staff @simple

You can use the zfs unallow command to remove delegated permissions. For example, user
mindy has create, destroy, mount, and snapshot permissions on the system1/mindy file
system.
$ zfs allow mindy create,destroy,mount,snapshot system1/home/mindy

The following zfs unallow syntax removes user mindy's snapshot permission from the
system1/home/mindy file system:
$ zfs unallow mindy snapshot system1/home/mindy

user mindy create,destroy,mount
mindy% zfs create system1/home/mindy/data
mindy% zfs snapshot system1/home/mindy@today

cannot create snapshot 'system1/home/mindy@today': permission denied
As another example, user mork has the following permissions on the system1/home/mork file
system:
$ zfs allow system1/home/mork

---- Permissions on system1/home/mork ----------------------------------
user mork create,destroy,mount
-------------------------------------------------------------
The following zfs unallow syntax removes all permissions for user mork from the system1/
home/mork file system:
$ zfs unallow mork system1/home/mork
The following zfs unallow syntax removes a permission set on the system1 file system.
$ zfs allow system1

Permission sets:
create,destroy,mount
$ zfs unallow -s @myset system1
$ zfs allow system1
create,destroy,mount

♦ ♦ ♦
10
C H A P T E R 1 0
Oracle Solaris ZFS Advanced Topics
This chapter describes ZFS volumes, using ZFS on an Oracle Solaris system with zones
installed, ZFS alternate root pools, and ZFS rights profiles.
The chapter covers the following topics:
■ “ZFS Volumes”.
■ “Using ZFS on an Oracle Solaris System With Zones Installed”.
■ “Using a ZFS Pool With an Alternate Root Location”.
ZFS Volumes
A ZFS volume is a dataset that represents a block device. ZFS volumes are identified as devices
in the /dev/zvol/{dsk,rdsk}/rpool directory.
In the following example, a 5GB ZFS volume, system1/vol, is created:

$ zfs create -V 5gb system1/vol
Be careful when changing the size of the volume. For example, if the size of the volume
shrinks, data corruption might occur. In addition, if you create a snapshot of a volume
that changes in size, you might introduce inconsistencies if you attempt to roll back the
snapshot or create a clone from the snapshot. Thus, when you create a volume, a reservation is
automatically set to the initial size of the volume to ensure data integrity.
You can display a ZFS volume's property information by using the zfs get or zfs get all
$ zfs get all system1/vol
A question mark (?) displayed for volsize in the zfs get output indicates an unknown value
because an I/O error occurred. For example:
$ zfs get -H volsize system1/vol
system1/vol volsize ? local
Chapter 10 • Oracle Solaris ZFS Advanced Topics 219

ZFS Volumes
An I/O error generally indicates a problem with a pool device. For information about resolving
pool device problems, see “Identifying Problems With ZFS Storage Pools” on page 234.
If you are using an Oracle Solaris system with zones installed, you cannot create or clone a ZFS
volume in a native zone.
Using a ZFS Volume as a Swap or Dump Device

During an installation of a ZFS root file system or a migration from a UFS root file system,
a swap device and a dump device are created on a ZFS volume in the ZFS root pool. The
following examples show how to display information about the swap device and the dump
device.
$ swap -l
$ dumpadm
Dump content: kernel pages
Dump device: /dev/zvol/dsk/rpool/dump (dedicated)
Savecore directory: /var/crash/
Savecore enabled: yes
If you need to change your swap area or dump device after the system is installed, use the
swap and dumpadm commands as in previous Oracle Solaris releases. If you need to create an
additional swap volume, create a ZFS volume of a specific size and then enable swap on that
device. Then, add an entry for the new swap device in the /etc/vfstab file. For example:
$ zfs create -V 2G rpool/swap2
$ swap -a /dev/zvol/dsk/rpool/swap2
$ swap -l
/dev/zvol/dsk/rpool/swap2 256,5 16 4194288 4194288
Do not swap to a file on a ZFS file system. A ZFS swap file configuration is not supported.
For information about adjusting the size of the swap and dump volumes, see “Adjusting the
Sizes of ZFS Swap and Dump Devices” on page 98.
Using a ZFS Volume as an iSCSI LUN

A ZFS volume as an iSCSI target is managed just like any other ZFS dataset, except that you
cannot rename the dataset, roll back a volume snapshot, or export the pool while the ZFS
How to Use a ZFS Volume as an iSCSI LUN
volumes are shared as iSCSI LUNs. If you attempt to perform those operations, messages
similar to the following are displayed:
$ zfs rename system1/volumes/v2 system1/volumes/v1

cannot rename 'system1/volumes/v2': dataset is busy
$ zpool export system1
cannot export 'system1': pool is busy
All iSCSI target configuration information is stored within the dataset. Like an NFS shared file
system, an iSCSI target that is imported on a different system is shared appropriately.
The Common Multiprotocol SCSI Target (COMSTAR) software framework enables you to
convert any Oracle Solaris system into a SCSI target device that can be accessed over a storage
network by initiator hosts. You can create and configure a ZFS volume to be shared as an iSCSI
logical unit (LUN).
How to Use a ZFS Volume as an iSCSI LUN
1. First, install the COMSTAR package.
$ pkg install group/feature/storage-server
2. Create a ZFS volume to be used as an iSCSI target.

For example:
$ zfs create -V 2g system1/volumes/v2
3. Create the SCSI-block-device-based LUN.

For example:
$ sbdadm create-lu /dev/zvol/rdsk/system1/volumes/v2

Created the following LU:
GUID DATA SIZE SOURCE

-------------------------------- ------------------- ----------------
600144f000144f1dafaa4c0faff20001 2147483648 /dev/zvol/rdsk/system1/volumes/v2
$ sbdadm list-lu
Found 1 LU(s)
GUID DATA SIZE SOURCE

-------------------------------- ------------------- ----------------
600144f000144f1dafaa4c0faff20001 2147483648 /dev/zvol/rdsk/system1/volumes/v2
4. Share LUN views to all ZFS clients. or selected ZFS clients.

Using ZFS on an Oracle Solaris System With Zones Installed
You can expose the LUN views to all ZFS clients or to a selected list of ZFS clients. In the
following example, the LUN view is shared to all ZFS clients.
a. Identify the LUN GUID.
$ stmfadm list-lu
LU Name: 600144F000144F1DAFAA4C0FAFF20001
b. Share the LUN view.
$ stmfadm add-view 600144F000144F1DAFAA4C0FAFF20001

$ stmfadm list-view -l 600144F000144F1DAFAA4C0FAFF20001
View Entry: 0
Host group : All
Target group : All
LUN : 0
5. Create the iSCSI targets.

For information about creating the iSCSI targets, see Chapter 8, “Configuring Storage Devices
With COMSTAR” in Managing Devices in Oracle Solaris 11.4.
Using ZFS on an Oracle Solaris System With Zones

Installed
The Oracle Solaris Zones feature in the Oracle Solaris operating system provides an isolated
environment in which to run applications on your system. The following sections describe how
to use ZFS on a system with Oracle Solaris zones:
■ “Adding ZFS File Systems to a Non-Global Zone” on page 223.

■ “Delegating Datasets to a Non-Global Zone” on page 224.
■ “Adding ZFS Volumes to a Non-Global Zone” on page 225.
■ “Using ZFS Storage Pools Within a Zone” on page 225.
■ “Managing ZFS Properties Within a Zone” on page 226.
■ “Understanding the zoned Property” on page 227.
Keep the following points in mind when associating ZFS datasets with zones:
■ You can add a ZFS file system or a clone to a native zone with or without delegating
administrative control.
■ You can add a ZFS volume as a device to native zones.
■ You cannot associate ZFS snapshots with zones at this time.
Note - Oracle Solaris kernel zones use storage differently from native Oracle Solaris zones.
For more information about storage use in kernel zones, see the Storage Access section of the
solaris-kz(7) man page.
For information about storage use on shared storage, see Chapter 12, “Oracle Solaris Zones on
Shared Storage” in Creating and Using Oracle Solaris Zones.
Adding a ZFS filesystem by using an fs resource enables the native zone to share disk space
with the global or kernel zone. However, the zone administrator cannot control properties or
create new file systems in the underlying file system hierarchy. This operation is identical to
adding any other type of file system to a zone. You should add a file system to a native zone
only for the sole purpose of sharing common disk space.
You can also delegate ZFS datasets to a native zone, which would give the zone administrator
complete control over the dataset and all its children. The zone administrator can create and
destroy file systems or clones within that dataset, as well as modify properties of the datasets.
The zone administrator cannot affect datasets that have not been added to the zone, including
exceeding any top-level quotas set on the delegated dataset.
When both a source zonepath and a target zonepath reside on a ZFS file system and are in the
same pool, the zoneadm clone command, not zfs clone, becomes the command for cloning
zones. The zoneadm clone command creates a ZFS snapshot of the source zonepath and sets
up the target zonepath. For more information, see Creating and Using Oracle Solaris Zones.
Adding ZFS File Systems to a Non-Global Zone
A ZFS file system that is added to a native zone must have its mountpoint property set to
legacy. For example, for the system1/zone/zion file system, you would type the following
command on the global or kernel zone:
global$ zfs set mountpoint=legacy system1/zone/zion
Then you would add that file system to the native zone by using the add fs subcommand of the
zonecfg command.
Note - To add the files system, ensure that it is not previously mounted on another location.
global$ zonecfg -z zion

zonecfg:zion> add fs
zonecfg:zion:fs> set type=zfs
zonecfg:zion:fs> set special=system1/zone/zion
zonecfg:zion:fs> set dir=/opt/data
zonecfg:zion:fs> end
This syntax adds the ZFS file system, system1/zone/zion, to the already configured zion
zone, which is mounted at /opt/data. The zone administrator can create and destroy files
within the file system. The file system cannot be remounted to a different location. Likewise,
the zone administrator cannot change properties on the file system such as atime, readonly,
compression, and so on.
The global zone administrator is responsible for setting and controlling properties of the file
system.
For more information about the zonecfg command and about configuring resource types with
zonecfg, see Creating and Using Oracle Solaris Zones.
Delegating Datasets to a Non-Global Zone
To meet the primary goal of delegating the administration of storage to a zone, ZFS supports
adding datasets to a native zone through the use of the zonecfg add dataset command.
In the following example, a ZFS file system is delegated to a native zone by a global zone
administrator from the global zone or kernel zone.

zonecfg:zion> add dataset
zonecfg:zion:dataset> set name=system1/zone/zion
zonecfg:zion:dataset> set alias=system1
zonecfg:zion:dataset> end
Unlike adding a file system, this syntax causes the ZFS file system system1/zone/zion to be
visible within the already configured zion zone. Within the zion zone, this file system is not
accessible as system1/zone/zion, but as a virtual pool named system1. The delegated file
system alias provides a view of the original pool to the zone as a virtual pool. The alias property
specifies the name of the virtual pool. If no alias is specified, a default alias matching the last
component of the file system name is used. In the example, the default alias would be zion.
Within delegated datasets, the zone administrator can set file system properties, as well as
create descendant file systems. In addition, the zone administrator can create snapshots and
clones, and otherwise control the entire file system hierarchy. If ZFS volumes are created within
delegated file systems, these volumes might conflict with ZFS volumes that are added as device
resources.
Adding ZFS Volumes to a Non-Global Zone
You can add or create a ZFS volume in a native zone or you can add access to a volume's data
in a native zone in the following ways:
■ In a native zone, a privileged zone administrator can create a ZFS volume as descendant of
a previously delegated file system. For example, you can type the following command for
the file system system1/zone/zion that was delegated in the previous example:
$ zfs create -V 2g system1/zone/zion/vol1
After the volume is created, the zone administrator can manage the volume's properties and
data in the native zone as well as create snapshots.
■ In a global or kernel zone, use the zonecfg add device command and specify a ZFS
volume whose data can be accessed in a native zone. For example:

zonecfg:zion> add device
zonecfg:zion:device> set match=/dev/zvol/dsk/system1/volumes/vol2
zonecfg:zion:device> end
In this example, only the volume data can be accessed in the native zone.
Using ZFS Storage Pools Within a Zone

ZFS storage pools cannot be created or modified within a native zone. The delegated
administration model centralizes control of physical storage devices within the global or kernel
zone and control of virtual storage to native zones. Although a pool-level dataset can be added
to a native zone, any command that modifies the physical characteristics of the pool, such
as creating, adding, or removing devices, is not allowed from within a native zone. Even if
physical devices are added to a native zone by using the zonecfg add device command, or
if files are used, the zpool command does not allow the creation of any new pools within the
native zone.
Kernel zones are more powerful and more flexible in terms of data storage management.
Devices and volumes can be delegated to a kernel zone, much like a global zone. Also, a ZFS
storage pool can be created in a kernel zone.

Managing ZFS Properties Within a Zone
After a dataset is delegated to a zone, the zone administrator can control specific dataset
properties. After a dataset is delegated to a zone, all its ancestors are visible as read-only
datasets, while the dataset itself is writable, as are all of its descendants. For example, consider
the following configuration:
global$ zfs list -Ho name

system1
system1/home
system1/data
system1/data/matrix
system1/data/zion
system1/data/zion/home
If system1/data/zion were added to a zone with the default zion alias, each dataset would
have the following properties.
Dataset Visible Writable Immutable Properties
system1 No - -
system1/home No - -
system1/data No - -
system1/data/zion Yes Yes zoned, quota, reservation
system1/data/zion/home Yes Yes zoned
Note that every parent of system1/zone/zion is invisible and all descendants are writable. The
zone administrator cannot change the zoned property because doing so would expose a security
risk that described in the next section.
Privileged users in the zone can change any other settable property, except for quota and
reservation properties. This behavior allows the global zone administrator to control the disk
space consumption of all datasets used by the native zone.
In addition, the share.nfs and mountpoint properties cannot be changed by the global zone
administrator after a dataset has been delegated to a native zone.
Understanding the zoned Property
When a dataset is delegated to a native zone, the dataset must be specially marked so that
certain properties are not interpreted within the context of the global or kernel zone. After a
dataset has been delegated to a native zone and is under the control of a zone administrator, its
contents can no longer be trusted. As with any file system, setuid binaries, symbolic links,
or otherwise questionable contents might exist that might adversely affect the security of the
global or kernel zone. In addition, the mountpoint property cannot be interpreted in the context
of the global or kernel zone. Otherwise, the zone administrator could affect the global or kernel
zone's namespace. To address the latter, ZFS uses the zoned property to indicate that a dataset
has been delegated to a native zone at one point in time.
The zoned property is a boolean value that is automatically turned on when a zone containing a
ZFS dataset is first booted. A zone administrator does not need to manually set this property. If
the zoned property is set, the dataset cannot be mounted or shared in the global or kernel zone.
In the following example, system1/zone/zion has been delegated to a zone, while system1/
zone/global has not:
$ zfs list -o name,zoned,mountpoint -r system1/zone
NAME ZONED MOUNTPOINT MOUNTED
system1/zone/global off /system1/zone/global yes
system1/zone/zion on /system1/zone/zion yes
$ zfs mount
system1/zone/global /system1/zone/global
system1/zone/zion /export/zone/zion/root/system1/zone/zion
root@kzx-05:~# zonecfg -z sol info dataset
dataset:
name: rpool/foo
alias: foo
root@kzx-05:~# zfs list -o name,zoned,mountpoint,mounted -r rpool/foo
NAME ZONED MOUNTPOINT MOUNTED

rpool/foo on /system/zones/sol/root/foo yes
root@kzx-05:~# zfs mount | grep /foo
rpool/foo /system/zones/sol/root/foo
When a dataset is removed from a zone or a zone is destroyed, the zoned property is not
automatically cleared. This behavior would avoid the inherent security risks associated with
these tasks. Because an untrusted user has complete access to the dataset and its descendants,
the mountpoint property might be set to bad values, or setuid binaries might exist on the file
systems.

Using a ZFS Pool With an Alternate Root Location
To prevent accidental security risks, the zoned property must be manually cleared by the
global zone administrator if you want to reuse the dataset in any way. Before setting the zoned
property to off, ensure that the mountpoint property for the dataset and all its descendants are
set to reasonable values and that no setuid binaries exist, or turn off the setuid property.
After you have verified that no security vulnerabilities are left, the zoned property can be turned
off by using the zfs set or zfs inherit command. If the zoned property is turned off while a
dataset is in use within a zone, the system might behave in unpredictable ways. Only change the
property if you are sure the dataset is no longer in use by a native zone.
Copying Zones to Other Systems

When you need to migrate one or more zones needs to another system, use Oracle Solaris
Unified Archives, which manage all cloning and recovery operations in the operating system
and which operate on global, native, as well as kernel zones. For more information about
Unified Archives, see Using Unified Archives for System Recovery and Cloning in Oracle
Solaris 11.4. For instructions about migrating zones, which include copying zones to other
systems, see Chapter 9, “Transforming Systems to Oracle Solaris Zones” in Creating and Using
Oracle Solaris Zones.
If all zones on one system need to move to another ZFS pool on a different system, consider
using a replication stream because it preserves snapshots and clones. Snapshots and clones are
used extensively by pkg update, beadm create, and the zoneadm clone commands.
In the following example, the sysA's zones are installed in the rpool/zones file system and they
need to be copied to the newpool/zones file system on sysB. The following commands create a
snapshot and copy the data to sysB by using a replication stream:
sysA$ zfs snapshot -r rpool/zones@send-to-sysB

sysA$ zfs send -R rpool/zones@send-to-sysB | ssh sysB zfs receive -d newpool
Note - The commands refer only to the ZFS aspect of the operation. You would need to perform
other zones-related command to complete the task. For specific information, refer to Chapter 9,
“Transforming Systems to Oracle Solaris Zones” in Creating and Using Oracle Solaris Zones.
A pool is intrinsically tied to the host system. The host system maintains information about the
pool so that it can detect when the pool is unavailable. Although useful for normal operations,
this information can prove a hindrance when you are booting from alternate media or creating a
pool on removable media. To solve this problem, ZFS provides an alternate root location pool
feature. An alternate root pool location does not persist across system reboots, and all mount
points are modified to be relative to the root of the pool.
Creating a ZFS Pool With an Alternate Root

Location
The most common reason for creating a pool at an alternate location is for use with removable
media. In these circumstances, users typically want a single file system, and they want it to be
mounted wherever they choose on the target system. When a pool is created by using the zpool
create -R option, the mount point of the root file system is automatically set to /, which is the
equivalent of the alternate root value.
In the following example, a pool called morpheus is created with /mnt as the alternate root
location:
$ zpool create -R /mnt morpheus c0t0d0
$ zfs list morpheus
morpheus 32.5K 33.5G 8K /mnt
Note the single file system, morpheus, whose mount point is the alternate root location of the
pool, /mnt. The mount point that is stored on disk is / and the full path to /mnt is interpreted
only in this initial context of the pool creation. This file system can then be exported and
imported under an arbitrary alternate root location on a different system by using -R alternate-
root-value syntax.
$ zpool export morpheus
$ zpool import morpheus
cannot mount '/': directory is not empty
$ zpool export morpheus
$ zpool import -R /mnt morpheus
$ zfs list morpheus
morpheus 32.5K 33.5G 8K /mnt
Importing a Pool With an Alternate Root Location
Pools can also be imported using an alternate root location. This feature allows for recovery
situations, where the mount points should not be interpreted in context of the current root mount

point, but under some temporary directory where repairs can be performed. This feature also
can be used when you are mounting removable media as described in the preceding section.
In the following example, a pool called morpheus is imported with /mnt as the alternate root
mount point. This example assumes that morpheus was previously exported.
$ zpool import -R /a pool

$ zpool list morpheus
pool 44.8G 78K 44.7G 0% ONLINE /a
$ zfs list pool
pool 73.5K 44.1G 21K /a/pool
Importing a Pool With a Temporary Name

In addition to importing a pool at an alternate root location, you can import a pool with a
temporary name. In certain shared storage or recovery situations, this feature allows two pools
with the same persistent name to be simultaneously imported. One of those pools must be
imported with a temporary name.
In the following example, the rpool pool is imported at an alternate root location and with
a temporary name. Because the persistent pool name conflicts with a pool that is already
imported, it must be imported by pool ID or by specifying the devices.
$ zpool import
pool: rpool
id: 16760479674052375628
state: ONLINE
config:
rpool ONLINE
c8d1s0 ONLINE
$ zpool import -R /a -t altrpool 16760479674052375628
$ zpool list
altrpool 97G 22.4G 74G 23% 1.00x ONLINE /a
rpool 465G 75.1G 390G 16% 1.00x ONLINE -
A pool can also be created with a temporary name by using the zpool create -t option.
♦ ♦ ♦
11
C H A P T E R 1 1
Oracle Solaris ZFS Troubleshooting and Pool

Recovery
This chapter describes how to identify and recover from ZFS failures. Information for
preventing failures is provided as well.
■ “Identifying ZFS Problems”.

■ “Resolving General Hardware Problems”.
■ “Identifying Problems With ZFS Storage Pools”.
■ “Resolving ZFS Storage Device Problems”.
■ “Resolving Data Problems in a ZFS Storage Pool”.
■ “Repairing a Damaged ZFS Configuration”.
■ “Repairing an Unbootable System”.
For information about complete root pool recovery, see Using Unified Archives for System
Recovery and Cloning in Oracle Solaris 11.4.
Identifying ZFS Problems
As a combined file system and volume manager, ZFS can exhibit many different failures. This
chapter outlines how to diagnose general hardware failures and then how to resolve pool device
and file system problems. You can encounter the following types of problems:
■ General Hardware Problems – Hardware problems can impact your pool performance
and the availability of your pool data. Rule out general hardware problems, such as faulty
components and memory, before determining problems at a higher level, such as your pools
and file systems.
■ ZFS storage pool problems
Chapter 11 • Oracle Solaris ZFS Troubleshooting and Pool Recovery 231

Resolving General Hardware Problems
■ “Identifying Problems With ZFS Storage Pools” on page 234.

■ “Resolving ZFS Storage Device Problems” on page 239.
■ Data is corrupted – “Resolving Data Problems in a ZFS Storage Pool” on page 255.
■ Configuration is damaged – “Repairing a Damaged ZFS Configuration” on page 268.
■ System won't boot – “Repairing an Unbootable System” on page 269.
Note that a single pool can experience all three errors, so a complete repair procedure involves
finding and correcting one error, proceeding to the next error, and so on.

Review the following sections to determine whether pool problems or file system unavailability
is related to a hardware problem, such as faulty system board, memory, device, HBA, or a
misconfiguration.
For example, a failing or faulty disk on a busy ZFS pool can greatly degrade overall system
performance.
If you start by diagnosing and identifying hardware problems first, which can be easier to
detect and all your hardware checks out, you can then move on to diagnosing pool and file
system problems as described in the rest of this chapter. If your hardware, pool, and file system
configurations are healthy, consider diagnosing application problems, which are generally more
complex to unravel and are not covered in this guide.
Identifying Hardware and Device Faults

The Oracle Solaris Fault Manager tracks software, hardware and specific device problems by
identifying error telemetry information that indicate a specific symptom in an error log and then
reporting actual fault diagnosis when the error symptom results in an actual fault.
The following command identifies any software or hardware related fault.
$ fmadm faulty
Use the above command routinely to identify failed services or devices.
Use the following command routinely to identify hardware or device related errors.
$ fmdump -eV | more
Error messages in this log file that describe vdev.open_failed, checksum, or io_failure
issues need your attention or they might evolve into actual faults that are displayed with the
fmadm faulty command.
If the above indicates that a device is failing, then this is a good time to make sure you have a
replacement device available.
You can also track additional device errors by using iostat command. Use the following
syntax to identify a summary of error statistics.
$ iostat -en
---- errors ---
s/w h/w trn tot device
0 0 0 0 c0t5000C500335F95E3d0
0 0 0 0 c0t5000C500335FC3E7d0
0 0 0 0 c0t5000C500335BA8C3d0
0 12 0 12 c2t0d0
0 0 0 0 c0t5000C500335E106Bd0
0 0 0 0 c0t50015179594B6F11d0
0 0 0 0 c0t5000C500335DC60Fd0
0 0 0 0 c0t5000C500335F907Fd0
0 0 0 0 c0t5000C500335BD117d0
In the above output, errors are reported on an internal disk c2t0d0. Use the following syntax to
display more detailed device errors.
Resolving Persistent or Transient Transport Errors

Persistent SCSI transport errors that refer to retries or resets can be caused by down-rev
firmware, a bad disk, a bad cable, or a faulty hardware connection. Some transient transport
errors can be resolved by upgrading your HBA or device firmware. If transport errors persist
after firmware is updated and all devices are deemed operational, then look for a bad cable or
other faulty connection between hardware components.
System Reporting of ZFS Error Messages
In addition to persistently tracking errors within the pool, ZFS also displays syslog messages
when events of interest occur. The following scenarios generate notification events:
■ Device state transition – If a device becomes FAULTED, ZFS logs a message indicating
that the fault tolerance of the pool might be compromised. A similar message is sent if the
device is later brought online, restoring the pool to health.

Identifying Problems With ZFS Storage Pools
■ Data corruption – If any data corruption is detected, ZFS logs a message describing when
and where the corruption was detected. This message is only logged the first time it is
detected. Subsequent accesses do not generate a message.
■ Pool failures and device failures – If a pool failure or a device failure occurs, the fault
manager daemon reports these errors through syslog messages as well as the fmdump
command.
If ZFS detects a device error and automatically recovers from it, no notification occurs. Such
errors do not constitute a failure in the pool redundancy or in data integrity. Moreover, such
errors are typically the result of a driver problem accompanied by its own set of error messages.

You can use the following features to identify problems with your ZFS configuration:
■ Detailed ZFS storage pool information can be displayed by using the zpool status
command.
■ Pool and device failures are reported through ZFS/FMA diagnostic messages.
■ Previous ZFS commands that modified pool state information can be displayed by using the
zpool history command.
■ A ZFS storage pool that is accidentally destroyed can be recovered by using the zpool
import -D command, but its important that the pool is recovered quickly so that the
devices are not reused or accidentally overwritten. For more information, see “Recovering
Destroyed ZFS Storage Pools” on page 78. No similar feature exists to recover ZFS file
systems or data. Always have good backups.
Most ZFS troubleshooting involves the zpool status command. This command analyzes
the various failures in a system and identifies the most severe problem, presenting you with a
suggested action and a link to a knowledge article for more information. Note that the command
only identifies a single problem with a pool, though multiple problems can exist. For example,
data corruption errors generally imply that one of the devices has failed, but replacing the failed
device might not resolve all of the data corruption problems.
In addition, a ZFS diagnostic engine diagnoses and reports pool failures and device failures.
Checksum, I/O, device, and pool errors associated with these failures are also reported. ZFS
failures as reported by fmd are displayed on the console as well as the system messages file. In
most cases, the fmd message directs you to the zpool status command for further recovery
instructions.
The basic recovery process is as follows:
■ If appropriate, use the zpool history command to identify the ZFS commands that
preceded the error scenario. For example:
$ zpool history system1

2012-11-12.13:01:31 zpool create system1 mirror c0t1d0 c0t2d0 c0t3d0
2012-11-12.13:28:10 zfs create system1/glori
2012-11-12.13:37:48 zfs set checksum=off system1/glori
In this output, note that checksums are disabled for the system1/glori file system. This
configuration is not recommended.
■ Identify the errors through the fmd messages that are displayed on the system console or in
the /var/adm/messages file.
■ Find further repair instructions by using the zpool status -x command.
■ Repair the failures, which involves the following steps:
■ Replacing the unavailable or missing device and bring it online.
■ Restoring the faulted configuration or corrupted data from a backup.
■ Verifying the recovery by using the zpool status -x command.
■ Backing up your restored configuration, if applicable.
This section describes how to interpret zpool status output in order to diagnose the type of
failures that can occur. Although most of the work is performed automatically by the command,
it is important to understand exactly what problems are being identified in order to diagnose
the failure. Subsequent sections describe how to repair the various problems that you might
encounter.
Determining If Problems Exist in a ZFS Storage

Pool
The easiest way to determine if any known problems exist on a system is to use the zpool
status -x command. This command describes only pools that are exhibiting problems. If no
unhealthy pools exist on the system, then the command displays the following:
$ zpool status -x
all pools are healthy
Without the -x flag, the command displays the complete status for all pools (or the requested
pool, if specified on the command line), even if the pools are otherwise healthy.
For more information about command-line options to the zpool status command, see
“Querying ZFS Storage Pool Status” on page 61.

Reviewing ZFS Storage Pool Status Information

ZFS storage pool status information is displayed by using the zpool status command. For
example:
$ zpool status pond

pool: pond
state: DEGRADED
degraded state.
config:

pond DEGRADED 0 0 0
c0t5000C500335F95E3d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c0t5000C500335F907Fd0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c0t5000C500335BD117d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c0t5000C500335DC60Fd0 UNAVAIL 0 0 0
This output is described in the following section.
Overall Pool Status Information
This section in the zpool status output contains the following fields, some of which are only
displayed for pools exhibiting problems:
pool Identifies the name of the pool.
state Indicates the current health of the pool. This information refers only to
the ability of the pool to provide the necessary replication level.
status Describes what is wrong with the pool. This field is omitted if no errors
are found.
action A recommended action for repairing the errors. This field is omitted if no
errors are found.
see Refers to a knowledge article containing detailed repair information.

Online articles are updated more often than this guide can be updated.
So, always reference them for the most up-to-date repair procedures. This
field is omitted if no errors are found.
scrub Identifies the current status of a scrub operation, which might include the
date and time that the last scrub was completed, a scrub is in progress, or
if no scrub was requested.
errors Identifies known data errors or the absence of known data errors.
ZFS Storage Pool Configuration Information

The config field in the zpool status output describes the configuration of the devices in the
pool, as well as their state and any errors generated from the devices. The state can be one of
the following: ONLINE, FAULTED, DEGRADED, or SUSPENDED. If the state is anything but ONLINE,
the fault tolerance of the pool has been compromised.
The second section of the configuration output displays error statistics. These errors are divided
into three categories:
■ READ – I/O errors that occurred while issuing a read request
■ WRITE – I/O errors that occurred while issuing a write request
■ CKSUM – Checksum errors, meaning that the device returned corrupted data as the result of a
read request
These errors can be used to determine if the damage is permanent. A small number of I/O
errors might indicate a temporary outage, while a large number might indicate a permanent
problem with the device. These errors do not necessarily correspond to data corruption as
interpreted by applications. If the device is in a redundant configuration, the devices might
show uncorrectable errors, while no errors appear at the mirror or RAID-Z device level. In such
cases, ZFS successfully retrieved the good data and attempted to heal the damaged data from
existing replicas.
For more information about interpreting these errors, see “Determining the Type of Device
Failure” on page 244.
Finally, additional auxiliary information is displayed in the last column of the zpool status
output. This information expands on the state field, aiding in the diagnosis of failures. If a
device is UNAVAIL, this field indicates whether the device is inaccessible or whether the data on

the device is corrupted. If the device is undergoing resilvering, this field displays the current
progress.
For information about monitoring resilvering progress, see “Viewing Resilvering

ZFS Storage Pool Scrubbing Status

The scrub section of the zpool status output describes the current status of any scrubbing
operations. This information is distinct from whether any errors are detected on the system,
though this information can be used to determine the accuracy of the data corruption error
reporting. If the last scrub ended recently, most likely, any known data corruption has been
discovered.
The following zpool status scrub status messages are provided:
■ Scrub in-progress report. For example:
scan: scrub in progress since Wed Jun 20 14:56:52 2012

529M scanned out of 71.8G at 48.1M/s, 0h25m to go
0 repaired, 0.72% done
■ Scrub completion message. For example:
■ Ongoing scrub cancellation message. For example:
scan: scrub canceled on Wed Jun 20 16:04:40 2012
Scrub completion messages persist across system reboots.
For more information about the data scrubbing and how to interpret this information, see
“Checking ZFS File System Integrity” on page 259.
ZFS Data Corruption Errors
The zpool status command also shows whether any known errors are associated with the
pool. These errors might have been found during data scrubbing or during normal operation.
ZFS maintains a persistent log of all data errors associated with a pool. This log is rotated
whenever a complete scrub of the system finishes.
Data corruption errors are always fatal. Their presence indicates that at least one application
experienced an I/O error due to corrupt data within the pool. Device errors within a redundant
pool do not result in data corruption and are not recorded as part of this log. By default, only the
Resolving ZFS Storage Device Problems
number of errors found is displayed. A complete list of errors and their specifics can be found
by using the zpool status -v option. For example:
pool: system1
state: ONLINE
status: One or more devices has experienced an error resulting in data
corruption. Applications may be affected.
action: Restore the file in question if possible. Otherwise restore the
entire pool from backup.
see: http://support.oracle.com/msg/ZFS-8000-8A
scan: scrub repaired 0 in 0h0m with 2 errors on Fri Jun 29 16:58:58 2012
config:

c8t0d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c8t1d0 ONLINE 2 0 0
errors: Permanent errors have been detected in the following files:
/system1/file.1
A similar message is also displayed by fmd on the system console and the /var/adm/messages
file. These messages can also be tracked by using the fmdump command.
For more information about interpreting data corruption errors, see “Identifying the Type of
Data Corruption” on page 264.

Review the following sections to resolve a missing, removed or faulted device.
Resolving a Missing or Removed Device
If a device cannot be opened, it displays the UNAVAIL state in the zpool status output. This
state means that ZFS was unable to open the device when the pool was first accessed, or the
device has since become unavailable. If the device causes a top-level virtual device to be
unavailable, then nothing in the pool can be accessed. Otherwise, the fault tolerance of the pool
might be compromised. In either case, the device just needs to be reattached to the system to
restore normal operations. If you need to replace a device that is UNAVAIL because it has failed,
see “Replacing a Device in a ZFS Storage Pool” on page 247.

If a device is UNAVAIL in a root pool or a mirrored root pool, see the following references:
■ Mirrored root pool disk failed – “Booting From an Alternate Root Pool Disk” on page 100
■ Replacing a disk in a root pool – “How to Replace a Disk in a ZFS Root Pool” on page 91
■ Full root pool disaster recovery – Using Unified Archives for System Recovery and
Cloning in Oracle Solaris 11.4
For example, you might see a message similar to the following from fmd after a device failure:
SUNW-MSG-ID: ZFS-8000-QJ, TYPE: Fault, VER: 1, SEVERITY: Minor

EVENT-TIME: Wed Jun 20 13:09:55 MDT 2012
...
SOURCE: zfs-diagnosis, REV: 1.0
EVENT-ID: e13312e0-be0a-439b-d7d3-cddaefe717b0
DESC: Outstanding dtls on ZFS device 'id1,sd@n5000c500335dc60f/a' in pool 'pond'.
AUTO-RESPONSE: No automated response will occur.
IMPACT: None at this time.
REC-ACTION: Use 'fmadm faulty' to provide a more detailed view of this event.
Run 'zpool status -lx' for more information. Please refer to the associated
reference document at http://support.oracle.com/msg/ZFS-8000-QJ for the latest
service procedures and policies regarding this diagnosis.
To view more detailed information about the device problem and the resolution, use the zpool
status -v command. For example:
$ zpool status -v
pool: pond
state: DEGRADED
degraded state.
config:

pond DEGRADED 0 0 0
c0t5000C500335F95E3d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c0t5000C500335F907Fd0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c0t5000C500335BD117d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c0t5000C500335DC60Fd0 UNAVAIL 0 0 0
device details:
c0t5000C500335DC60Fd0 UNAVAIL cannot open

see: http://support.oracle.com/msg/ZFS-8000-LR for recovery
You can see from this output that the c0t5000C500335DC60Fd0 device is not functioning. If you
determine that the device is faulty, replace it.
If necessary, use the zpool online command to bring the replaced device online. For example:
$ zpool online pond c0t5000C500335DC60Fd0
Let FMA know that the device has been replaced if the output of the fmadm faulty identifies
the device error. For example:
$ fmadm faulty
--------------- ------------------------------------ -------------- ---------
TIME EVENT-ID MSG-ID SEVERITY
--------------- ------------------------------------ -------------- ---------
Jun 20 13:15:41 3745f745-371c-c2d3-d940-93acbb881bd8 ZFS-8000-LR Major
Problem Status : solved

Diag Engine : zfs-diagnosis / 1.0
System
Manufacturer : unknown
Name : ORCL,SPARC-T3-4
Part_Number : unknown
Serial_Number : 1120BDRCCD
Host_ID : 84a02d28
----------------------------------------
Suspect 1 of 1 :
Fault class : fault.fs.zfs.open_failed
Certainty : 100%
Affects : zfs://pool=86124fa573cad84e/
vdev=25d36cd46e0a7f49/pool_name=pond/
vdev_name=id1,sd@n5000c500335dc60f/a
Status : faulted and taken out of service
FRU
Name : "zfs://pool=86124fa573cad84e/
vdev=25d36cd46e0a7f49/pool_name=pond/
vdev_name=id1,sd@n5000c500335dc60f/a"
Status : faulty
Description : ZFS device 'id1,sd@n5000c500335dc60f/a'

in pool 'pond' failed to open.

Response : An attempt will be made to activate a hot spare if available.
Impact : Fault tolerance of the pool may be compromised.
Action : Use 'fmadm faulty' to provide a more detailed view of this event.
Run 'zpool status -lx' for more information. Please refer to the
associated reference document at
http://support.oracle.com/msg/ZFS-8000-LR for the latest service
procedures and policies regarding this diagnosis.
Extract the string in the Affects: section of the fmadm faulty output and include it with the
following command to let FMA know that the device is replaced:
$ fmadm repaired zfs://pool=86124fa573cad84e/ \

vdev=25d36cd46e0a7f49/pool_name=pond/ \
vdev_name=id1,sd@n5000c500335dc60f/a
fmadm: recorded repair to of zfs://pool=86124fa573cad84e/
vdev=25d36cd46e0a7f49/pool_name=pond/vdev_
name=id1,sd@n5000c500335dc60f/a
As a last step, confirm that the pool with the replaced device is healthy. For example:
$ zpool status -x system1

pool 'system1' is healthy
Resolving a Removed Device
If a device is completely removed from the system, ZFS detects that the device cannot be
opened and places it in the REMOVED state. Depending on the data replication level of the pool,
this removal might or might not result in the entire pool becoming unavailable. If one disk in
a mirrored or RAID-Z device is removed, the pool continues to be accessible. A pool might
become UNAVAIL, which means no data is accessible until the device is reattached, under the
following conditions:
If a redundant storage pool device is accidentally removed and reinserted, then you can just
clear the device error, in most cases. For example:
$ zpool clear system1 c1t1d0
Physically Reattaching a Device

Exactly how a missing device is reattached depends on the device in question. If the device is a
network-attached drive, connectivity to the network should be restored. If the device is a USB
device or other removable media, it should be reattached to the system. If the device is a local
disk, a controller might have failed such that the device is no longer visible to the system. In
this case, the controller should be replaced, at which point the disks will again be available.
Other problems can exist and depend on the type of hardware and its configuration. If a drive
fails and it is no longer visible to the system, the device should be treated as a damaged device.
Follow the procedures in “Replacing or Repairing a Damaged Device” on page 244.
A pool might be SUSPENDED if device connectivity is compromised. A SUSPENDED pool remains

in the wait state until the device issue is resolved. For example:
$ zpool status cybermen
pool: cybermen
state: SUSPENDED
status: One or more devices are unavailable in response to IO failures.
The pool is suspended.
action: Make sure the affected devices are connected, then run 'zpool clear' or
'fmadm repaired'.
see: http://support.oracle.com/msg/ZFS-8000-HC
config:

cybermen UNAVAIL 0 16 0
c8t3d0 UNAVAIL 0 0 0
c8t1d0 UNAVAIL 0 0 0
After device connectivity is restored, clear the pool or device errors.

$ zpool clear cybermen
Notifying ZFS of Device Availability
After a device is reattached to the system, ZFS might or might not automatically detect its
availability. If the pool was previously UNAVAIL or SUSPENDED, or the system was rebooted as
part of the attach procedure, then ZFS automatically rescans all devices when it tries to open
the pool. If the pool was degraded and the device was replaced while the system was running,
you must notify ZFS that the device is now available and ready to be reopened by using the
zpool online command. For example:
$ zpool online system1 c0t1d0
For more information about bringing devices online, see “Taking Devices in a Storage Pool
Offline or Returning Online” on page 50.

Replacing or Repairing a Damaged Device

This section describes how to determine device failure types, clear transient errors, and
replacing a device.
Determining the Type of Device Failure
The term damaged device is rather vague and can describe a number of possible situations:
■ Bit rot – Over time, random events such as magnetic influences and cosmic rays can cause
bits stored on disk to flip. These events are relatively rare but common enough to cause
potential data corruption in large or long-running systems.
■ Misdirected reads or writes – Firmware bugs or hardware faults can cause reads or writes
of entire blocks to reference the incorrect location on disk. These errors are typically
transient, though a large number of them might indicate a faulty drive.
■ Administrator error – Administrators can unknowingly overwrite portions of a disk
with bad data (such as copying /dev/zero over portions of the disk) that cause permanent
corruption on disk. These errors are always transient.
■ Temporary outage– A disk might become unavailable for a period of time, causing I/Os to
fail. This situation is typically associated with network-attached devices, though local disks
can experience temporary outages as well. These errors might or might not be transient.
■ Bad or flaky hardware – This situation is a catch-all for the various problems that faulty
hardware exhibits, including consistent I/O errors, faulty transports causing random
corruption, or any number of failures. These errors are typically permanent.
■ Offline device – If a device is offline, it is assumed that the administrator placed the device
in this state because it is faulty. The administrator who placed the device in this state can
determine if this assumption is accurate.
Determining exactly what is wrong with a device can be a difficult process. The first step is to
examine the error counts in the zpool status output. For example:

pool: system1
state: ONLINE
config:

c8t0d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c8t0d0 ONLINE 2 0 0
/system1/file.1
The errors are divided into I/O errors and checksum errors, both of which might indicate the
possible failure type. Typical operation predicts a very small number of errors (just a few over
long periods of time). If you are seeing a large number of errors, then this situation probably
indicates impending or complete device failure. However, an administrator error can also result
in large error counts. The other source of information is the syslog system log. If the log shows
a large number of SCSI or Fibre Channel driver messages, then this situation probably indicates
serious hardware problems. If no syslog messages are generated, then the damage is likely
transient.
The goal is to answer the following question:
Is another error likely to occur on this device?
Errors that happen only once are considered transient and do not indicate potential failure.
Errors that are persistent or severe enough to indicate potential hardware failure are considered
fatal. The act of determining the type of error is beyond the scope of any automated software
currently available with ZFS, and so much must be done manually by you, the administrator.
After determination is made, the appropriate action can be taken. Either clear the transient
errors or replace the device due to fatal errors. These repair procedures are described in the next
sections.
Even if the device errors are considered transient, they still might have caused uncorrectable
data errors within the pool. These errors require special repair procedures, even if the
underlying device is deemed healthy or otherwise repaired. For more information about
repairing data errors, see “Repairing Corrupted ZFS Data” on page 263.
Clearing Transient or Persistent Device Errors
If the device errors are deemed transient, in that they are unlikely to affect the future health
of the device, they can be safely cleared to indicate that no fatal error occurred. To clear error
counters for RAID-Z or mirrored devices, use the zpool clear command. For example:
$ zpool clear system1 c1t1d0

This syntax clears any device errors and clears any data error counts associated with the device.
To clear all errors associated with the virtual devices in a pool, and to clear any data error
counts associated with the pool, use the following syntax:
$ zpool clear system1
For more information about clearing pool errors, see “Clearing Storage Pool Device
Errors” on page 52.
Transient device errors are most likely cleared by using the zpool clear command. If a
device has failed, then see the next section about replacing a device. If a redundant device was
accidentally overwritten or was UNAVAIL for a long period of time, then this error might need
to be resolved by using the fmadm repaired command as directed in the zpool status output.
For example:
$ zpool status -v pond

pool: pond
state: DEGRADED
degraded state.
config:

pond DEGRADED 0 0 0
c0t5000C500335F95E3d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c0t5000C500335F907Fd0 UNAVAIL 0 0 0
c0t5000C500335BD117d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c0t5000C500335DC60Fd0 ONLINE 0 0 0
device details:
c0t5000C500335F907Fd0 UNAVAIL cannot open

see: http://support.oracle.com/msg/ZFS-8000-LR for recovery
Replacing a Device in a ZFS Storage Pool

If device damage is permanent or future permanent damage is likely, the device must be
replaced. Whether the device can be replaced depends on the configuration.
■ “Determining If a Device Can Be Replaced” on page 247.
■ “Devices That Cannot be Replaced” on page 248.
■ “Replacing a Device in a ZFS Storage Pool” on page 248.
■ “Viewing Resilvering Status” on page 252.
Determining If a Device Can Be Replaced
If the device to be replaced is part of a redundant configuration, sufficient replicas from which
to retrieve good data must exist. For example, if two disks in a four-way mirror are UNAVAIL,
then either disk can be replaced because healthy replicas are available. However, if two disks
in a four-way RAID-Z (raidz1) virtual device are UNAVAIL, then neither disk can be replaced
because insufficient replicas from which to retrieve data exist. If the device is damaged but
otherwise online, it can be replaced as long as the pool is not in the UNAVAIL state. However,
any corrupted data on the device is copied to the new device, unless sufficient replicas with
good data exist.
In the following configuration, the c1t1d0 disk can be replaced, and any data in the pool is
copied from the healthy replica, c1t0d0:
mirror DEGRADED
c1t0d0 ONLINE
c1t1d0 UNAVAIL
The c1t0d0 disk can also be replaced, though no self-healing of data can take place because no
good replica is available.
In the following configuration, neither UNAVAIL disk can be replaced. The ONLINE disks cannot
be replaced either because the pool itself is UNAVAIL.
raidz1 UNAVAIL
c1t0d0 ONLINE
c2t0d0 UNAVAIL
c3t0d0 UNAVAIL
c4t0d0 ONLINE
In the following configuration, either top-level disk can be replaced, though any bad data
present on the disk is copied to the new disk.
c1t0d0 ONLINE

c1t1d0 ONLINE
If either disk is UNAVAIL, then no replacement can be performed because the pool itself is
UNAVAIL.
Devices That Cannot be Replaced
If the loss of a device causes the pool to become UNAVAIL or the device contains too many data
errors in a non-redundant configuration, then the device cannot be safely replaced. Without
sufficient redundancy, no good data with which to heal the damaged device exists. In this case,
the only option is to destroy the pool and re-create the configuration, and then to restore your
data from a backup copy.
For more information about restoring an entire pool, see “Repairing ZFS Storage Pool-Wide
Damage” on page 266.
Replacing a Device in a ZFS Storage Pool
After you have determined that a device can be replaced, use the zpool replace command to
replace the device. If you are replacing the damaged device with different device, use syntax
similar to the following:
This command migrates data to the new device from the damaged device or from other devices
in the pool if it is in a redundant configuration. When the command is finished, it detaches the
damaged device from the configuration, at which point the device can be removed from the
system. If you have already removed the device and replaced it with a new device in the same
location, use the single device form of the command. For example:
$ zpool replace system1 c1t1d0
This command takes an unformatted disk, formats it appropriately, and then resilvers data from
the rest of the configuration.
For more information about the zpool replace command, see “Replacing Devices in a Storage
Pool” on page 52.
EXAMPLE 54 Replacing a SATA Disk in a ZFS Storage Pool
The following example shows how to replace a device (c1t3d0) in a mirrored storage pool
system1 on a system with SATA devices. To replace the disk c1t3d0 with a new disk at the
same location (c1t3d0), then you must unconfigure the disk before you attempt to replace
it. If the disk to be replaced is not a SATA disk, then see “Replacing Devices in a Storage
Pool” on page 52.
The basic steps follow:
■ Take offline the disk (c1t3d0)to be replaced. You cannot unconfigure a SATA disk that is
currently being used.
■ Use the cfgadm command to identify the SATA disk (c1t3d0) to be unconfigured
and unconfigure it. The pool will be degraded with the offline disk in this mirrored
configuration, but the pool will continue to be available.
■ Physically replace the disk (c1t3d0). Ensure that the blue Ready to Remove LED is
illuminated before you physically remove the UNAVAIL drive, if available.
■ Reconfigure the SATA disk (c1t3d0).
■ Bring the new disk (c1t3d0) online.
■ Run the zpool replace command to replace the disk (c1t3d0).
Note - If you had previously set the pool property autoreplace to on, then any new device,
found in the same physical location as a device that previously belonged to the pool is
automatically formatted and replaced without using the zpool replace command. This
feature might not be supported on all hardware.
■ If a failed disk is automatically replaced with a hot spare, you might need to detach the hot
spare after the failed disk is replaced. For example, if c2t4d0 is still an active hot spare after
the failed disk is replaced, then detach it.
$ zpool detach system1 c2t4d0

■ If FMA is reporting the failed device, then you should clear the device failure.
$ fmadm faulty
The following example walks through the steps to replace a disk in a ZFS storage pool.
$ zpool offline system1 c1t3d0

$ cfgadm | grep c1t3d0
sata1/3::dsk/c1t3d0 disk connected configured ok
$ cfgadm -c unconfigure sata1/3
Unconfigure the device at: /devices/pci@0,0/pci1022,7458@2/pci11ab,11ab@1:3
This operation will suspend activity on the SATA device
Continue (yes/no)? yes
$ cfgadm | grep sata1/3
sata1/3 disk connected unconfigured ok
<Physically replace the failed disk c1t3d0>
$ cfgadm -c configure sata1/3

$ cfgadm | grep sata1/3

sata1/3::dsk/c1t3d0 disk connected configured ok
$ zpool online system1 c1t3d0
$ zpool replace system1 c1t3d0
# zpool status system1
pool: system1
state: ONLINE
scrub: resilver completed after 0h0m with 0 errors on Tue Feb 2 13:17:32 2010
config:

c0t1d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c1t1d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c0t2d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c1t2d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c0t3d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c1t3d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
Note that the preceding zpool output might show both the new and old disks under a replacing
heading. For example:
replacing DEGRADED 0 0 0
c1t3d0s0/o FAULTED 0 0 0
c1t3d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
This text means that the replacement process is in progress and the new disk is being resilvered.
If you are going to replace a disk (c1t3d0) with another disk (c4t3d0), then you only need to
run the zpool replace command. For example:
$ zpool status
pool: system1
state: DEGRADED
config:

system1 DEGRADED 0 0 0
c0t1d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c1t1d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c0t2d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c1t2d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c0t3d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
replacing DEGRADED 0 0 0
c1t3d0 OFFLINE 0 0 0
c4t3d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
You might need to run the zpool status command several times until the disk replacement is
completed.

pool: system1
state: ONLINE
config:

c0t1d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c1t1d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c0t2d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c1t2d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c0t3d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c4t3d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
EXAMPLE 55 Replacing a Failed Log Device
ZFS identifies intent log failures in the zpool status command output. Fault Management
Architecture (FMA) reports these errors as well. Both ZFS and FMA describe how to recover
from an intent log failure.
The following example shows how to recover from a failed log device (c0t5d0) in the storage
pool (storpool). The basic steps follow:
■ Review the zpool status -x output and FMA diagnostic message, described in ZFS intent
log read failure (Doc ID 1021625.1) in https://support.oracle.com/.
■ Physically replace the failed log device.
■ Bring the new log device online.
■ Clear the pool's error condition.
■ Clear the FMA error.

For example, if the system shuts down abruptly before synchronous write operations are
committed to a pool with a separate log device, you see messages similar to the following:
$ zpool status -x
pool: storpool
state: FAULTED
status: One or more of the intent logs could not be read.
Waiting for administrator intervention to fix the faulted pool.
action: Either restore the affected device(s) and run 'zpool online',
or ignore the intent log records by running 'zpool clear'.
config:

storpool FAULTED 0 0 0 bad intent log
c0t1d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c0t4d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
logs FAULTED 0 0 0 bad intent log
c0t5d0 UNAVAIL 0 0 0 cannot open
<Physically replace the failed log device>
$ zpool online storpool c0t5d0
$ zpool clear storpool
$ fmadm faulty
$ fmadm repair zfs://pool=name/vdev=guid
You can resolve the log device failure in the following ways:
■ Replace or recover the log device. In this example, the log device is c0t5d0.
■ Bring the log device back online.
$ zpool online storpool c0t5d0

■ Reset the failed log device error condition.
$ zpool clear storpool
To recover from this error without replacing the failed log device, you can clear the error with
the zpool clear command. In this scenario, the pool will operate in a degraded mode and the
log records will be written to the main pool until the separate log device is replaced.
Consider using mirrored log devices to avoid the log device failure scenario.
Viewing Resilvering Status
The process of replacing a device can take an extended period of time, depending on the size
of the device and the amount of data in the pool. The process of moving data from one device
to another device is known as resilvering and can be monitored by using the zpool status
command.
The following zpool status resilver status messages are provided:
■ Resilver in-progress report. For example:
scan: resilver in progress since Mon Jun 7 09:17:27 2010

13.3G scanned
13.3G resilvered at 18.5M/s, 82.34% done, 0h2m to go
■ Resilver completion message. For example:
resilvered 16.2G in 0h16m with 0 errors on Mon Jun 7 09:34:21 2010
Resilver completion messages persist across system reboots.
Traditional file systems resilver data at the block level. Because ZFS eliminates the artificial
layering of the volume manager, it can perform resilvering in a much more powerful and
controlled manner. The two main advantages of this feature are as follows:
■ ZFS only resilvers the minimum amount of necessary data. In the case of a short outage
(as opposed to a complete device replacement), the entire disk can be resilvered in a matter
of minutes or seconds. When an entire disk is replaced, the resilvering process takes time
proportional to the amount of data used on disk. Replacing a 500GB disk can take seconds
if a pool has only a few gigabytes of used disk space.
■ If the system loses power or is rebooted, the resilvering process resumes exactly where it
left off, without any need for manual intervention.
To view the resilvering process, use the zpool status command. For example:

pool: system1
state: ONLINE
status: One or more devices is currently being resilvered. The pool will
continue to function, possibly in a degraded state.
action: Wait for the resilver to complete.
scan: resilver in progress since Mon Jun 7 10:49:20 2010
54.6M scanned54.5M resilvered at 5.46M/s, 24.64% done, 0h0m to go
config:

replacing-0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c1t0d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c2t0d0 ONLINE 0 0 0 (resilvering)

c1t1d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
In this example, the disk c1t0d0 is being replaced by c2t0d0. This event is observed in the
status output by the presence of the replacing virtual device in the configuration. This device
is not real, nor is it possible for you to create a pool by using it. The purpose of this device is
solely to display the resilvering progress and to identify which device is being replaced.
Note that any pool currently undergoing resilvering is placed in the ONLINE or DEGRADED state
because the pool cannot provide the desired level of redundancy until the resilvering process is
completed. Resilvering proceeds as fast as possible, though the I/O is always scheduled with a
lower priority than user-requested I/O, to minimize impact on the system. After the resilvering
is completed, the configuration reverts to the new, complete, configuration. For example:
pool: system1
state: ONLINE
config:

c2t0d0 ONLINE 0 0 0 377M resilvered
c1t1d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
The pool is once again ONLINE, and the original failed disk (c1t0d0) has been removed from the
configuration.
Changing Pool Devices

Do not try to change pool devices under an active pool.
Disks are identified both by their path and by their device ID, if available. On systems where
device ID information is available, this identification method allows devices to be reconfigured
without updating ZFS. Because device ID generation and management can vary by system,
export the pool first before moving devices, such as moving a disk from one controller to
another controller. A system event, such as a firmware update or other hardware change,
might change the device IDs in your ZFS storage pool, which can cause the devices to become
unavailable.
An additional problem is that if you attempt to change the devices underneath a pool and then
you use the zpool status command as a non-root user, the previous device names could be
displayed.
Resolving Data Problems in a ZFS Storage Pool

Examples of data problems include the following:
■ Pool or file system space is missing
■ Transient I/O errors due to a bad disk or controller
■ On-disk data corruption due to cosmic rays
■ Driver bugs resulting in data being transferred to or from the wrong location
■ A user overwriting portions of the physical device by accident
In some cases, these errors are transient, such as a random I/O error while the controller is
having problems. In other cases, the damage is permanent, such as on-disk corruption. Even
still, whether the damage is permanent does not necessarily indicate that the error is likely to
occur again. For example, if you accidentally overwrite part of a disk, no type of hardware
failure has occurred, and the device does not need to be replaced. Identifying the exact problem
with a device is not an easy task and is covered in more detail in a later section.
Resolving ZFS Space Issues

Review the following sections if you are unsure how ZFS reports file system and pool space
accounting.
ZFS File System Space Reporting

The zpool list and zfs list commands are better than the previous df and du commands for
determining your available pool and file system space. With the legacy commands, you cannot
easily discern between pool and file system space, nor do the legacy commands account for
space that is consumed by descendant file systems or snapshots.
For example, the following root pool (rpool) has 5.46 GB allocated and 68.5 GB free.
$ zpool list rpool

rpool 74G 5.46G 68.5G 7% 1.00x ONLINE -
If you compare the pool space accounting with the file system space accounting by reviewing
the USED column of your individual file systems, you can see that the pool space that is reported
in ALLOC is accounted for in the file systems' USED total. For example:
$ zfs list -r rpool


rpool 5.41G 67.4G 74.5K /rpool

rpool/ROOT 3.37G 67.4G 31K legacy
rpool/ROOT/solaris 3.37G 67.4G 3.07G /
rpool/ROOT/solaris/var 302M 67.4G 214M /var
rpool/dump 1.01G 67.5G 1000M -
rpool/export 97.5K 67.4G 32K /rpool/export
rpool/export/home 65.5K 67.4G 32K /rpool/export/home
rpool/export/home/admin 33.5K 67.4G 33.5K /rpool/export/home/admin
rpool/swap 1.03G 67.5G 1.00G -
ZFS Storage Pool Space Reporting

The SIZE value that is reported by the zpool list command is generally the amount of
physical disk space in the pool, but varies depending on the pool's redundancy level. See the
examples below. The zfs list command lists the usable space that is available to file systems,
which is disk space minus ZFS pool redundancy metadata overhead, if any.
The following ZFS dataset configurations are tracked as allocated space by the zfs list
command but they are not tracked as allocated space in the zpool list output:
■ ZFS file system quota
■ ZFS file system reservation
■ ZFS logical volume size
The following items describe how using different pool configurations, ZFS volumes and
ZFS reservations can impact your consumed and available disk space. Depending upon your
configuration, monitoring pool space should be tracked by using the steps listed below.
■ Non-redundant storage pool – When a pool is created with one 136GB disk, the zpool
list command reports SIZE and initial FREE values as 136 GB. The initial AVAIL space
reported by the zfs list command is 134 GB, due to a small amount of pool metadata
overhead. For example:
$ zpool create system1 c0t6d0

system1 136G 95.5K 136G 0% 1.00x ONLINE -
$ zfs list system1
system1 72K 134G 21K /system1
■ Mirrored storage pool – When a pool is created with two 136GB disks, zpool list
command reports SIZE as 136 GB and initial FREE value as 136 GB. This reporting is
referred to as the deflated space value. The initial AVAIL space reported by the zfs list
command is 134 GB, due to a small amount of pool metadata overhead. For example:
$ zpool create system1 mirror c0t6d0 c0t7d0

system1 136G 95.5K 136G 0% 1.00x ONLINE -
$ zfs list system1
system1 72K 134G 21K /system1
■ RAID-Z storage pool – When a raidz2 pool is created with three 136GB disks, the zpool
list commands reports SIZE as 408 GB and initial FREE value as 408 GB. This reporting
is referred to as the inflated disk space value, which includes redundancy overhead, such
as parity information. The initial AVAIL space reported by the zfs list command is 133
GB, due to the pool redundancy overhead. The space discrepancy between the zpool list
and the zfs list output for a RAID-Z pool is because zpool list reports the inflated pool
space.
$ zpool create system1 raidz2 c0t6d0 c0t7d0 c0t8d0

system1 408G 286K 408G 0% 1.00x ONLINE -
$ zfs list system1
system1 73.2K 133G 20.9K /system1
■ NFS mounted file system space – Neither the zpool list or the zfs list account for
NFS mounted file system space. However, local data files can be hidden under a mounted
NFS file system. If you are missing file system space, ensure that you do not have data files
hidden under an NFS file system.
■ Using ZFS Volumes – When a ZFS file system is created and pool space is consumed, you
can view the file system space consumption by using the zpool list command. For example:
$ zpool create nova mirror c1t1d0 c2t1d0

$ zfs create nova/fs1
$ mkfile 10g /nova/fs1/file1_10g
$ zpool list nova
nova 68G 10.0G 58.0G 14% 1.00x ONLINE -
$ zfs list -r nova
nova 10.0G 56.9G 32K /nova
nova/fs1 10.0G 56.9G 10.0G /nova/fs1
If you create a 10GB ZFS volume, the space is not accounted for in the zpool list command.
The space is accounted for in the zfs list command. If you are using ZFS volumes in your

storage pools, monitor ZFS volume space consumption by using the zfs list command. For
example:
$ zfs create -V 10g nova/vol1

$ zpool list nova
nova 68G 10.0G 58.0G 14% 1.00x ONLINE -
$ zfs list -r nova
nova/vol1 10.3G 56.9G 16K -
Note in the above output that ZFS volume space is not tracked in the zpool list output so
use the zfs list or the zfs list -o space command to identify space that is consumed by ZFS
volumes.
In addition, because ZFS volumes act like raw devices, some amount of space for metadata
is automatically reserved through the refreservation property, which causes volumes to
consume slightly more space then the amount specified when the volume was created. Do
not remove the refreservation on ZFS volumes or you risk running out of volume space.
■ Using ZFS Reservations – If you create a file system with a reservation or add a
reservation to an existing file system, reservations or refreservations are not tracked by the
zpool list command.
Identify space that is consumed by file system reservations by using the zfs list -r
command to identify the increased USED space. For example:
$ zfs create -o reservation=10g nova/fs2

$ zpool list nova
nova 68G 10.0G 58.0G 14% 1.00x ONLINE -
$ zfs list -r nova
nova/fs2 31K 46.6G 31K /nova/fs2
nova/vol1 10.3G 46.9G 16K -
If you create a file system with a refreservation, it can be identified by using the zfs list -
r command. For example:
$ zfs create -o refreservation=10g nova/fs3

$ zfs list -r nova

nova/fs2 31K 36.6G 31K /nova/fs2
nova/fs3 10G 36.6G 31K /nova/fs3
nova/vol1 10.3G 36.9G 16K -
Use the following command to identify all existing reservations to account for total USED
space.
$ zfs get -r reserv,refreserv nova

nova reservation none default
nova refreservation none default
nova/fs1 reservation none default
nova/fs1 refreservation none default
nova/fs2 reservation 10G local
nova/fs2 refreservation none default
nova/fs3 reservation none default
nova/fs3 refreservation 10G local
nova/vol1 reservation none default
nova/vol1 refreservation 10.3G local
Checking ZFS File System Integrity

No fsck utility equivalent exists for ZFS. This utility has traditionally served two purposes,
those of file system repair and file system validation.
File System Repair
With traditional file systems, the way in which data is written is inherently vulnerable to
unexpected failure causing file system inconsistencies. Because a traditional file system is not
transactional, unreferenced blocks, bad link counts, or other inconsistent file system structures
are possible. The addition of journaling does solve some of these problems, but can introduce
additional problems when the log cannot be rolled back. The only way for inconsistent data to
exist on disk in a ZFS configuration is through hardware failure (in which case the pool should
have been redundant) or when a bug exists in the ZFS software.
The fsck utility repairs known problems specific to UFS file systems. Most ZFS storage pool
problems are generally related to failing hardware or power failures. Many problems can be
avoided by using redundant pools. If your pool is damaged due to failing hardware or a power
outage, see “Repairing ZFS Storage Pool-Wide Damage” on page 266.

If your pool is not redundant, the risk that file system corruption can render some or all of your
data inaccessible is always present.
File System Validation
In addition to performing file system repair, the fsck utility validates that the data on disk has
no problems. Traditionally, this task requires unmounting the file system and running the fsck
utility, possibly taking the system to single-user mode in the process. This scenario results in
downtime that is proportional to the size of the file system being checked. Instead of requiring
an explicit utility to perform the necessary checking, ZFS provides a mechanism to perform
routine checking of all inconsistencies. This feature, known as scrubbing, is commonly used in
memory and other systems as a method of detecting and preventing errors before they result in a
hardware or software failure.
Controlling ZFS Data Scrubbing
Whenever ZFS encounters an error, either through scrubbing or when accessing a file on
demand, the error is logged internally so that you can obtain a quick overview of all known
errors within the pool.
Explicit ZFS Data Scrubbing
The simplest way to check data integrity is to initiate an explicit scrubbing of all data within
the pool. This operation traverses all the data in the pool once and verifies that all blocks can
be read. Scrubbing proceeds as fast as the devices allow, though the priority of any I/O remains
below that of normal operations. This operation might negatively impact performance, though
the pool's data should remain usable and nearly as responsive while the scrubbing occurs. To
initiate an explicit scrub, use the zpool scrub command. For example:
The status of the current scrubbing operation can be displayed by using the zpool status

pool: system1
state: ONLINE
scan: scrub in progress since Mon Jun 7 12:07:52 2010
201M scanned out of 222M at 9.55M/s, 0h0m to go
0 repaired, 90.44% done

config:

c1t0d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c1t1d0 ONLINE 0 0 0
Only one active scrubbing operation per pool can occur at one time.
You can stop a scrubbing operation that is in progress by using the -s option. For example:
$ zpool scrub -s system1
In most cases, a scrubbing operation to ensure data integrity should continue to completion.
Stop a scrubbing operation at your own discretion if system performance is impacted by the
operation.
Performing routine scrubbing guarantees continuous I/O to all disks on the system. Routine
scrubbing has the side effect of preventing power management from placing idle disks in low-
power mode. If the system is generally performing I/O all the time, or if power consumption
is not a concern, then this issue can safely be ignored. If the system is largely idle, and you
want to conserve power to the disks, you should consider using a cron scheduled explicit scrub
rather than background scrubbing. This will still perform complete scrubs of data, though it
will only generate a large amount of I/O until the scrubbing is finished, at which point the disks
can be power managed as normal. The downside (besides increased I/O) is that there will be
large periods of time when no scrubbing is being done at all, potentially increasing the risk of
corruption during those periods.
For more information about interpreting zpool status output, see “Querying ZFS Storage Pool
Scheduled Data Scrubbing
Data inconsistencies can occur over time. Scrubbing the data regularly helps to find these
inconsistencies and resolve them early. Thus, regular scrubbing ensures data availability.
In this release, automatic scrubbing is added as a preventative maintenance tool. Automatic or

scheduled data scrubbing is now part of routine operations. The feature is enabled by default
upon installation. Two ZFS properties are associated with scheduled scrubbing:

■ scrubinterval determines the time interval between automatic scrubbing. The value is
specified together with the following units of time: s, h, d, w, m, or y. These correspond to
second, hour, day, week, month, or year, respectively. A week can also be specified as 7
days, a month as 30 days, and a year as 365 days. By default, the time interval is set to 30
days.
Note - Setting the interval to manual disables automatic scrubbing.
When you set the time interval, you must use only a single time unit, not a combination of
units.
■ Incorrect
$ zpool set scrubinterval=1w3d

■ Correct
$ zpool set scrubinterval=10d

■ lastscrub is a read-only property that specifies the start time of the last scrub that either
completed successfully or was canceled. The system uses this value to calculate the next
scrubbing based on the specified interval.
You can manually start the scrub operation outside of the scheduled time. The operation would
fail if a scheduled scrub is already in progress.
Just like with a manual scrub, you can cancel an ongoing scheduled scrub. In this case, a scrub
operation will be scheduled to run at the next period as specified by the interval and calculated
from the start time of the canceled scrub. To cancel an ongoing scrub operation, you use the
following command:
$ zpool scrub -s
A scheduled scrub runs only when no other scrub or a resilver operation is in progress. When
you initiate a resilver operation, an ongoing scheduled scrub is immediately canceled, and will
restart after the resliver completes.
ZFS Data Scrubbing and Resilvering
When a device is replaced, a resilvering operation is initiated to move data from the good
copies to the new device. This action is a form of disk scrubbing. Therefore, only one such
action can occur at a given time in the pool. If a scrubbing operation is in progress, a resilvering
operation suspends the current scrubbing and restarts it after the resilvering is completed.
For more information about resilvering, see “Viewing Resilvering Status” on page 252.
Repairing Corrupted ZFS Data
Data corruption occurs when one or more device errors (indicating one or more missing or
damaged devices) affects a top-level virtual device. For example, one half of a mirror can
experience thousands of device errors without ever causing data corruption. If an error is
encountered on the other side of the mirror in the exact same location, corrupted data is the
result.
Data corruption is always permanent and requires special consideration during repair. Even if
the underlying devices are repaired or replaced, the original data is lost forever. Most often, this
scenario requires restoring data from backups. Data errors are recorded as they are encountered,
and they can be controlled through routine pool scrubbing as explained in the following section.
When a corrupted block is removed, the next scrubbing pass recognizes that the corruption is no
longer present and removes any trace of the error from the system.
The following sections describe how to identify the type of data corruption and how to repair
the data, if possible.
■ “Identifying the Type of Data Corruption” on page 264.

■ “Repairing a Corrupted File or Directory” on page 265.
■ “Repairing ZFS Storage Pool-Wide Damage” on page 266.
ZFS uses checksums, redundancy, and self-healing data to minimize the risk of data corruption.
Nonetheless, data corruption can occur if a pool isn't redundant, if corruption occurred while
a pool was degraded, or an unlikely series of events conspired to corrupt multiple copies of
a piece of data. Regardless of the source, the result is the same: The data is corrupted and
therefore no longer accessible. The action taken depends on the type of data being corrupted
and its relative value. Two basic types of data can be corrupted:
■ Pool metadata – ZFS requires a certain amount of data to be parsed to open a pool and
access datasets. If this data is corrupted, the entire pool or portions of the dataset hierarchy
will become unavailable.
■ Object data – In this case, the corruption is within a specific file or directory. This problem
might result in a portion of the file or directory being inaccessible, or this problem might
cause the object to be broken altogether.
Data is verified during normal operations as well as through a scrubbing. For information
about how to verify the integrity of pool data, see “Checking ZFS File System
Integrity” on page 259.

Identifying the Type of Data Corruption
By default, the zpool status command shows only that corruption has occurred, but not where
this corruption occurred. For example:

pool: system1
state: ONLINE
config:

c0t5000C500335E106Bd0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c0t5000C500335FC3E7d0 ONLINE 4 0 0
errors: 2 data errors, use '-v' for a list
Each error indicates only that an error occurred at a given point in time. Each error is not
necessarily still present on the system. Under normal circumstances, this is the case. Certain
temporary outages might result in data corruption that is automatically repaired after the outage
ends. A complete scrub of the pool is guaranteed to examine every active block in the pool, so
the error log is reset whenever a scrub finishes. If you determine that the errors are no longer
present, and you don't want to wait for a scrub to complete, reset all errors in the pool by using
the zpool online command.
If the data corruption is in pool-wide metadata, the output is slightly different. For example:
$ zpool status -v morpheus

pool: morpheus
id: 13289416187275223932
state: UNAVAIL
status: The pool metadata is corrupted.
action: The pool cannot be imported due to damaged devices or data.
see: http://support.oracle.com/msg/ZFS-8000-72
config:
morpheus FAULTED corrupted data

c1t10d0 ONLINE
In the case of pool-wide corruption, the pool is placed into the FAULTED state because the pool
cannot provide the required redundancy level.
Repairing a Corrupted File or Directory
If a file or directory is corrupted, the system might still function, depending on the type of
corruption. Any damage is effectively unrecoverable if no good copies of the data exist on the
system. If the data is valuable, you must restore the affected data from backup. Even so, you
might be able to recover from this corruption without restoring the entire pool.
If the damage is within a file data block, then the file can be safely removed, thereby clearing
the error from the system. Use the zpool status -v command to display a list of file names
with persistent errors. For example:
$ zpool status system1 -v

pool: system1
state: ONLINE
config:

c0t5000C500335E106Bd0 ONLINE 0 0 0
c0t5000C500335FC3E7d0 ONLINE 4 0 0

/system1/file.1
/system1/file.2
The list of file names with persistent errors might be described as follows:
■ If the full path to the file is found and the dataset is mounted, the full path to the file is
displayed. For example:
/path1/a.txt
■ If the full path to the file is found, but the dataset is not mounted, then the dataset name with
no preceding slash (/), followed by the path within the dataset to the file, is displayed. For
example:
path1/documents/e.txt

■ If the object number to a file path cannot be successfully translated, either due to an error
or because the object does not have a real file path associated with it, as is the case for a
dnode_t, then the dataset name followed by the object's number is displayed. For example:
path1/dnode:<0x0>
■ If an object in the metaobject set (MOS) is corrupted, then a special tag of <metadata>,
followed by the object number, is displayed.
You can attempt to resolve more minor data corruption by using scrubbing the pool and clearing
the pool errors in multiple iterations. If the first scrub and clear iteration does not resolve the
corrupted files, run them again. For example:
$ zpool clear system1
If the corruption is within a directory or a file's metadata, the only choice is to move the file
elsewhere. You can safely move any file or directory to a less convenient location, allowing the
original object to be restored in its place.
If a damaged file system has corrupted data with multiple block references, such as snapshots,
the zpool status -v command cannot display all corrupted data paths. The current zpool
status reporting of corrupted data is limited by the amount of metadata corruption and if any
blocks have been reused after the zpool status command is executed. Deduplicated blocks
makes reporting all corrupted data even more complicated.
If you have corrupted data and the zpool status -v command identifies that snapshot data is
impacted, then considering running the following command to identify additional corrupted
paths:
$ find mount-point -inum $inode -print
$ find mount-point/.zfs/snapshot -inum $inode -print
The first command searches for the inode number of the reported corrupted data in the specified
file system and all its snapshots. The second command searches for snapshots with the same
inode number.
Repairing ZFS Storage Pool-Wide Damage

If the damage is in pool metadata and that damage prevents the pool from being opened or
imported, then the following options are available to you:
■ You can attempt to recover the pool by using the zpool clear -F command or the zpool
import -F command. These commands attempt to roll back the last few pool transactions
to an operational state. You can use the zpool status command to review a damaged pool
and the recommended recovery steps. For example:
$ zpool status
pool: storpool
state: UNAVAIL
status: The pool metadata is corrupted and the pool cannot be opened.
action: Recovery is possible, but will result in some data loss.
Returning the pool to its state as of Fri Jun 29 17:22:49 2012
should correct the problem. Approximately 5 seconds of data
must be discarded, irreversibly. Recovery can be attempted
by executing 'zpool clear -F tpool'. A scrub of the pool
is strongly recommended after recovery.
see: http://support.oracle.com/msg/ZFS-8000-72
config:

storpool UNAVAIL 0 0 1 corrupted data
c1t1d0 ONLINE 0 0 2
c1t3d0 ONLINE 0 0 4
The recovery process as described in the preceding output is to use the following command:
$ zpool clear -F storpool
If you attempt to import a damaged storage pool, you will see messages similar to the
following:
$ zpool import storpool

cannot import 'storpool': I/O error
Recovery is possible, but will result in some data loss.
Returning the pool to its state as of Fri Jun 29 17:22:49 2012
should correct the problem. Approximately 5 seconds of data
must be discarded, irreversibly. Recovery can be attempted
by executing 'zpool import -F storpool'. A scrub of the pool
is strongly recommended after recovery.
The recovery process as described in the preceding output is to use the following command:
$ zpool import -F storpool

Pool storpool returned to its state as of Fri Jun 29 17:22:49 2012.
Discarded approximately 5 seconds of transactions
If the damaged pool is in the zpool.cache file, the problem is discovered when the system
is booted, and the damaged pool is reported in the zpool status command. If the pool isn't

Repairing a Damaged ZFS Configuration
in the zpool.cache file, it won't successfully import or open and you will see the damaged
pool messages when you attempt to import the pool.
■ You can import a damaged pool in read-only mode. This method enables you to import the
pool so that you can access the data. For example:
$ zpool import -o readonly=on storpool
For more information about importing a pool read-only, see “Importing a Pool in Read-Only
Mode” on page 77.
■ You can import a pool with a missing log device by using the zpool import -m command.
For more information, see “Importing a Pool With a Missing Log Device” on page 76.
■ If the pool cannot be recovered by either pool recovery method, you must restore the pool
and all its data from a backup copy. The mechanism you use varies widely depending on
the pool configuration and backup strategy. First, save the configuration as displayed by the
zpool status command so that you can re-create it after the pool is destroyed. Then, use
the zpool destroy -f command to destroy the pool.
Also, keep a file describing the layout of the datasets and the various locally set properties
somewhere safe, as this information will become inaccessible if the pool is ever rendered
inaccessible. With the pool configuration and dataset layout, you can reconstruct your
complete configuration after destroying the pool. The data can then be populated by using
whatever backup or restoration strategy you use.
Repairing a Damaged ZFS Configuration
ZFS maintains a cache of active pools and their configuration in the root file system. If this
cache file is corrupted or somehow becomes out of sync with configuration information that
is stored on disk, the pool can no longer be opened. ZFS tries to avoid this situation, though
arbitrary corruption is always possible given the qualities of the underlying storage. This
situation typically results in a pool disappearing from the system when it should otherwise be
available. This situation can also manifest as a partial configuration that is missing an unknown
number of top-level virtual devices. In either case, the configuration can be recovered by
exporting the pool (if it is visible at all) and re-importing it.
For information about importing and exporting pools, see “Migrating ZFS Storage
Pools” on page 73.
Repairing an Unbootable System
Repairing an Unbootable System
ZFS is designed to be robust and stable despite errors. Even so, software bugs or certain
unexpected problems might cause the system to panic when a pool is accessed. As part of the
boot process, each pool must be opened, which means that such failures will cause a system to
enter into a panic-reboot loop. To recover from this situation, ZFS must be informed not to look
for any pools on startup.
ZFS maintains an internal cache of available pools and their configurations in /etc/zfs/
zpool.cache. The location and contents of this file are private and are subject to change. If the
system becomes unbootable, boot to the milestone none by using the -m milestone=none boot
option. After the system is up, remount your root file system as writable and then rename or
move the /etc/zfs/zpool.cache file to another location. These actions cause ZFS to forget
that any pools exist on the system, preventing it from trying to access the unhealthy pool
causing the problem. You can then proceed to a normal system state by issuing the svcadm
milestone all command. You can use a similar process when booting from an alternate root to
perform repairs.
After the system is up, you can attempt to import the pool by using the zpool import
command. However, doing so will likely cause the same error that occurred during boot,
because the command uses the same mechanism to access pools. If multiple pools exist on the
system, do the following:
■ Rename or move the zpool.cache file to another location as discussed in the preceding text.
■ Determine which pool might have problems by using the fmdump -eV command to display
the pools with reported fatal errors.
■ Import the pools one by one, skipping the pools that are having problems, as described in
the fmdump output.

♦ ♦ ♦
12
C H A P T E R 1 2
Recommended Oracle Solaris ZFS Practices
This chapter describes recommended practices for creating, monitoring, and maintaining your
ZFS storage pools and file systems.
■ “Recommended Storage Pool Practices”.
■ “Recommended File System Practices”.
For general ZFS tuning information that includes tuning for an Oracle database, see Chapter 3,
“Oracle Solaris ZFS Tunable Parameters” in Oracle Solaris 11.4 Tunable Parameters Reference
Manual.
Recommended Storage Pool Practices

The following sections provide recommended practices for creating and monitoring ZFS
storage pools. For information about troubleshooting storage pool problems, see Chapter 11,
“Oracle Solaris ZFS Troubleshooting and Pool Recovery”.
General System Practices

■ Keep system up-to-date with latest Oracle Solaris updates and releases
■ Confirm that your controller honors cache flush commands so that you know your data is
safely written, which is important before changing the pool's devices or splitting a mirrored
storage pool. This is generally not a problem on Oracle/Sun hardware, but it is good practice
to confirm that your hardware's cache flushing setting is enabled.
■ Size memory requirements to actual system workload
■ With a known application memory footprint, such as for a database application, you
might cap the ARC size so that the application will not need to reclaim its necessary
memory from the ZFS cache.
■ Consider deduplication memory requirements
Chapter 12 • Recommended Oracle Solaris ZFS Practices 271

■ Identify ZFS memory usage with the following command:
$ mdb -k
> ::memstat
Page Summary Pages MB %Tot
------------ ---------------- ---------------- ----
Kernel 388117 1516 19%
ZFS File Data 81321 317 4%
Anon 29928 116 1%
Exec and libs 1359 5 0%
Page cache 4890 19 0%
Free (cachelist) 6030 23 0%
Free (freelist) 1581183 6176 76%
Total 2092828 8175

Physical 2092827 8175
> $q
■ See Document 1663862.1, Memory Management Between ZFS and Applications
in Oracle Solaris 11.x, in My Oracle Support (MOS) for tips on tuning the ZFS
ARC cache. This document includes a script which you can use to modify the
user_reserver_hint_pct memory management parameter.
■ Consider using ECC memory to protect against memory corruption. Silent memory
corruption can potentially damage your data.
■ Perform regular backups – Although a pool that is created with ZFS redundancy can help
reduce down time due to hardware failures, it is not immune to hardware failures, power
failures, or disconnected cables. Make sure you backup your data on a regular basis. If your
data is important, it should be backed up. Different ways to provide copies of your data are:
■ Regular or daily ZFS snapshots
■ Weekly backups of ZFS pool data. You can use the zpool split command to create an
exact duplicate of ZFS mirrored storage pool.
■ Monthly backups by using an enterprise-level backup product
■ Hardware RAID
■ ZFS redundancy is recommended over hardware RAID for the following reasons:
■ When ZFS manages the storage redundancy, it not only detects underlying hardware
issues but can also repair data inconsistencies.
■ Using ZFS redundancy has many benefits. For production environments, configure
ZFS so that it can repair data inconsistencies. Use ZFS redundancy, such as RAID-Z,
RAID-Z-2, RAID-Z-3, or mirroring. With such redundancy, faults in the underlying
storage device or its connections to the host can be discovered and repaired by ZFS.
■ If you must use hardware RAID, present devices in JBOD mode so ZFS can manage the
redundancy. In addition, follow these recommendations:
■ Monitor both the ZFS storage pool by using zpool status and the underlying
LUNs by using your hardware RAID monitoring tools.
■ Promptly replace any failed devices.
■ Scrub your ZFS storage pools routinely, such as monthly, if you are using datacenter
quality services.
■ Always have good, recent backups of your important data.
See also “Pool Creation Practices on Local or Network Attached Storage
Arrays” on page 276.
■ Crash dumps consume more disk space, generally in the 1/2-3/4 size of physical memory
range.
ZFS Storage Pool Creation Practices

The following sections provide general and more specific pool practices.
General Storage Pool Practices

■ Use whole disks to enable disk write cache and provide easier maintenance. Creating pools
on slices adds complexity to disk management and recovery.
■ Use ZFS redundancy so that ZFS can repair data inconsistencies.
■ The following message is displayed when a non-redundant pool is created:
$ zpool create system1 c4t1d0 c4t3d0

'system1' successfully created, but with no redundancy; failure
of one device will cause loss of the pool
■ For mirrored pools, use mirrored disk pairs
■ For RAID-Z pools, group 3-9 disks per VDEV
■ Do not mix RAID-Z and mirrored components within the same pool. These pools are
harder to manage and performance might suffer.
■ Use hot spares to reduce down time due to hardware failures
■ Use similar size disks so that I/O is balanced across devices
■ Smaller LUNs can be expanded to large LUNs
■ Do not expand LUNs from extremely varied sizes, such as 128 MB to 2 TB, to keep
optimal metaslab sizes
■ Consider creating a small root pool and larger data pools to support faster system recovery
■ Recommended minimum pool size is 8 GB. Although the minimum pool size is 64 MB,
anything less than 8 GB makes allocating and reclaiming free pool space more difficult.

■ Recommended maximum pool size should comfortably fit your workload or data size. Do
not try to store more data than you can routinely back up on a regular basis. Otherwise, your
data is at risk due to some unforeseen event.
See also “Pool Creation Practices on Local or Network Attached Storage

Arrays” on page 276.
Root Pool Creation Practices

■ SPARC (SMI (VTOC)): Create root pools with slices by using the s* identifier. Do not use
the p* identifier. In general, a system's ZFS root pool is created when the system is installed.
If you are creating a second root pool or re-creating a root pool, use syntax similar to the
following on a SPARC system:
$ zpool create rpool c0t1d0s0
Or, create a mirrored root pool. For example:

$ zpool create rpool mirror c0t1d0s0 c0t2d0s0
■ Oracle Solaris 11.1 x86 (EFI (GPT)): Create root pools with whole disks by using the d*
identifier. Do not use the p* identifier. In general, a system's ZFS root pool is created when
the system is installed. If you are creating a second root pool or re-creating a root pool, use
syntax similar to the following:
$ zpool create rpool c0t1d0
Or, create a mirrored root pool. For example:

$ zpool create rpool mirror c0t1d0 c0t2d0
■ The root pool must be created as a mirrored configuration or as a single-disk configuration.
Neither a RAID-Z nor a striped configuration is supported. You cannot add additional disks
to create multiple mirrored top-level virtual devices by using the zpool add command, but
you can expand a mirrored virtual device by using the zpool attach command.
■ The root pool cannot have a separate log device.
■ Pool properties can be set during an AI installation, but the gzip compression algorithm is
not supported on root pools.
■ Do not rename the root pool after it is created by an initial installation. Renaming the root
pool might cause an unbootable system.
■ Do not create a root pool on a USB stick on a production system because root pool disks
are critical for continuous operation, particularly in an enterprise environment. Consider
using a system's internal disks for the root pool, or at least, use the same quality disks that
you would use for your non-root data. In addition, a USB stick might not be large enough to
support a dump volume size that is equivalent to at least 1/2 the size of physical memory.
■ Rather than adding a hot spare to a root pool, consider creating a two- or a three-way mirror
root pool. In addition, do not share a hot spare between a root pool and a data pool.
■ Do not use a VMware thinly-provisioned device for a root pool device.
Non-Root Pool Creation Practices
■ Create non-root pools with whole disks by using the d* identifier. Do not use the p*
identifier.
■ ZFS works best without any additional volume management software.
■ For better performance, use individual disks or at least LUNs made up of just a few
disks. By providing ZFS with more visibility into the LUNs setup, ZFS is able to make
better I/O scheduling decisions.
■ Create redundant pool configurations across multiple controllers to reduce down time due to
a controller failure.
■ Mirrored storage pools – Consume more disk space but generally perform better with
small random reads.
$ zpool create system1 mirror c1d0 c2d0 mirror c3d0 c4d0

■ RAID-Z storage pools – Can be created with 3 parity strategies, where parity equals
1 raidz), 2 raidz2), or 3 raidz3). A RAID-Z configuration maximizes disk space and
generally performs well when data is written and read in large chunks (128K or more).
■ Consider a single-parity RAID-Z raidz) configuration with 2 VDEVs of 3 disks
(2+1) each.
$ zpool create rzpool raidz1 c1t0d0 c2t0d0 c3t0d0 raidz1 c1t1d0 c2t1d0 c3t1d0
■ A RAIDZ-2 configuration offers better data availability, and performs similarly
to RAID-Z. RAIDZ-2 has significantly better mean time to data loss (MTTDL)
than either RAID-Z or 2-way mirrors. Create a double-parity RAID-Z raidz2)
configuration at 6 disks (4+2).
$ zpool create rzpool raidz2 c0t1d0 c1t1d0 c4t1d0 c5t1d0 c6t1d0 c7t1d0
raidz2 c0t2d0 c1t2d0 c4t2d0 c5t2d0 c6t2d0 c7t2d
■ A RAIDZ-3 configuration maximizes disk space and offers excellent availability
because it can withstand 3 disk failures. Create a triple-parity RAID-Z (raidz3)
configuration at 9 disks (6+3).
$ zpool create rzpool raidz3 c0t0d0 c1t0d0 c2t0d0 c3t0d0 c4t0d0

c5t0d0 c6t0d0 c7t0d0 c8t0d0

Pool Creation Practices on Local or Network Attached

Storage Arrays
Consider the following storage pool practices when creating an a ZFS storage pool on a storage
array that is connected locally or remotely.
■ If you create an pool on SAN devices and the network connection is slow, the pool's devices
might be UNAVAIL for a period of time. You need to assess whether the network connection
is appropriate for providing your data in a continuous fashion. Also, consider that if you are
using SAN devices for your root pool, they might not be available as soon as the system is
booted and the root pool's devices might also be UNAVAIL.
■ Confirm with your array vendor that the disk array is not flushing its cache after a flush
write cache request is issued by ZFS.
■ Use whole disks, not disk slices, as storage pool devices so that Oracle Solaris ZFS activates
the local small disk caches, which get flushed at appropriate times.
■ For best performance, create one LUN for each physical disk in the array. Using only one
large LUN can cause ZFS to queue up too few read I/O operations to actually drive the
storage to optimal performance. Conversely, using many small LUNs could have the effect
of swamping the storage with a large number of pending read I/O operations.
■ A storage array that uses dynamic (or thin) provisioning software to implement virtual space
allocation is not recommended for Oracle Solaris ZFS. When Oracle Solaris ZFS writes
the modified data to free space, it writes to the entire LUN. The Oracle Solaris ZFS write
process allocates all the virtual space from the storage array's point of view, which negates
the benefit of dynamic provisioning.
Consider that dynamic provisioning software might be unnecessary when using ZFS:
■ You can expand a LUN in an existing ZFS storage pool and it will use the new space.
■ Similar behavior works when a smaller LUN is replaced with a larger LUN.
■ If you assess the storage needs for your pool and create the pool with smaller LUNs that
equal the required storage needs, then you can always expand the LUNs to a larger size
if you need more space.
■ Present individual devices in JBOD-mode and configure ZFS storage redundancy (mirror or
RAID-Z) on this type of array so that ZFS can report and correct data inconsistencies.
Pool Creation Practices for an Oracle Database
Consider the following storage pool practices when creating an Oracle database.
■ Use a mirrored pool or hardware RAID for pools

■ RAID-Z pools are generally not recommended for random read workloads
■ Create a small separate pool with a separate log device for database redo logs
■ Create a small separate pool for the archive log
For more information about tuning ZFS for an Oracle database, see “Tuning ZFS for Database
Products” in Oracle Solaris 11.4 Tunable Parameters Reference Manual.
Using ZFS Storage Pools in VirtualBox

■ Virtual Box is configured to ignore cache flush commands from the underlying storage by
default. This means that in the event of a system crash or a hardware failure, data could be
lost.
■ Enable cache flushing on Virtual Box by issuing the following command:
VBoxManage setextradata vm-name "VBoxInternal/Devices/type/0/LUN#n/Config/

IgnoreFlush" 0
■ vm-name – the name of the virtual machine

■ type – the controller type, either piix3ide (if you're using the usual IDE virtual
controller) or ahci, if you're using a SATA controller
■ n – the disk number
Storage Pool Practices for Performance

■ In general, keep pool capacity below 90% for best performance. The percentage where
performance might be impacted depends greatly on workload:
■ If data is mostly added (write once, remove never), then it's very easy for ZFS to find
new blocks. In this case, the percentage can be higher than normal; maybe up to 95%.
■ If data is made of large files or large blocks (such as 128K files or 1MB blocks) and the
data is removed in bulk operations, the percentage can be higher than normal; maybe up
to 95%.
■ If a large percentage (more than 50%) of the pool is made up of 8k chunks (DBfiles,
iSCSI Luns, or many small files) and have constant rewrites, then the 90% rule should
be followed strictly.
■ If all of the data is small blocks that have constant rewrites, then you should monitor
your pool closely once the capacity gets over 80%. The sign to watch for is increased
disk IOPS to achieve the same level of client IOPS.
■ Mirrored pools are recommended over RAID-Z pools for random read/write workloads
■ Separate log devices
■ Recommended to improve synchronous write performance

■ With a high synchronous write load, prevents fragmentation of writing many log blocks
in the main pool
■ Separate cache devices are recommended to improve read performance
■ Scrub/resilver - A very large RAID-Z pool with lots of devices will have longer scrub and
resilver times
■ Pool performance is slow – Use the zpool status command to rule out any hardware
problems that are causing pool performance problems. If no problems show up in the zpool
status command, use the fmdump command to display hardware faults or use the fmdump
-eV command to review any hardware errors that have not yet resulted in a reported fault.
ZFS Storage Pool Maintenance and Monitoring

Practices
■ Make sure that pool capacity is below 90% for best performance.
Pool performance can degrade when a pool is very full and file systems are updated
frequently, such as on a busy mail server. Full pools might cause a performance penalty,
but no other issues. If the primary workload is immutable files, then keep pool in the 95-
96% utilization range. Even with mostly static content in the 95-96% range, write, read, and
resilvering performance might suffer.
■ Monitor pool and file system space to make sure that they are not full.
■ Consider using ZFS quotas and reservations to make sure file system space does not
exceed 90% pool capacity.
■ Monitor pool health
■ Monitor a redundant pool with zpool status and fmdump at least once per week
■ Monitor a non-redundant pool with zpool status and fmdump at least twice per week
■ Run zpool scrub on a regular basis to identify data integrity problems.
■ If you have consumer-quality drives, consider a weekly scrubbing schedule.
■ If you have datacenter-quality drives, consider a monthly scrubbing schedule.
■ You should also run a scrub prior to replacing devices or temporarily reducing a pool's
redundancy to ensure that all devices are currently operational.
■ Monitoring pool or device failures - Use zpool status as described below. Also use
fmdump or fmdump -eV to see if any device faults or errors have occurred.
■ Redundant pools, monitor pool health with zpool status and fmdump on a weekly basis
■ Non-redundant pools, monitor pool health with zpool status and fmdump on a
semiweekly basis
Recommended File System Practices
■ Pool device is UNAVAIL or OFFLINE – If a pool device is not available, then check to see if
the device is listed in the format command output. If the device is not listed in the format
output, then it will not be visible to ZFS.
If a pool device has UNAVAIL or OFFLINE, then this generally means that the device has failed
or cable has disconnected, or some other hardware problem, such as a bad cable or bad
controller has caused the device to be inaccessible.
■ Consider configuring the smtp-notify service to notify you when a hardware component is
diagnosed as faulty. For more information, see the Notification Parameters section of smf(7)
and smtp-notify(8).
By default, some notifications are set up automatically to be sent to the root user. If you
add an alias for your user account as root in the /etc/aliases file, you will receive
electronic mail notifications with information similar to the following:
SUNW-MSG-ID: ZFS-8000-8A, TYPE: Fault, VER: 1, SEVERITY: Critical

EVENT-TIME: Fri Jun 29 16:58:58 MDT 2012
...
SOURCE: zfs-diagnosis, REV: 1.0
EVENT-ID: 76c2d1d1-4631-4220-dbbc-a3574b1ee807
DESC: A file or directory in pool 'pond' could not be read due to corrupt data.
AUTO-RESPONSE: No automated response will occur.
IMPACT: The file or directory is unavailable.
REC-ACTION: Use 'fmadm faulty' to provide a more detailed view of this event.
Run 'zpool status -xv' and examine the list of damaged files to determine what
has been affected. Please refer to the associated reference document at
http://support.oracle.com/msg/ZFS-8000-8A for the latest service procedures
and policies regarding this diagnosis.
■ Monitor your storage pool space – Use the zpool list command and the zfs list
command to identify how much disk is consumed by file system data. ZFS snapshots can
consume disk space and if they are not listed by the zfs list command, they can silently
consume disk space. Use the zfs list -t snapshot command to identify disk space that is
consumed by snapshots.

The following sections describe recommended file system practices.

Root File System Practices

■ Consider keeping the root file system small and isolated from other non-root related data so
that root pool recovery is faster.
■ Do not include file systems in rpool/ROOT, which is a special container that requires no
administration and should not contain any additional components.
File System Creation Practices

The following sections describe ZFS file system creation practices.
■ Create one file system per user for home directories

■ Consider using file system quotas and reservations to manage and reserve disk space for
important file systems
■ Consider using user and group quotas to manage disk space in an environment with many
users
■ Use ZFS property inheritance to apply properties to many descendant file systems
File System Creation Practices for an Oracle

Database
Consider the following file system practices when creating an Oracle database.
■ Match the ZFS recordsize property to the Oracle db_block_size.

■ Create database table and index file systems in main database pool, using an 8 KB
recordsize and the default primarycache value.
■ Create temp data and undo table space file systems in the main database pool, using default
recordsize and primarycache values.
■ Create archive log file system in the archive pool, enabling compression and default
recordsize value and primarycache set to metadata.
Monitoring ZFS File System Practices

You should monitor your ZFS file systems to ensure they are available and to identify space
consumption issues.
■ Weekly, monitor file system space availability with the zpool list and zfs list
commands rather than the du and df commands because legacy commands do not account
for space that is consumed by descendant file systems or snapshots.
For more information, see “Resolving ZFS Space Issues” on page 255.
■ Display file system space consumption by using the zfs list -o space command.
■ File system space can be unknowingly consumed by snapshots. You can display all dataset
information by using the following syntax:
$ zfs list -t all

■ A separate /var file system is created automatically when a system is installed, but you
should set a quota and reservation on this file system to ensure that it does not unknowingly
consume root pool space.
■ In addition, you can use the fsstat command to display file operation activity of ZFS file
systems. Activity can be reported by mount point or by file system type. The following
example shows general ZFS file system activity:
$ fsstat /
new name name attr attr lookup rddir read read write write
file remov chng get set ops ops ops bytes ops bytes
832 589 286 837K 3.23K 2.62M 20.8K 1.15M 1.75G 62.5K 348M /
■ Backups
■ Keep file system snapshots
■ Consider enterprise-level software for weekly and monthly backups
■ Store root pool snapshots on a remote system for bare metal recovery

♦ ♦ ♦
A
A P P E N D I X A
Using Time Slider
This appendix describes Time Slider as a tool for certain snapshot management tasks. The
appendix covers the following topics:
■ “About Time Slider”
■ “Enabling and Disabling Time Slider”
■ “Using Time Slider Advanced Options”
About Time Slider

Time Slider provides a graphical way for Oracle Solaris desktop users to restore individual
files or directories from automatically scheduled, incremental snapshots of home directories. If
enabled, Time Slider takes a snapshot of every ZFS file system every 15 minutes, by default.
These snapshots are then deleted again over time, such that only one snapshot is kept for each
of the previous 24 hours, one for each of the previous 7 days, and one for each previous week
that the Time Slider service was running.
Time Slider can automate periodic snapshots for any ZFS file system, including boot
environments, even on non-desktop systems.
Note - If you install the desktop/time-slider package, some desktop component

dependencies might also be included in the installation.
Time Slider uses the following SMF services:

■ svc:/system/filesystem/zfs/auto-snapshot:frequent: Takes one snapshot every 15
minutes
■ svc:/system/filesystem/zfs/auto-snapshot:hourly: Takes one snapshot every hour
■ svc:/system/filesystem/zfs/auto-snapshot:daily: Takes one snapshot every day
■ svc:/system/filesystem/zfs/auto-snapshot:weekly: Takes one snapshot every week
■ svc:/system/filesystem/zfs/auto-snapshot:monthly: Takes one snapshot every month
Appendix A • Using Time Slider 283

Enabling and Disabling Time Slider
■ svc:/application/time-slider:default: Manages automatic deletion of snapshots

■ svc:/application/time-slider/plugin:rsync: Replicates each snapshot automatically to
a specified external storage device
Enabling and Disabling Time Slider

To configure Time Slider, you must be assigned the Time Slider Management rights profile. If
the profile requires authentication, you will be prompted for a password to gain access to the
configuration dialogs.
By default, Time Slider is disabled. To enable it, follow this procedure:
How to Enable or Disable Time Slider

1. On the desktop, click Activities to display the dock.
2. From the dock, click Show Applications, and then click Time Slider.
3. Select or deselect the Enable Time Slider option.
4. Click OK to select default settings.
Using Time Slider Advanced Options

Time Slider takes frequent snapshots of all the attached ZFS file systems These snapshots are
taken every 15 minutes, hourly, daily, and weekly.
In turn, automatic snapshots are deleted as follows:

■ frequent snapshots are deleted after 1 hour
■ hourly snapshots are deleted after 1 day
■ daily snapshots are deleted after 1 week
■ weekly snapshots are deleted after 1 month
■ Older snapshots are deleted when the file system becomes more than 80% full
When enabled, Time Slider provides a set of advanced options so you can customize snapshot
processes as illustrated in the following figure:
■ Select Replicate backups to an external drive to specify a different destination drive to store
the snapshots.
■ Select Custom to choose which files will have snapshots instead of using the default setting
that creates snapshots for all files.
Appendix A • Using Time Slider 285

■ Change the percentage number to set a threshold for storage capacity consumption which,
when exceeded, triggers the deletion of older snapshots.
■ Click Delete Snapshots to display a list of existing snapshots from which you can select
those you want to delete.
Note - Restoring snapshots is no longer supported in the desktop. To restore snapshots, as well
as perform other snapshot management tasks, you will need to use the command line. See
Chapter 8, “Working With Oracle Solaris ZFS Snapshots and Clones”.
♦ ♦ ♦
B
A P P E N D I X B
Oracle Solaris ZFS Version Descriptions
This appendix describes available ZFS versions, features of each version, and the Oracle Solaris
OS that provides the ZFS version and feature.
This appendix covers the following topics:
■ “Overview of ZFS Versions” on page 287.
■ “ZFS Pool Versions” on page 287.
■ “ZFS File System Versions” on page 289.
Overview of ZFS Versions
New ZFS pool and file system features are introduced and accessible by using a specific ZFS
version that is available in Oracle Solaris releases. You can use the zpool upgrade or zfs
upgrade to identify whether a pool or file system is at lower version than the currently running
Oracle Solaris release provides. You can also use these commands to upgrade your pool and file
system versions.
For information about using the zpool upgrade and zfs upgrade commands, see “Upgrading
ZFS File Systems” on page 172 and “Upgrading ZFS Storage Pools” on page 80.
ZFS Pool Versions

The following table provides a list of ZFS pool versions that are available in the Oracle Solaris
release. This list can be created using the zpool upgrade -v command.
Version Oracle Solaris Release Description

1 Solaris 10 6/06 Initial ZFS version
2 Solaris 10 11/06 Ditto blocks (replicated metadata)
Appendix B • Oracle Solaris ZFS Version Descriptions 287

ZFS Pool Versions

3 Solaris 10 11/06 Hot spares and double parity RAID-Z
4 Solaris 10 8/07 zpool history
5 Solaris 10 10/08 gzip compression algorithm
6 Solaris 10 10/08 bootfs pool property
7 Solaris 10 10/08 Separate intent log devices
8 Solaris 10 10/08 Delegated administration
9 Solaris 10 10/08 refquota and refreservation properties
10 Solaris 10 5/09 Cache devices
11 Solaris 10 10/09 Improved scrub performance
12 Solaris 10 10/09 Snapshot properties
13 Solaris 10 10/09 snapused property
14 Solaris 10 10/09 aclinherit passthrough-x property
15 Solaris 10 10/09 user and group space accounting
16 Solaris 10 9/10 stmf property
17 Solaris 10 9/10 Triple-parity RAID-Z
18 Solaris 10 9/10 Snapshot user holds
19 Solaris 10 9/10 Log device removal
20 Solaris 10 9/10 zle (zero-length encoding) compression algorithm
21 Solaris 10 9/10 Deduplication
22 Solaris 10 9/10 Received properties
23 Solaris 10 8/11 Slim ZIL
24 Solaris 10 8/11 System attributes
25 Solaris 10 8/11 Improved scrub stats
26 Solaris 10 8/11 Improved snapshot deletion performance
27 Solaris 10 8/11 Improved snapshot creation performance
28 Solaris 10 8/11 Multiple vdev replacements
29 Solaris 10 8/11 RAID-Z/mirror hybrid allocator
30 Solaris 11 11/11 Encryption
31 Solaris 10 1/13 Improved 'zfs list' performance
32 Solaris 10 1/13 One MB blocksize
33 Oracle Solaris 11 11/11 Improved share support
34 Oracle Solaris 11.1 Sharing with inheritance
35 Oracle Solaris 11.2 Sequential resilver
36 Oracle Solaris 11.3 Efficient log block allocation
37 Oracle Solaris 11.3 lz4 compression
38 Oracle Solaris 11.4 xcopy with encryption
39 Oracle Solaris 11.4 reduce resilver restart
ZFS File System Versions

40 Oracle Solaris 11.4 Deduplication 2
41 Oracle Solaris 11.4 Asynchronous dataset destroy
42 Oracle Solaris 11.4 Support for reguid
43 Oracle Solaris 11.4 RAID-Z enhancements and cloud device support
44 Oracle Solaris 11.4 Device Removal
45 Oracle Solaris 11.4 SRU Lazy deadlists
11
46 Oracle Solaris 11.4 SRU Compact file metadata for encryption
12
47 Oracle Solaris 11.4 SRU Property support for ZFS volumes
21
ZFS File System Versions

The following table lists the ZFS file system versions that are available in the Oracle Solaris
release. Keep in mind that a feature that is available in a specific file system version requires a
specific pool version.This list can be created using the zfs upgrade -v command.

1 Solaris 10 6/06 Initial ZFS file system version
2 Solaris 10 10/08 Enhanced directory entries
3 Solaris 10 10/08 Case insensitivity and file system unique identifier (FUID)
4 Solaris 10 10/09 userquota and groupquota properties
5 Solaris 10 8/11 System attributes
6 Oracle Solaris 11.1 Multilevel file system support
Appendix B • Oracle Solaris ZFS Version Descriptions 289

ZFS Glossary
B
boot A bootable Oracle Solaris environment consisting of a ZFS root file system and, optionally,
environment other file systems mounted underneath it. Exactly one boot environment can be active at a time.
C
checksum A 256-bit hash of the data in a file system block. The checksum capability can range from the
simple and fast fletcher4 (the default) to cryptographically strong hashes such as SHA256.
clone A file system whose initial contents are identical to the contents of a snapshot.
For information about clones, see “Overview of ZFS Clones” on page 184.
D
dataset A generic name for the following ZFS components: clones, file systems, snapshots, and
volumes. Each dataset is identified by a unique name in the ZFS namespace.
For more information about datasets, see Chapter 7, “Managing Oracle Solaris ZFS File
Systems”.
deduplication The process of eliminating duplicate blocks of data in a ZFS file system. After removing
duplicate blocks, the unique blocks are stored in the deduplication table.
F
file system A ZFS dataset of type filesystem that is mounted within the standard system namespace and
behaves like other file systems.
Glossary 291
mirror
For more information about file systems, see Chapter 7, “Managing Oracle Solaris ZFS File
Systems”.
M
mirror A virtual device that stores identical copies of data on two or more disks. If any disk in a mirror
fails, any other disk in that mirror can provide the same data.
P
pool A logical group of devices describing the layout and physical characteristics of the available
storage. Disk space for datasets is allocated from a pool.
For more information about storage pools, see Chapter 5, “Managing Oracle Solaris ZFS
Storage Pools”.
R
RAID-Z A virtual device that stores data and parity on multiple disks. For more information about
RAID-Z, see “RAID-Z Storage Pool Configuration” on page 20.
resilvering The process of copying data from one device to another device. For example, if a mirror device
is replaced or taken offline, the data from an up-to-date mirror device is copied to the newly
restored mirror device. In traditional volume management products, this process is referred to
as mirror resynchronization.
For more information about ZFS resilvering, see “Viewing Resilvering Status” on page 252.
root pool A ZFS pool that contains the boot file system.
S
snapshot A read-only copy of a file system or volume at a given point in time.
For more information about snapshots, see “Overview of ZFS Snapshots” on page 175.
volume
V
virtual device A logical device in a pool, which can be a physical device, a file, or a collection of devices.
For more information about virtual devices, see “Querying ZFS Storage Pool
volume A dataset that represents a block device. For example, you can create a ZFS volume as a swap
device.
For more information about ZFS volumes, see “ZFS Volumes” on page 219.
Glossary 293
Index
A bootfs property, 60
accessing booting
snapshot, 180 root file system, 100
ACL entries ZFS BE on SPARC systems, 103
aclinherit property, 110
aclmode property, 110
aclinherit property, 110
aclmode property, 110
C
adding cache devices
cache devices, example of, 43 adding, example of, 43
devices to a pool, 41 considerations for using, 35
disks to a RAID-Z configuration, example of, 42 creating a ZFS storage pool with, 35
mirrored log device , 43 removing, example of, 46
ZFS file system to native zones, 223 cachefile property, 60
ZFS volumes to native zones, 225 canmount property
adjusting swap and dump device sizes, 98 description, 111
allocated property, 59 detailed description, 118
alternate root pools, 228 capacity property, 60
altroot property, 60 casesensitivity property
atime property, 110 description, 111
attaching devices to a pool, 46 detailed description, 118
automatic mount points, 134 checking data integrity, 259
automatic naming checksum property, 111
of a ZFS file system, 144 clearing
autoreplace property, 60 device errors, 245
available property, 110 devices in a pool , 52
clones
creating, 184
destroying, 185
B features, 184
bandwidth limits promoting, 185
setting for a dataset, 158 clustered property, 60
boot environment (BE), 89 command history, displaying, 64
bootblocks, installing, 100 components
295
Index
of ZFS storage pools See storage pools validation See data scrubbing and resilvering
ZFS naming requirements, 24 data scrubbing
compressing a ZFS file system automatic, 261
overview, 160 scheduled, 261
compression algorithms dataset
in ZFS, 160 description, 105
compression property, 111 dataset types
compressratio property, 111 description, 126
copies property, 111 datasets
detailed description, 119 delegating to a native zone, 224
crash dumps, saving, 99 dedup property, 112
creating detailed description, 120
alternate root pools, 229 dedupditto property, 60
clones, 184 dedupratio property, 60
double-parity RAID-Z storage pool defaultgroupquota property, 112
example of, 31 defaultuserquota property, 112
file system, 28, 29 delegated administration, 205
hot spares, 55 delegating
mirrored ZFS storage pool, 32 datasets to a native zone, 224
new pool from a split mirrored pool, 48 permissions
single-parity RAID-Z storage pool command description, 209
example of, 31 groups, 211
snapshots, 176 individual users, 210
storage pools, 27, 28 delegation property
cache devices, 35 description, 60
log devices, 33 disabling, 206
triple-parity RAID-Z storage pool destroying
example of, 31 clones, 185
ZFS file system, 106 snapshots, 177
ZFS volumes, 219 storage pools, 38
creation property, 112 ZFS file system, 107
detecting
in-use devices, 37
mismatched redundancy levels, 38
D
device failures
data
determining replaceability, 247
corrupted, 263
types of, 244
duplication type, choosing, 25
devices
identifying corruption, 238
adding to a storage pool, 41
repair, 259
attaching to a pool, 46
saving, 191
detaching from ZFS storage pool, 46
scrubbing and resilvering, 260, 262
detecting in-use devices, 37
self-healing, 20
dump devices, enabling, 99
sending and receiving, 186
Index
log devices, 33 file system

removing from a storage pool, 44 adding to native zones, 223
replaceability of, 247 booting
replacing, 52 root file system, 100
returning online, 51 ZFS BE on SPARC, 103
taking offline, 50 components, 24
devices property, 112 converting to snapshot stream, 188
disks in storage pools See storage pools hierarchy, 25
displaying managing
delegated permissions, 214 properties within a zone, 226
pool migrating, 170
health status, 68, 70 replacing with clones, 185
I/O statistics, 65, 66 rights profiles, 23
syslog reporting of ZFS error messages, 233 snapshots
dump devices See swap and dump devices accessing, 180
dynamic striping, 21 renaming, 179
using with zones installed, 223
files in storage pools See storage pools
free property, 60
E
EFI label
interaction with ZFS, 19
enabling a dump device, 99 G
enabling scheduled scrubbing, 261 guid property, 61
encrypting a ZFS file system, 161 gzip compression algorithm
changing keys, 163 in ZFS, 160
examples of, 167
overview, 161
encryption property, 112 H
errors, clearing, 52 hardware and software requirements, 23
exec property, 112 health property, 61
exporting storage pools, 73 hot spares
activating and deactivating, 56
adding, 55
F detaching, 56
failmode property, 60
failures
corrupted data, 263 I
identifying, 231 I/O limits
missing (UNAVAIL) devices, 242 setting for a dataset, 158
fast reboot feature, x86, 104 identifying
file access time updated storage pool for import, 74
atime property, 110 storage requirements, 25
297
Index
type of data corruption, 264 M

importing migrating
alternate root pools, 229 description, 169
storage pools, 76, 77 file systems, 169, 170
in-use devices, 37 storage pools, 73
inheriting mirrored configuration
ZFS properties for redundancy, 20
description, 129 log devices
installing adding, 43
bootblocks, 100 creating pool with, 33
replacement devices See replacing devices splitting a mirrored pool to create a new pool, 48
root pool, automatic, 84 storage pools, 32
mlslabel property, 112, 122
monitoring
data scrubbing, 203
K
resilvering task, 202
keychangedate property, 112
send stream progress, 202
keysource property, 112 status of stream reception, 202
keystatus property, 112 tasks running on pools, 200
mount points
automatic, 134
L default
legacy mount points, 134 storage pools, 38
listing legacy, 134
descendents of ZFS file systems, 126 managing ZFS
file systems, 30 description, 134
pool information, 29, 61, 62 mounted property, 112
types of ZFS file systems, 127 mounting
ZFS file systems, 125 ZFS file systems, 136
ZFS file systems without header information, 127 mountpoint
ZFS properties, 130 default for ZFS file system, 106
ZFS properties by source value, 132 mountpoint property, 112
ZFS properties for scripting, 133 multilevel property, 113, 122
listshares property, 61
listsnapshots property, 61
log devices N
removing, example of, 45 named shares
log devices, creating a ZFS storage pool with, 33 on a ZFS file system, 143
logbias property, 112 names
lz4 compression algorithm for ZFS file systems, 105
in ZFS, 160 naming requirements of ZFS components, 24
lzjb compression algorithm native zones
in ZFS, 160 adding ZFS file system, 223
Index
delegating datasets to, 224 recursive stream package, 190

nbmand property, 113 redundancy
normalization property, 113 methods, 19
notifying ZFS of reattached device, 243 mismatched levels, 38
referenced property, 114
refquota property, 114
O refreservation property, 114
origin property, 113 rekeydate property, 114
removing
cache devices, 46
devices from a storage pool, 44
P log devices, 45
permission sets, defined, 205 permissions, 210
planning ZFS implementation, 24 renaming
pool properties, list of, 59, 61 snapshots, 179
See also ZFS properties storage pools, 75
primarycache property, 113 ZFS file system, 109
properties of ZFS repairing
description, 109 an unbootable system, 269
description of heritable properties, 110 corrupted file or directory, 265
damaged ZFS configurations, 268
pool-wide damage, 268
Q replacing
quota property, 113 a missing device, 239
quotas and reservations devices, 52, 248, 252
description, 151 replication
stream package, 188
reservation property, 114
R rights profiles for ZFS management, 23
RAID-Z configuration rolling back snapshots, 181
adding disks to, 42 root pools
conceptual view, 20 alternate location, 228
double-parity, 20 automatic installation, 84
example of, 31 considerations for configuration, 84
redundancy feature, 20 mirrored configuration in
single-parity, 20 SPARC or x86/EFI (GPT), 87
read-only properties of ZFS SPARC or x86/VTOC, 88
description, 117 replacing disks, 91
space requirements, 83
readonly property, 114
receiving file system data, 193 rstchown property, 114
recordsize property, 114
detailed description, 123
recovering destroyed storage pools, 78
299
Index
S size property, 61
saving snapdir property, 115
crash dumps, 99 snapshot
file system data, 191 accessing, 180
scheduled scrub intervals, 261 applying property values, 194
scripting pool output copying, 191
pool output, 62 creating, 176
scrubbing and resilvering, 260, 262 destroying, 177
secondarycache property, 114 features, 175
sending and receiving file system data, 186 monitoring streams
separate log devices, considerations for using, 33 receiving, 202
settable properties of ZFS sending, 202
description, 117 performing raw data streams, 192
setting renaming, 179
compression property, 30 rolling back, 181
legacy mount points, 135 sending and receiving data streams, 191, 193
mountpoint property, 30 space accounting, 181
quota property, 30 space accounting
share.nfs property, 30 snapshots, 181
ZFS atime property, 128 splitting a mirrored pool, 48
ZFS file system quota, 152 storage pools
ZFS file system reservation, 156 clearing device errors, 52, 245
ZFS mount points, 135 components
ZFS quota, 129 disks, 17
setuid property, 115 files, 19
shadow migration, 169 virtual devices, 27
creating
shadow property, 115
mirrored configuration, 32
share.nfs property
performing a dry run, 36
description, 115
RAID-Z configuration, 31
example, 139
default mount point, 38
share.smb property, 115
destroying, 38
device failure in, 244
sharenfs property devices
example, 139, 143 adding, 41
sharesmb property attaching and detaching, 46
example, 139 configuring vdevs, 27
sharing determining replaceability, 247
ZFS file systems, 138 removing, 44
named shares, 143 replacing, 52, 239, 248
with automatic naming, 144 taking offline and returning online, 50
sharing ZFS file systems displaying
share.smb property, 123 health status, 68, 70
Index
I/O statistics, 66 determining if a device can be replaced, 247

dynamic striping, 21 device failure, 244
exporting, 73 file system migration, 169
files in, 19 identifying problems, 234, 235
importing missing (UNAVAIL) devices, 242
alternate source directories, 77 notifying ZFS of reattached device, 243
identifying available pools, 74 pool status information, 236
renaming pools while, 75 repairing
listing, 62 corrupted file or directory, 265
migrating, 73 damaged ZFS configuration, 268
mirrored configuration, 20 pool-wide damage, 268
notifying ZFS of device availability, 243 unbootable system, 269
problems in, 231, 234, 235 replacing
RAID-Z configuration, 20 devices, 248, 252
recovering a destroyed pool, 78 missing device, 239
rights profiles, 23 storage pool creation issues, 36
scripting storage pool output, 62, 63 syslog reporting of ZFS error messages, 233
splitting a mirrored pool, 48 ZFS failures, 231
status information for troubleshooting, 236 type property, 115
system error messages, 233
upgrading, 80
using whole disks, 19 U
viewing resilvering process , 252 unmounting
storage requirements, 25 ZFS file systems, 138
stream package unsharing
recursive, 190 ZFS file systems, 138
replication, 188 upgrading
swap and dump devices storage pool, 80
adjusting sizes, 98 ZFS file systems
description, 96 description, 172
viewing, 96 used property
sync property, 115 description, 115
usedbychildren property, 116
T usedbydataset property, 116
tasks usedbyrefreservation property, 116
creating a ZFS file system, 106 usedbysnapshots property, 116
destroying a ZFS file system, 107 user properties of ZFS, 124
renaming a ZFS file system, 109 utf8only property, 116
traditional file systems and ZFS, 16
troubleshooting
clear device errors, 245 V
data corruption , 238, 264 version property, 61, 116
301
Index
virtual devices, 27 properties of, 130

volblocksize property, 116 types of datasets, 127
volsize property, 116 without headers, 127
detailed description, 123 managing
vscan property, 116 automatic mount points, 134
legacy mount points, 134
mount points, 134
W mounting, 136
whole disks as components See storage pools renaming, 109
setting
a quota, 152
a reservation, 156
X
atime property, 128
xattr property, 116
legacy mount points, 135
mountpoint property, 135
quota property, 129
Z
sharing, 138
ZFS
unmounting, 138
comparison with traditional file systems, 16
unsharing, 138
features, 16
upgrading
on zones, 223
description, 172
planning deployment of, 24
zfs get command
versions, 287
description, 130
zfs create command
-H and -o options, 133
description, 106
ZFS datasets -s option (source type), 132
setting limits on bandwidth use, 158 zfs inherit command, 129
zfs destroy command, 107 ZFS intent log (ZIL), 33
ZFS file system zfs list command
description, 105 description, 125
names, 105 -H option (without headers), 127
ZFS file systems -r option (recursive), 126
compressing, 160 -t option (dataset types), 127
dataset types zfs mount command, 136
description, 126 ZFS properties
default mountpoint, 106 canmount property, 118
destroying, 107 casesensitivity property, 118
encrypting, 161 copies property, 119
inheriting property, 129 dedup property, 120
listing description, 109
descendents, 126 description of inheritable, 110
description, 125 list of, 109
properties by source value, 132 managing in zones, 226
properties for scripting, 133
Index
read-only, 117
recordsize property, 123
settable, 117
used property, 117
user properties, 124
volsize property, 123
zfs rename command, 109
zfs set command
atime property, 128
mountpoint property, 135
mountpoint=legacy property, 135
quota property, 129, 152
reservation property, 156
share property, 140
zfs unmount command, 138, 138
zfs upgrade command, 172
ZFS volumes
adding to native zones, 225
creating, 219
zle compression algorithm
in ZFS, 160
zoned property, 116, 227
zones
adding ZFS file system, 223
adding ZFS volumes, 225
delegating datasets to a native zone, 224
managing ZFS properties, 226
using with ZFS, 223
zoned property, 227
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Managing ZFS File Systems in Oracle

Part No: E61017

Using This Documentation ................................................................................ 13

1 Introducing the Oracle Solaris ZFS File System ........................................... 15

2 Getting Started With Oracle Solaris ZFS ....................................................... 23

3 Creating and Destroying Oracle Solaris ZFS Storage Pools ......................... 27

Creating a ZFS Storage Pool With Cache Devices ....................................... 35

4 Managing Devices in Oracle Solaris ZFS Storage Pools ............................... 41

5 Managing Oracle Solaris ZFS Storage Pools ................................................ 59

6 Managing the ZFS Root Pool ........................................................................ 83

6 Managing ZFS File Systems in Oracle Solaris 11.4 • February 2021

Installing the ZFS Root Pool ................................................................... 84

7 Managing Oracle Solaris ZFS File Systems ................................................. 105

Querying ZFS Properties for Scripting ..................................................... 133

8 Working With Oracle Solaris ZFS Snapshots and Clones ............................ 175

8 Managing ZFS File Systems in Oracle Solaris 11.4 • February 2021

Overview of ZFS Clones .............................................................................. 184

9 Oracle Solaris ZFS Delegated Administration ............................................. 205

10 Oracle Solaris ZFS Advanced Topics ........................................................ 219

Copying Zones to Other Systems ............................................................ 228

11 Oracle Solaris ZFS Troubleshooting and Pool Recovery ........................... 231

12 Recommended Oracle Solaris ZFS Practices ............................................ 271

10 Managing ZFS File Systems in Oracle Solaris 11.4 • February 2021

File System Creation Practices ............................................................... 280

A Using Time Slider ....................................................................................... 283

B Oracle Solaris ZFS Version Descriptions .................................................... 287

Product Documentation Library

Using This Documentation 13

Introducing the Oracle Solaris ZFS File System

■ “What's New in ZFS for Oracle Solaris”

What's New in ZFS for Oracle Solaris

Chapter 1 • Introducing the Oracle Solaris ZFS File System 15

Oracle Solaris ZFS Features

16 Managing ZFS File Systems in Oracle Solaris 11.4 • February 2021

ZFS File System Traditional File Systems

You can create a snapshot, a read-only copy of a file system

Components of a ZFS Storage Pool

Using Disks in a ZFS Storage Pool

Chapter 1 • Introducing the Oracle Solaris ZFS File System 17

Current partition table (original):

Part Tag Flag First Sector Size Last Sector

Current partition table (original):

Part Tag Flag First Sector Size Last Sector

18 Managing ZFS File Systems in Oracle Solaris 11.4 • February 2021

Using Files in a ZFS Storage Pool

Redundancy Features of a ZFS Storage Pool

Chapter 1 • Introducing the Oracle Solaris ZFS File System 19

Mirrored Storage Pool Configuration

RAID-Z Storage Pool Configuration

20 Managing ZFS File Systems in Oracle Solaris 11.4 • February 2021

See the following sources for more information:

ZFS Hybrid Storage Pool

For more information, see Oracle Unified Storage Systems (https://docs.oracle.com/cd/

Dynamic Striping in a Storage Pool

Chapter 1 • Introducing the Oracle Solaris ZFS File System 21

Getting Started With Oracle Solaris ZFS

■ “Hardware and Software Requirements”

Hardware and Software Requirements

Chapter 2 • Getting Started With Oracle Solaris ZFS 23

Planning the ZFS Implementation