ZFS Cheatsheet
Below is my cheatsheet for using ZFS.
Related Posts
- ZFS - Create Disk Pools - use this if you just want to set up your RAID array.
- Ubuntu 16.04 - Using Files To Test ZFS - learn ZFS by creating local files. No need to invest in buying disks first.
- Sharing ZFS Datasets Via NFS
Pools
List Pools
sudo zpool list
Create a ZFS volume/pool on a single disk:
zpool create vol0 /dev/sd[x]
Your pool will automatically be mounted at /[pool name]
.
Delete All Datasets In A Pool
zfs destroy -r [pool name]
Delete a Pool
sudo zpool destroy [pool name]
Check Disk Statuses
If you're running a redundant raid, you may want to check if any drives have failed once in a while. This is done by just checking the pools.
sudo zpool status
Check Pool Balance
If you add to a pool that already contains data, your pool will initially be "unbalanced" and remain unbalanced until more data is written to the pool. This is because ZFS does not bother spreading the existing data around to make use of the new disks. If you keep adding data to the pool, it will eventually become balanced in terms of space utilized across the disks, but your existing data will still only be written on the initial disks unless you have it rewritten to the pool.
To check the balance of your pool, execute:
zpool list -v
Below is some example output of that command with my RAID10 pool that I recently added 2 x 8 TB drives to. As you can see, my array is heavily unbalanced and I will need to re-balance the array if I want to get much better performance.
NAME SIZE ALLOC FREE EXPANDSZ FRAG CAP DEDUP HEALTH ALTROOT
zpool1 13.6T 4.21T 9.39T - 15% 30% 1.00x ONLINE -
mirror 3.62T 2.20T 1.43T - 31% 60%
sda - - - - - -
sdb - - - - - -
mirror 2.72T 1.65T 1.07T - 32% 60%
sdc - - - - - -
sdd - - - - - -
mirror 7.25T 368G 6.89T - 2% 4%
sde - - - - - -
sdf - - - - - -
The easiest way to rebalance an array is probably to create a new temporary dataset, and move all the existing data to it, and then back again. By the end of the first move, the disks should be fairly utilized, but the individual files won't, and with the second pass, the files will also be fairly balanced.
Scrubbing
Scrub a pool
sudo zpool scrub [pool name]
sudo zpool status
Datasets
Create a Dataset
sudo zfs create [pool name]/[dataset name]
You can create a "descendent" dataset/filesystem like so:
sudo zfs create \
[pool name]/[dataset name]/[descendent filesystem]
List Datasets and Pools
sudo zfs list
Delete Dataset
sudo zfs destroy [pool name]/[dataset name]
Set Dataset Record Size
Read here for more information about what the record size actually does.
sudo zfs set recordsize=[size] pool/dataset/name
Get Dataset Record Size
sudo zfs get recordsize pool/dataset/name
Snapshots
Snapshot Datasets
zfs snapshot [pool]/[dataset name]@[snapshot name]
List Snapshots
sudo zfs list -t snapshot
Rename Snapshots
zfs rename [pool]/[dataset]@[old name] [new name]
Restore Snapshot
zfs rollback -r [pool]/[dataset]@[snapshot name]
-f
option forces the file system to be unmounted, if necessary.
Delete a Snapshot
zfs destroy tank/home/cindys@snap1
Clones
Creating RAID Arrays
Refer to my post on creating ZFS Pools.
Sharing Datasets Over NFS
Mounting
Mount Everything
zfs mount -a
Get Mountpoints
zfs get all | grep mountpoint
Set Mountpoint
sudo zfs set mountpoint=/path/to/mount zpool-name/dataset-name
Mount A Specific Pool
sudo zfs mount $POOL_NAME
Deduplication
Enable Deduplication
sudo zfs set dedup=on zpool-name
Disable Deduplication
sudo zfs set dedup=off zpool-name
References
- Oracle Docs - Managing ZFS File Systems (Overview)
- Oracle - Sharing and Unsharing ZFS File Systems
- Ask Ubuntu - How do I mount a ZFS pool?
- Reddit - Anybody know how to check balance of vdevs in a pool?
First published: 16th August 2018