21.2. The Z File System (ZFS)
Prev | Chapter 21. File Systems Support | Next

## 21.2. The Z File System (ZFS)

The Z file system, originally developed by Sun™, is designed to use a pooled storage method in that space is only used as it is needed for data storage. It is also designed for maximum data integrity, supporting data snapshots, multiple copies, and data checksums. It uses a software data replication model, known as RAID-Z. RAID-Z provides redundancy similar to hardware RAID, but is designed to prevent data write corruption and to overcome some of the limitations of hardware RAID.

### 21.2.1. ZFS Tuning

Some of the features provided by ZFS are RAM-intensive, so some tuning may be required to provide maximum efficiency on systems with limited RAM.

#### 21.2.1.1. Memory

At a bare minimum, the total system memory should be at least one gigabyte. The amount of recommended RAM depends upon the size of the pool and the ZFS features which are used. A general rule of thumb is 1GB of RAM for every 1TB of storage. If the deduplication feature is used, a general rule of thumb is 5GB of RAM per TB of storage to be deduplicated. While some users successfully use ZFS with less RAM, it is possible that when the system is under heavy load, it may panic due to memory exhaustion. Further tuning may be required for systems with less than the recommended RAM requirements.

#### 21.2.1.2. Kernel Configuration

Due to the RAM limitations of the i386™ platform, users using ZFS on the i386™ architecture should add the following option to a custom kernel configuration file, rebuild the kernel, and reboot:

options KVA_PAGES=512

This option expands the kernel address space, allowing the `vm.kvm_size` tunable to be pushed beyond the currently imposed limit of 1 GB, or the limit of 2 GB for PAE. To find the most suitable value for this option, divide the desired address space in megabytes by four (4). In this example, it is `512` for 2 GB.

#### 21.2.1.3. Loader Tunables

The `kmem` address space can be increased on all FreeBSD architectures. On a test system with one gigabyte of physical memory, success was achieved with the following options added to `/boot/loader.conf`, and the system restarted:

vm.kmem_size="330M" vm.kmem_size_max="330M" vfs.zfs.arc_max="40M" vfs.zfs.vdev.cache.size="5M"

For a more detailed list of recommendations for ZFS-related tuning, see http://wiki.freebsd.org/ZFSTuningGuide.

### 21.2.2. Using ZFS

There is a start up mechanism that allows FreeBSD to mount ZFS pools during system initialization. To set it, issue the following commands:

`#` `echo 'zfs_enable="YES"' >> /etc/rc.conf` `#` `service zfs start`

The examples in this section assume three SCSI disks with the device names ``da0``, ``da1``, and ``da2``. Users of IDE hardware should instead use ``ad`` device names.

#### 21.2.2.1. Single Disk Pool

To create a simple, non-redundant ZFS pool using a single disk device, use `zpool`:

`#` `zpool create example /dev/da0`

To view the new pool, review the output of `df`:

`#` `df` Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Avail Capacity Mounted on /dev/ad0s1a 2026030 235230 1628718 13% / devfs 1 1 0 100% /dev /dev/ad0s1d 54098308 1032846 48737598 2% /usr example 17547136 0 17547136 0% /example

This output shows that the `example` pool has been created and mounted. It is now accessible as a file system. Files may be created on it and users can browse it, as seen in the following example:

`#` `cd /example` `#` `ls` `#` `touch testfile` `#` `ls -al` total 4 drwxr-xr-x 2 root wheel 3 Aug 29 23:15 . drwxr-xr-x 21 root wheel 512 Aug 29 23:12 .. -rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 0 Aug 29 23:15 testfile

However, this pool is not taking advantage of any ZFS features. To create a dataset on this pool with compression enabled:

`#` `zfs create example/compressed` `#` `zfs set compression=gzip example/compressed`

The `example/compressed` dataset is now a ZFS compressed file system. Try copying some large files to `/example/compressed`.

Compression can be disabled with:

`#` `zfs set compression=off example/compressed`

To unmount a file system, issue the following command and then verify by using `df`:

`#` `zfs umount example/compressed` `#` `df` Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Avail Capacity Mounted on /dev/ad0s1a 2026030 235232 1628716 13% / devfs 1 1 0 100% /dev /dev/ad0s1d 54098308 1032864 48737580 2% /usr example 17547008 0 17547008 0% /example

To re-mount the file system to make it accessible again, and verify with `df`:

`#` `zfs mount example/compressed` `#` `df` Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Avail Capacity Mounted on /dev/ad0s1a 2026030 235234 1628714 13% / devfs 1 1 0 100% /dev /dev/ad0s1d 54098308 1032864 48737580 2% /usr example 17547008 0 17547008 0% /example example/compressed 17547008 0 17547008 0% /example/compressed

The pool and file system may also be observed by viewing the output from `mount`:

`#` `mount` /dev/ad0s1a on / (ufs, local) devfs on /dev (devfs, local) /dev/ad0s1d on /usr (ufs, local, soft-updates) example on /example (zfs, local) example/data on /example/data (zfs, local) example/compressed on /example/compressed (zfs, local)

ZFS datasets, after creation, may be used like any file systems. However, many other features are available which can be set on a per-dataset basis. In the following example, a new file system, `data` is created. Important files will be stored here, the file system is set to keep two copies of each data block:

`#` `zfs create example/data` `#` `zfs set copies=2 example/data`

It is now possible to see the data and space utilization by issuing `df`:

`#` `df` Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Avail Capacity Mounted on /dev/ad0s1a 2026030 235234 1628714 13% / devfs 1 1 0 100% /dev /dev/ad0s1d 54098308 1032864 48737580 2% /usr example 17547008 0 17547008 0% /example example/compressed 17547008 0 17547008 0% /example/compressed example/data 17547008 0 17547008 0% /example/data

Notice that each file system on the pool has the same amount of available space. This is the reason for using `df` in these examples, to show that the file systems use only the amount of space they need and all draw from the same pool. The ZFS file system does away with concepts such as volumes and partitions, and allows for several file systems to occupy the same pool.

To destroy the file systems and then destroy the pool as they are no longer needed:

`#` `zfs destroy example/compressed` `#` `zfs destroy example/data` `#` `zpool destroy example`

#### 21.2.2.2. ZFS RAID-Z

There is no way to prevent a disk from failing. One method of avoiding data loss due to a failed hard disk is to implement RAID. ZFS supports this feature in its pool design.

To create a RAID-Z pool, issue the following command and specify the disks to add to the pool:

`#` `zpool create storage raidz da0 da1 da2`

### Note:

Sun™ recommends that the amount of devices used in a RAID-Z configuration is between three and nine. For environments requiring a single pool consisting of 10 disks or more, consider breaking it up into smaller RAID-Z groups. If only two disks are available and redundancy is a requirement, consider using a ZFS mirror. Refer to zpool(8) for more details.

This command creates the `storage` zpool. This may be verified using mount(8) and df(1). This command makes a new file system in the pool called `home`:

`#` `zfs create storage/home`

It is now possible to enable compression and keep extra copies of directories and files using the following commands:

`#` `zfs set copies=2 storage/home` `#` `zfs set compression=gzip storage/home`

To make this the new home directory for users, copy the user data to this directory, and create the appropriate symbolic links:

`#` `cp -rp /home/* /storage/home` `#` `rm -rf /home /usr/home` `#` `ln -s /storage/home /home` `#` `ln -s /storage/home /usr/home`

Users should now have their data stored on the freshly created `/storage/home`. Test by adding a new user and logging in as that user.

Try creating a snapshot which may be rolled back later:

`#` `zfs snapshot storage/home@08-30-08`

Note that the snapshot option will only capture a real file system, not a home directory or a file. The `@` character is a delimiter used between the file system name or the volume name. When a user's home directory gets trashed, restore it with:

`#` `zfs rollback storage/home@08-30-08`

To get a list of all available snapshots, run `ls` in the file system's `.zfs/snapshot` directory. For example, to see the previously taken snapshot:

`#` `ls /storage/home/.zfs/snapshot`

It is possible to write a script to perform regular snapshots on user data. However, over time, snapshots may consume a great deal of disk space. The previous snapshot may be removed using the following command:

`#` `zfs destroy storage/home@08-30-08`

After testing, `/storage/home` can be made the real `/home` using this command:

`#` `zfs set mountpoint=/home storage/home`

Run `df` and `mount` to confirm that the system now treats the file system as the real `/home`:

`#` `mount` /dev/ad0s1a on / (ufs, local) devfs on /dev (devfs, local) /dev/ad0s1d on /usr (ufs, local, soft-updates) storage on /storage (zfs, local) storage/home on /home (zfs, local) `#` `df` Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Avail Capacity Mounted on /dev/ad0s1a 2026030 235240 1628708 13% / devfs 1 1 0 100% /dev /dev/ad0s1d 54098308 1032826 48737618 2% /usr storage 26320512 0 26320512 0% /storage storage/home 26320512 0 26320512 0% /home

This completes the RAID-Z configuration. To get status updates about the file systems created during the nightly periodic(8) runs, issue the following command:

`#` `echo 'daily_status_zfs_enable="YES"' >> /etc/periodic.conf`

#### 21.2.2.3. Recovering RAID-Z

Every software RAID has a method of monitoring its `state`. The status of RAID-Z devices may be viewed with the following command:

`#` `zpool status -x`

If all pools are healthy and everything is normal, the following message will be returned:

all pools are healthy

If there is an issue, perhaps a disk has gone offline, the pool state will look similar to:

pool: storage state: DEGRADED status: One or more devices has been taken offline by the administrator. Sufficient replicas exist for the pool to continue functioning in a degraded state. action: Online the device using 'zpool online' or replace the device with 'zpool replace'. scrub: none requested config: NAME STATE READ WRITE CKSUM storage DEGRADED 0 0 0 raidz1 DEGRADED 0 0 0 da0 ONLINE 0 0 0 da1 OFFLINE 0 0 0 da2 ONLINE 0 0 0 errors: No known data errors

This indicates that the device was previously taken offline by the administrator using the following command:

`#` `zpool offline storage da1`

It is now possible to replace `da1` after the system has been powered down. When the system is back online, the following command may issued to replace the disk:

`#` `zpool replace storage da1`

From here, the status may be checked again, this time without the `-x` flag to get state information:

`#` `zpool status storage` pool: storage state: ONLINE scrub: resilver completed with 0 errors on Sat Aug 30 19:44:11 2008 config: NAME STATE READ WRITE CKSUM storage ONLINE 0 0 0 raidz1 ONLINE 0 0 0 da0 ONLINE 0 0 0 da1 ONLINE 0 0 0 da2 ONLINE 0 0 0 errors: No known data errors

As shown from this example, everything appears to be normal.

#### 21.2.2.4. Data Verification

ZFS uses checksums to verify the integrity of stored data. These are enabled automatically upon creation of file systems and may be disabled using the following command:

`#` `zfs set checksum=off storage/home`

Doing so is not recommended as checksums take very little storage space and are used to check data integrity using checksum verification in a process is known as “scrubbing.” To verify the data integrity of the `storage` pool, issue this command:

`#` `zpool scrub storage`

This process may take considerable time depending on the amount of data stored. It is also very I/O intensive, so much so that only one scrub may be run at any given time. After the scrub has completed, the status is updated and may be viewed by issuing a status request:

`#` `zpool status storage` pool: storage state: ONLINE scrub: scrub completed with 0 errors on Sat Jan 26 19:57:37 2013 config: NAME STATE READ WRITE CKSUM storage ONLINE 0 0 0 raidz1 ONLINE 0 0 0 da0 ONLINE 0 0 0 da1 ONLINE 0 0 0 da2 ONLINE 0 0 0 errors: No known data errors

The completion time is displayed and helps to ensure data integrity over a long period of time.

Refer to zfs(8) and zpool(8) for other ZFS options.

#### 21.2.2.5. ZFS Quotas

ZFS supports different types of quotas: the refquota, the general quota, the user quota, and the group quota. This section explains the basics of each type and includes some usage instructions.

Quotas limit the amount of space that a dataset and its descendants can consume, and enforce a limit on the amount of space used by filesystems and snapshots for the descendants. Quotas are useful to limit the amount of space a particular user can use.

### Note:

Quotas cannot be set on volumes, as the `volsize` property acts as an implicit quota.

The `refquota=`size`` limits the amount of space a dataset can consume by enforcing a hard limit on the space used. However, this hard limit does not include space used by descendants, such as file systems or snapshots.

To enforce a general quota of 10 GB for `storage/home/bob`, use the following:

`#` `zfs set quota=10G storage/home/bob`

User quotas limit the amount of space that can be used by the specified user. The general format is `userquota@`user`=`size``, and the user's name must be in one of the following formats:

- POSIX compatible name such as `joe`.

- POSIX numeric ID such as `789`.

- SID name such as `joe.bloggs@example.com`.

- SID numeric ID such as `S-1-123-456-789`.

For example, to enforce a quota of 50 GB for a user named `joe`, use the following:

`#` `zfs set userquota@joe=50G`

To remove the quota or make sure that one is not set, instead use:

`#` `zfs set userquota@joe=none`

User quota properties are not displayed by `zfs get all`. Non-`root` users can only see their own quotas unless they have been granted the `userquota` privilege. Users with this privilege are able to view and set everyone's quota.

The group quota limits the amount of space that a specified group can consume. The general format is `groupquota@`group`=`size``.

To set the quota for the group `firstgroup` to 50 GB, use:

`#` `zfs set groupquota@firstgroup=50G`

To remove the quota for the group `firstgroup`, or to make sure that one is not set, instead use:

`#` `zfs set groupquota@firstgroup=none`

As with the user quota property, non-`root` users can only see the quotas associated with the groups that they belong to. However, `root` or a user with the `groupquota` privilege can view and set all quotas for all groups.

To display the amount of space consumed by each user on the specified filesystem or snapshot, along with any specified quotas, use `zfs userspace`. For group information, use `zfs groupspace`. For more information about supported options or how to display only specific options, refer to zfs(1).

Users with sufficient privileges and `root` can list the quota for `storage/home/bob` using:

`#` `zfs get quota storage/home/bob`

#### 21.2.2.6. ZFS Reservations

ZFS supports two types of space reservations. This section explains the basics of each and includes some usage instructions.

The `reservation` property makes it possible to reserve a minimum amount of space guaranteed for a dataset and its descendants. This means that if a 10 GB reservation is set on `storage/home/bob`, if disk space gets low, at least 10 GB of space is reserved for this dataset. The `refreservation` property sets or indicates the minimum amount of space guaranteed to a dataset excluding descendants, such as snapshots. As an example, if a snapshot was taken of `storage/home/bob`, enough disk space would have to exist outside of the `refreservation` amount for the operation to succeed because descendants of the main data set are not counted by the `refreservation` amount and so do not encroach on the space set.

Reservations of any sort are useful in many situations, such as planning and testing the suitability of disk space allocation in a new system, or ensuring that enough space is available on file systems for system recovery procedures and files.

The general format of the `reservation` property is `reservation=`size``, so to set a reservation of 10 GB on `storage/home/bob`, use:

`#` `zfs set reservation=10G storage/home/bob`

To make sure that no reservation is set, or to remove a reservation, use:

`#` `zfs set reservation=none storage/home/bob`

The same principle can be applied to the `refreservation` property for setting a refreservation, with the general format `refreservation=`size``.

To check if any reservations or refreservations exist on `storage/home/bob`, execute one of the following commands:

`#` `zfs get reservation storage/home/bob` `#` `zfs get refreservation storage/home/bob`

Prev | Up | Next
Chapter 21. File Systems Support | Home | 21.3. Linux® Filesystems

All FreeBSD documents are available for download at http://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/doc/

Questions that are not answered by the documentation may be sent to <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.org>.
Send questions about this document to <freebsd-doc@FreeBSD.org>.