Friday, 21. January 2011

Tutorial: native ZFS on Ubuntu and Fedora Linux

ZFS is a great filesystem and making it available for Linux opens a bridge between Solaris, FreeBSD and Linux.

KQ Infotech has released the source of their ZFS port to the general public, using pool version 28. You can get more information at their webpage: kqstor.com Source code is available at github.com.

In this arcicle I am giving a tutorial how to build from source and install packages of native ZFS kernel modules for Ubuntu/Debian and Fedora Linux.

You need a x86_64 version (64-bit) of the Linux distributions.

NOTICE: tutorial is obsolete, please visit Native ZFS for Linux Homepage

Steps to build and install native ZFS on Debian/Ubuntu:

Become root
user@ubuntu:~/# sudo bash
Install build-time dependencies
root@ubuntu:~/# apt-get install autotools-dev debhelper devscripts gawk git uuid-dev zlib1g-dev
Install runtime dependencies (needed also for build-time)
root@ubuntu:~/# apt-get install python-dmidecode python-soappy python-libxml2
These packages are required to install the lzfs package (on each system).
Create a build directory and enter it:
root@ubuntu:~/# mkdir zfs-build
root@ubuntu:~/# cd zfs-build
Download and unpack the source code: you have 2 options:
1. The easy way: download and extract my source snapshot with disabled SPL and ZFS tests
  root@ubuntu:~/zfs-build# wget http://www.vx.sk/download/source/zfs-linux/zfs-linux-20110303.tar.bz2
  root@ubuntu:~/zfs-build# tar xfj zfs-linux-20110303.tar.bz2
2. The more complicated way: checkout the latest version of the upstream misc-scripts and zfs directories
  root@ubuntu:~/zfs-build# git clone https://github.com/zfs-linux/misc-scripts.git
  root@ubuntu:~/zfs-build# git clone https://github.com/zfs-linux/zfs.git
  and disable at least the ZCONFIG and ZPIOS tests by editing zfs/scripts/Makefile.in (put a "#" at the front of the @$(ZCONFIG) and @$(ZPIOS_SANITY) lines in the "check:" section)
  "# @$(ZCONFIG)"
  "# @$(ZPIOS_SANITY)"
Build the packages
root@ubuntu:~/zfs-build# ./misc-scripts/create_debian.sh
If you are using my source snapshot and do not want to checkout latest sources, put a "#" in front of the three "git clone" lines in misc-scripts/create_debian.sh
When asked about "Configuration file /etc/init.d/zfsload", answer "Y".
Your packages are ready (and installed, too):
root@ubuntu:~/zfs-build# ls *.deb
The packages are built against your kernel version, you can use them on any system with the same kernel.
Install them in the following order: spl, zfs and finally lzfs
Automatic startup
The automatic startup script is called /etc/init.d/zfsload
Now you can try out the main ZFS commands: zpool, zfs

Steps to build and install native ZFS on Fedora:

Become root
[user@fedora ~]$ su -
Install build-time dependencies
[root@fedora ~]$ yum install gcc git kernel kernel-devel rpm-build libuuid-devel wget zlib-devel
After installing dependencies, reboot to the latest kernel.
Install runtime dependencies:
[root@fedora ~/zfs-build]$ yum install SOAPpy python-dmidecode
These packages are required to install the lzfs package (on each system).
Create a build directory and enter it:
[root@fedora ~]$ mkdir zfs-build
[root@fedora ~]$ cd zfs-build
Download and unpack the source code: you have 2 options:
1. The easy way: download and extract my source snapshot with disabled SPL and ZFS tests
  [root@fedora ~/zfs-build]$ wget http://www.vx.sk/download/source/zfs-linux/zfs-linux-20110303.tar.bz2
  [root@fedora ~/zfs-build]$ tar xfj zfs-linux-20110303.tar.bz2
2. The more complicated way: checkout the latest version of the upstream misc-scripts and zfs directories
  [root@fedora ~/zfs-build]$ git clone https://github.com/zfs-linux/misc-scripts.git
  [root@fedora ~/zfs-build]$ git clone https://github.com/zfs-linux/zfs.git
  and disable at least the ZCONFIG and ZPIOS tests by editing zfs/scripts/Makefile.in (put a "#" at the front of the @$(ZCONFIG) and @$(ZPIOS_SANITY) line in the "check:" section)
  "# @$(ZCONFIG)"
  "# @$(ZPIOS_SANITY)"
Build the packages
[root@fedora ~/zfs-build]$ ./misc-scripts/create_rpm.sh
If you are using my source snapshot and do not want to checkout latest sources, put a "#" in front of the three "git clone" lines in misc-scripts/create_rpm.sh
Your packages are ready:
[root@fedora ~/zfs-build]$ ls rpm*/*/*.rpm
The packages are built against your kernel version, you can use them on any system with the same kernel.
Install packages:
[root@fedora ~/zfs-build]$ rpm -i rpm*/spl/spl-modules-0*.x86_64.rpm
[root@fedora ~/zfs-build]$ rpm -i rpm*/spl/spl-0*.x86_64.rpm
[root@fedora ~/zfs-build]$ rpm -i rpm*/zfs/zfs-modules-0*.x86_64.rpm
[root@fedora ~/zfs-build]$ rpm -i rpm*/zfs/zfs-0*.x86_64.rpm
[root@fedora ~/zfs-build]$ rpm -i rpm*/lzfs/lzfs-*.x86_64.rpm

For lzfs you need the prerequisities SOAPpy and python-dmidecode.
Install order: spl-modules, spl, zfs-modules, zfs, lzfs
Automatic startup The automatic startup script is called /etc/init.d/zfsload and can be enabled/disabled e.g. with "ntsysv".
Now you can try out the main ZFS commands: zpool, zfs

Posted by

Martin Matuška

in Linux, ZFS at 11:53 | Comments (11) | Trackback (1)

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Who-hoo! Thanks! ... and it's actually READABLE, much more than a lot of other tutorials I've seen.

#1 Carra (Homepage) on 2011-01-24 23:56

Is it tested in the production environment? Great tutorial!

#2 JarekO on 2011-01-30 11:03

We are not using ZFS on Linux in production yet. Our systems are Solaris 10 and FreeBSD.

#2.1 Martin Matuska (Homepage) on 2011-01-30 13:59

Is there a Way to Boot from zfs ?

#3 Poos on 2011-03-09 16:06

I have not played with ZFS boot on linux, so I don't know if it is working - it probably isn't. Latest grub2 should have read-only support for ZFS partitions but the ZFS modules need to be loaded together with kernel in grub.

#3.1 Martin Matuška (Homepage) on 2011-03-09 16:21

What type of partition can I create a new zpool on? (E.g. for LVM I have to choose 8e, is there a special type for zpools, too)? TIA & kind regards, Holger

#4 Holger Rauch on 2011-03-24 14:07

Zpool does not care about partition types so it can be created on any valid block device (= any type of partition). In FreeBSD we have a freebsd-zfs GPT partition type, so you may use that one as well. The GUID of the freebsd-zfs partition is: 516E7CBA-6ECF-11D6-8FF8-00022D09712B

#4.1 Martin Matuška (Homepage) on 2011-03-24 23:05

Hallo Martin, what do I have to change to run things on a 32-bit Machine? Uli

#5 Uli on 2011-03-24 23:53

ZFS is not (yet) confirmed to work on 32-bit Linux and also not supported by KQ Infotech. I generally recommend running ZFS in production only on 64-bit operating systems.

#5.1 Martin Matuška (Homepage) on 2011-03-24 23:59

Hi, not sure whether my comment made it through: Will it (KQ Infotech's version of the kernel module(s) ) also work on/with stock Debian kernels (2.6.32 AFAIK) or are KQ Infotech's kernel modules supposed to be used in conjunction with a fixed kernel version? TIA & Kind regards, Holger

#6 Holger Rauch on 2011-03-26 01:03

It should be compilable, too. I will install squeeze and try to reproduce my tutorial. If there any differences or missing parts, I will update my article for Debian as well.

#6.1 Martin Matuška (Homepage) on 2011-03-26 10:26

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Tutorial: native ZFS on Ubuntu and Fedora Linux

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Friday, 21. January 2011

Tutorial: native ZFS on Ubuntu and Fedora Linux

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