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FreeBSD Support for ZFS Channel Programs

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Michael Larabel of Phoronix reports that FreeBSD 12 will support ZFS Channel Programs, which allows for Lua scripts to executive administrative tasks. See their blog and discussion links below.

ZCP allows small Lua scripts to be executed for carrying out administrative tasks on the ZFS file-system for tasks like dropping old snapshots and other maintenance. The FreeBSD implementation does execute these commands in a sandboxed environment and enforces memory/time limits to fend off potential rogue Lua scripts.

Original post: https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=ZFS-FreeBSD-ZCP

ZFS channel program (ZCP) is a small script written in a domain specific language that manipulate ZFS internals in a single, atomically-visible operation. For instance, to delete all snapshots of a filesystem a ZCP could be written which 1) generates the list of snapshots, 2) traverses that list, and 3) destroys each snapshot unconditionally.

OpenZFS page: http://open-zfs.org/wiki/Projects/ZFS_Channel_Programs

Other:  Phoronix discussion | FreeBSD Has A New ZFS Boot Management Tool & Library

 

[How-To] Automatically mount zfs file system on Linux/Unix/FreeBSD

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User Vivek Gite shows us how to automatically mount the ZFS file system in FreeBSD and other UNIX systems. Follow the link below for the full set of instructions.

have created a zfs file system called data/vm_guests on Ubuntu Linux server. After the server reboot, zpools do not automatically mount at /data/vm_guests. It is failing my KVM guest machines. How can I mount my ZFS (zpool) automatically after the reboot?

By default, a ZFS file system is automatically mounted when it is created. Any file system whose mountpoint property is not legacy is managed by ZFS.

List your pools

Type the following command: …

Full tutorial: http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/freebsd-linux-unix-zfs-automatic-mount-points-command/

A ZFS developer’s analysis of Apple’s new APFS file system (arstechnica.com)

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ZFS developer Adam H. Leventhal writes an in-depth comparison between ZFS–a prominent filesystem in BSD systems, and APFS–a new filesystem developed for Apple’s macOS and replacing its aging HFS+. The author discusses its snapshot and backup, management, performance, efficiency, and data integrity features.

zfsapfs
APFS, the Apple File System, was itself started in 2014 with Giampaolo as its lead engineer. It’s a stand-alone, from-scratch implementation (an earlier version of this post noted a dependency on Core Storage, but Giampaolo set me straight in this comment). I asked him about looking for inspiration in other modern file systems such as BSD’s HAMMER, Linux’s btrfs, or OpenZFS (Solaris, illumos, FreeBSD, Mac OS X, Ubuntu Linux, etc.), all of which have features similar to what APFS intends to deliver. (And note that Apple built a fairly complete port of ZFS, though Giampaolo was not apparently part of the group advocating for it.) Giampaolo explained that he was aware of them as a self-described file system guy (he built the file system in BeOS, unfairly relegated to obscurity when Apple opted to purchase NeXTSTEP instead), but didn’t delve too deeply for fear, he said, of tainting himself.

Full article: http://arstechnica.com/apple/2016/06/a-zfs-developers-analysis-of-the-good-and-bad-in-apples-new-apfs-file-system/

Discussion thread on /r/programming: https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/4pziho/a_zfs_developers_analysis_of_apples_new_apfs_file/t1_d4pw7vc

 

[Blog] OpenBSD/FreeBSD (ZFS) dual-boot & thoughts about GPT/EFI

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User eerielinux follows up on the earlier article (Setting up a FreeBSD/OpenBSD dual-boot with full disk encryption), using ZFS on root on the installation in this instance. Check out their findings in the link below.

eerie263

In the previous post I wrote about how to get a computer up and running with a dual-boot of FreeBSD and OpenBSD while using full disk encryption. This worked quite well but a bit later I decided that it would be a good time to do the FreeBSD installation again – this time going the modern way and using ZFS on root. This has led to a surprisingly large amount of problems. In the end I got a working system that uses ZFS, so that I’ve actually got an alternative howto for FreeBSD (the OpenBSD part remains the same as before and can be looked up in the previous post). But it’s all a bit different from what I first thought it would be.

Original post: https://eerielinux.wordpress.com/2016/04/30/openbsdfreebsd-zfs-dual-boot-thoughts-about-gptefi/

Filed Under: ZFS

[Blog] FreeBSD 10.3’s new features, Myths & Misunderstandings: ZFS

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Check out this lengthy review of FreeBSD 10.3’s features by user Jesse Smith. For those interested in trying out FreeBSD 10.3, he discusses the boot environment, Linux compatibility layer, FreeBSD jails, and more. See the link below to read his full review.

FreeBSD is a venerable operating system, often deployed on servers due to the project’s focus on performance and stability. At the beginning of April the FreeBSD project released version 10.3 of their operating system. The release announcement for FreeBSD 10.3 mentioned several features and improvements which caught my attention. Specifically the availability of ZFS boot environments, 64-bit Linux compatibility and jail improvements were of interest to me. I was especially eager to try out FreeBSD’s new jails technology using the iocage front-end. The iocage software has been presented as an improvement on (and replacement for) Warden, a friendly front-end for handling jail environments.

I already reviewed FreeBSD 10.0 when it was launched and so I plan to skip over most aspects of the new 10.3 release and focus on the key features I listed above, along with the notable changes I encounter. The new release is available in many different builds, ranging from x86 and ARM, to SPARC and PowerPC. For the purposes of my trial I downloaded the 2.6GB DVD image of FreeBSD’s 64-bit x86 edition.

FreeBSD 10.3 review by Jesse Smith: https://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20160516#freebsd

Also, check out Myths and Misunderstandings: ZFS from the same author.zfsx

This week’s subject is ZFS. ZFS is an advanced file system and storage management technology. Using ZFS it is easy to manage multiple storage devices (usually hard drives), create file system snapshots, work with RAID configurations and mirror disks. I probably run into more misinformation about ZFS than any other open source software, so I will try to tackle several aspects of ZFS quickly.

Myths and Misunderstandings by Jesse Smith: http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20150420#myth

Related links:

/r/BSD discussion – A review of FreeBSD 10.3’s new features

LinuxQuestions.org discussion – ZFS: Myths and Misunderstandings (by Jesse Smith)

FreeBSD Mastery: Advanced ZFS by Michael W Lucas & Allan Jude

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Michael W Lucas, critically acclaimed author of many BSD books, introduces the long awaited FreeBSD Mastery: Advanced ZFS co-written by Allan Jude. This book is the follow-up to FreeBSD Mastery: ZFS, which released last year.

ZFS improves everything about systems administration. Once you peek under the hood, though, ZFS’ bewildering array of knobs and tunables can overwhelm anyone. ZFS experts can make their servers zing—and now you can, too, with FreeBSD Mastery: Advanced ZFS.

fmaz-cover-2016-04-02-50-200x300This small book teaches you to:

• Use boot environments to make the riskiest sysadmin tasks boring
• Delegate filesystem privileges to users
• Containerize ZFS datasets with jails
• Quickly and efficiently replicate data between machines
• split layers off of mirrors
• optimize ZFS block storage
• handle large storage arrays
• select caching strategies to improve performance
• manage next-generation storage hardware
• identify and remove bottlenecks
• build screaming fast database storage
• dive deep into pools, metaslabs, and more!

Whether you manage a single small server or international datacenters, simplify your storage with FreeBSD Mastery: Advanced ZFS.

Where can I purchase the book?

Get the book now!

Print and ebook bundle? If you buy the print from Amazon, you can get the ebook for $2.99.

Get the ebook from:

Print

Official page: https://www.michaelwlucas.com/nonfiction/fmaz

FreeBSD and ZFS

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zfsxCheck out this post from the FreeBSD Foundation, regarding ZFS. There is also a lengthy discussion on ycombinator regarding the licensing issues surrounding the filesystem.

ZFS has been making headlines lately, so it seems like the right time to talk about the longstanding relationship between FreeBSD and ZFS.

For nearly seven years, FreeBSD has included a production quality ZFS implementation, making it one of the key features of the FreeBSD operating system. ZFS is a combined file system and volume manager. Decoupling physical media from logical volumes allows free space to be efficiently shared between all of the file systems. ZFS introduced unprecedented data integrity and reliability guarantees to storage on FreeBSD. ZFS supports varying levels of redundancy for tolerance of hardware failures and includes cryptographic checksums on all data to guard against corruption.

FreeBSD Foundation – FreeBSD and ZFS: http://freebsdfoundation.blogspot.com/2016/02/freebsd-and-zfs.html

Discussion on ycombinator: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11185581

ZFS Boot Environment support added to the FreeBSD bootloader

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This revision (https://svnweb.freebsd.org/base?view=revision&revision=293001) by Allan Jude added ZFS Boot Environment support to the FreeBSD bootloader, allowing users to boot their systems to multiple versions of FreeBSD using one zpool. This work has led to collaboration with several Illumos developers who have demonstrated the OpenIndiana variant of Illumos booting with the FreeBSD bootloader.

– Dexter