ZFS(8)

NAME
zfs - configures ZFS file systems

SYNOPSIS
zfs -?
zfs create [-p] [-o property=value]... filesystem
zfs create [-ps] [-b blocksize] [-o property=value]... -V size volume
zfs destroy [-Rfnprv] filesystem|volume
zfs destroy [-Rdnprv] filesystem|volume@snap [%snap[,snap[%snap]]]...
zfs destroy filesystem|volume#bookmark
zfs snapshot [-r] [-o property=value]... filesystem@snapname|volume@snapname...
zfs rollback [-Rfr] snapshot
zfs clone [-p] [-o property=value]... snapshot filesystem|volume
zfs promote clone-filesystem
zfs rename [-f] filesystem|volume|snapshot filesystem|volume|snapshot
zfs rename [-fp] filesystem|volume filesystem|volume
zfs rename -r snapshot snapshot
zfs list [-r|-d depth] [-Hp] [-o property[,property]...] [-s property]... [-S property]... [-t type[,type]...] [filesystem|volume|snapshot]...
zfs set property=value [property=value]... filesystem|volume|snapshot...
zfs get [-r|-d depth] [-Hp] [-o field[,field]...] [-s source[,source]...] [-t type[,type]...] all | property[,property]... filesystem|volume|snapshot|bookmark...
zfs inherit [-rS] property filesystem|volume|snapshot...
zfs upgrade
zfs upgrade -v
zfs upgrade [-r] [-V version] -a | filesystem
zfs userspace [-Hinp] [-o field[,field]...] [-s field]... [-S field]... [-t type[,type]...] filesystem|snapshot
zfs groupspace [-Hinp] [-o field[,field]...] [-s field]... [-S field]... [-t type[,type]...] filesystem|snapshot
zfs mount
zfs mount [-Olv] [-o options] -a | filesystem
zfs unmount [-f] -a | filesystem|mountpoint
zfs share -a | filesystem
zfs unshare -a | filesystem|mountpoint
zfs bookmark snapshot bookmark
zfs send [-DLPRcenpvw] [[-I|-i] snapshot] snapshot
zfs send [-LPcenvw] [-i snapshot|bookmark] filesystem|volume|snapshot
zfs send [-Penv] -t receive_resume_token
zfs receive [-Fnsuv] [-o origin=snapshot] [-o property=value] [-x property] filesystem|volume|snapshot
zfs receive [-Fnsuv] [-d|-e] [-o origin=snapshot] [-o property=value] [-x property] filesystem
zfs receive -A filesystem|volume
zfs allow filesystem|volume
zfs allow [-dglu] user|group[,user|group]... perm|@setname[,perm|@ setname]... filesystem|volume
zfs allow [-dl] -e|everyone perm|@setname[,perm|@ setname]... filesystem|volume
zfs allow -c perm|@setname[,perm|@ setname]... filesystem|volume
zfs allow -s @setname perm|@setname[,perm|@ setname]... filesystem|volume
zfs unallow [-dglru] user|group[,user|group]... [perm|@setname[,perm|@ setname]...] filesystem|volume
zfs unallow [-dlr] -e|everyone [perm|@setname[,perm|@ setname]...] filesystem|volume
zfs unallow [-r] -c [perm|@setname[,perm|@ setname]...] filesystem|volume
zfs unallow [-r] -s -@setname [perm|@setname[,perm|@ setname]...] filesystem|volume
zfs hold [-r] tag snapshot...
zfs holds [-r] snapshot...
zfs release [-r] tag snapshot...
zfs diff [-FHt] snapshot snapshot|filesystem
zfs load-key [-nr] [-L keylocation] -a | filesystem
zfs unload-key [-r] -a | filesystem
zfs change-key [-l] [-o keylocation=value] [-o keyformat=value] [-o pbkdf2iters=value] filesystem
zfs change-key -i [-l] filesystem

DESCRIPTION
The zfs command configures ZFS datasets within a ZFS storage pool, as described in zpool(8). A dataset is identified by a unique path within the ZFS namespace. For example:

    pool/{filesystem,volume,snapshot}

where the maximum length of a dataset name is MAXNAMELEN (256 bytes).

A dataset can be one of the following:

file system
    A ZFS dataset of type filesystem can be mounted within the standard system namespace and behaves like other file systems. While ZFS file systems are designed to be POSIX compliant, known issues exist that prevent compliance in some cases. Applications that depend on standards conformance might fail due to non-standard behavior when checking file system free space.

volume
    A logical volume exported as a raw or block device. This type of dataset should only be used under special circumstances. File systems are typically used in most environments.

snapshot
    A read-only version of a file system or volume at a given point in time. It is specified as filesystem@name or volume@name.

bookmark
    Much like a snapshot, but without the hold on on-disk data. It can be used as the source of a send (but not for a receive). It is specified as filesystem#name or volume#name.

  ZFS File System Hierarchy
A ZFS storage pool is a logical collection of devices that provide space for datasets. A storage pool is also the root of the ZFS file system hierarchy.

The root of the pool can be accessed as a file system, such as mounting and unmounting, taking snapshots, and setting properties. The physical storage characteristics, however, are managed by the zpool(8) command.

See zpool(8) for more information on creating and administering pools.

  Snapshots
A snapshot is a read-only copy of a file system or volume. Snapshots can be created extremely quickly, and initially consume no additional space within the pool. As data within the active dataset changes, the snapshot consumes more data than would otherwise be shared with the active dataset.

Snapshots can have arbitrary names. Snapshots of volumes can be cloned or rolled back, visibility is determined by the snapdev property of the parent volume.

File system snapshots can be accessed under the .zfs/snapshot directory in the root of the file system. Snapshots are automatically mounted on demand and may be unmounted at regular intervals. The visibility of the .zfs directory can be controlled by the snapdir property.

  Bookmarks
A bookmark is like a snapshot, a read-only copy of a file system or volume. Bookmarks can be created extremely quickly, compared to snapshots, and they consume no additional space within the pool. Bookmarks can also have arbitrary names, much like snapshots.

Unlike snapshots, bookmarks can not be accessed through the filesystem in any way. From a storage standpoint a bookmark just provides a way to reference when a snapshot was created as a distinct object. Bookmarks are initially tied to a snapshot, not the filesystem or volume, and they will survive if the snapshot itself is destroyed. Since they are very light weight there's little incentive to destroy them.

  Clones
A clone is a writable volume or file system whose initial contents are the same as another dataset. As with snapshots, creating a clone is nearly instantaneous, and initially consumes no additional space.

Clones can only be created from a snapshot. When a snapshot is cloned, it creates an implicit dependency between the parent and child. Even though the clone is created somewhere else in the dataset hierarchy, the original snapshot cannot be destroyed as long as a clone exists. The origin property exposes this dependency, and the destroy command lists any such dependencies, if they exist.

The clone parent-child dependency relationship can be reversed by using the promote subcommand. This causes the "origin" file system to become a clone of the specified file system, which makes it possible to destroy the file system that the clone was created from.

  Mount Points
Creating a ZFS file system is a simple operation, so the number of file systems per system is likely to be numerous. To cope with this, ZFS automatically manages mounting and unmounting file systems without the need to edit the /etc/fstab file. All automatically managed file systems are mounted by ZFS at boot time.

By default, file systems are mounted under /path, where path is the name of the file system in the ZFS namespace. Directories are created and destroyed as needed.

A file system can also have a mount point set in the mountpoint property. This directory is created as needed, and ZFS automatically mounts the file system when the zfs mount -a command is invoked (without editing /etc/fstab). The mountpoint property can be inherited, so if pool/home has a mount point of /export/stuff, then pool/home/user automatically inherits a mount point of /export/stuff/user.

A file system mountpoint property of none prevents the file system from being mounted.

If needed, ZFS file systems can also be managed with traditional tools ( mount, umount, /etc/fstab). If a file system's mount point is set to legacy, ZFS makes no attempt to manage the file system, and the administrator is responsible for mounting and unmounting the file system. Because pools must be imported before a legacy mount can succeed, administrators should ensure that legacy mounts are only attempted after the zpool import process finishes at boot time. For example, on machines using systemd, the mount option

x-systemd.requires=zfs-import.target

will ensure that the zfs-import completes before systemd attempts mounting the filesystem. See systemd.mount(5) for details.

  Deduplication
Deduplication is the process for removing redundant data at the block level, reducing the total amount of data stored. 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 among files.

Deduplicating data is a very resource-intensive operation. It is generally recommended that you have at least 1.25 GiB of RAM per 1 TiB of storage when you enable deduplication. Calculating the exact requirement depends heavily on the type of data stored in the pool.

Enabling deduplication on an improperly-designed system can result in performance issues (slow IO and administrative operations). It can potentially lead to problems importing a pool due to memory exhaustion. Deduplication can consume significant processing power (CPU) and memory as well as generate additional disk IO.

Before creating a pool with deduplication enabled, ensure that you have planned your hardware requirements appropriately and implemented appropriate recovery practices, such as regular backups. As an alternative to deduplication consider using compression=on, as a less resource-intensive alternative.

  Native Properties
Properties are divided into two types, native properties and user-defined (or "user") properties. Native properties either export internal statistics or control ZFS behavior. In addition, native properties are either editable or read-only. User properties have no effect on ZFS 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 the User Properties section, below.

Every dataset has a set of properties that export statistics about the dataset as well as control various behaviors. Properties are inherited from the parent unless overridden by the child. Some properties apply only to certain types of datasets (file systems, volumes, or snapshots).

The values of numeric properties can be specified using human-readable suffixes (for example, k, KB, M, Gb, and so forth, up to Z for zettabyte). The following are all valid (and equal) specifications: 1536M, 1.5g, 1.50GB.

The values of non-numeric properties are case sensitive and must be lowercase, except for mountpoint, sharenfs, and sharesmb.

The following native properties consist of read-only statistics about the dataset. These properties can be neither set, nor inherited. Native properties apply to all dataset types unless otherwise noted.

available
    The amount of space available to the dataset and all its children, assuming that there is no other activity in the pool. Because space is shared within a pool, availability can be limited by any number of factors, including physical pool size, quotas, reservations, or other datasets within the pool.

    This property can also be referred to by its shortened column name, avail.

compressratio
    For non-snapshots, the compression ratio achieved for the used space of this dataset, expressed as a multiplier. The used property includes descendant datasets, and, for clones, does not include the space shared with the origin snapshot. For snapshots, the compressratio is the same as the refcompressratio property. Compression can be turned on by running: zfs set compression=on dataset. The default value is off.

createtxg
    The transaction group (txg) in which the dataset was created. Bookmarks have the same createtxg as the snapshot they are initially tied to. This property is suitable for ordering a list of snapshots, e.g. for incremental send and receive.

creation
    The time this dataset was created.

clones
    For snapshots, this property is a comma-separated list of filesystems or volumes which are clones of this snapshot. The clones' origin property is this snapshot. If the clones property is not empty, then this snapshot can not be destroyed (even with the -r or -f options). The roles of origin and clone can be swapped by promoting the clone with the zfs promote command.

defer_destroy
    This property is on if the snapshot has been marked for deferred destroy by using the zfs destroy -d command. Otherwise, the property is off.

encryptionroot
    For encrypted datasets, indicates where the dataset is currently inheriting its encryption key from. Loading or unloading a key for the encryptionroot will implicitly load / unload the key for any inheriting datasets (see zfs load-key and zfs unload-key for details). Clones will always share an encryption key with their origin. See the Encryption section for details.

filesystem_count
    The total number of filesystems and volumes that exist under this location in the dataset tree. This value is only available when a filesystem_limit has been set somewhere in the tree under which the dataset resides.

keystatus
    Indicates if an encryption key is currently loaded into ZFS. The possible values are none, available, and unavailable. See zfs load-key and zfs unload-key.

guid
    The 64 bit GUID of this dataset or bookmark which does not change over its entire lifetime. When a snapshot is sent to another pool, the received snapshot has the same GUID. Thus, the guid is suitable to identify a snapshot across pools.

logicalreferenced
    The amount of space that is "logically" accessible by this dataset. See the referenced property. The logical space ignores the effect of the compression and copies properties, giving a quantity closer to the amount of data that applications see. However, it does include space consumed by metadata.

    This property can also be referred to by its shortened column name, lrefer.

logicalused
    The amount of space that is "logically" consumed by this dataset and all its descendents. See the used property. The logical space ignores the effect of the compression and copies properties, giving a quantity closer to the amount of data that applications see. However, it does include space consumed by metadata.

    This property can also be referred to by its shortened column name, lused.

mounted
    For file systems, indicates whether the file system is currently mounted. This property can be either yes or no.

origin
    For cloned file systems or volumes, the snapshot from which the clone was created. See also the clones property.

receive_resume_token
    For filesystems or volumes which have saved partially-completed state from zfs receive -s, this opaque token can be provided to zfs send -t to resume and complete the zfs receive.

referenced
    The amount of data that is accessible by this dataset, which may or may not be shared with other datasets in the pool. When a snapshot or clone is created, it initially references the same amount of space as the file system or snapshot it was created from, since its contents are identical.

    This property can also be referred to by its shortened column name, refer.

refcompressratio
    The compression ratio achieved for the referenced space of this dataset, expressed as a multiplier. See also the compressratio property.

snapshot_count
    The total number of snapshots that exist under this location in the dataset tree. This value is only available when a snapshot_limit has been set somewhere in the tree under which the dataset resides.

type
    The type of dataset: filesystem, volume, or snapshot.

used
    The amount of space consumed by this dataset and all its descendents. This is the value that is checked against this dataset's quota and reservation. The space used does not include this dataset's reservation, but does take into account the reservations of any descendent datasets. The amount of space that a dataset consumes from its parent, as well as the amount of space that is freed if this dataset is recursively destroyed, is the greater of its space used and its reservation.

    The used space of a snapshot (see the Snapshots section) is space that is referenced exclusively by this snapshot. If this snapshot is destroyed, the amount of used space will be freed. Space that is shared by multiple snapshots isn't accounted for in this metric. When a snapshot is destroyed, space that was previously shared with this snapshot can become unique to snapshots adjacent to it, thus changing the used space of those snapshots. The used space of the latest snapshot can also be affected by changes in the file system. Note that the used space of a snapshot is a subset of the written space of the snapshot.

    The amount of space used, available, or referenced does not take into account pending changes. Pending changes are generally accounted for within a few seconds. Committing a change to a disk using fsync(2) or O_SYNC does not necessarily guarantee that the space usage information is updated immediately.

usedby*
    The usedby* properties decompose the used properties into the various reasons that space is used. Specifically, used = usedbychildren + usedbydataset + usedbyrefreservation + usedbysnapshots. These properties are only available for datasets created on zpool "version 13" pools.

usedbychildren
    The amount of space used by children of this dataset, which would be freed if all the dataset's children were destroyed.

usedbydataset
    The amount of space used by this dataset itself, which would be freed if the dataset were destroyed (after first removing any refreservation and destroying any necessary snapshots or descendents).

usedbyrefreservation
    The amount of space used by a refreservation set on this dataset, which would be freed if the refreservation was removed.

usedbysnapshots
    The amount of space consumed by snapshots of this dataset. In particular, it is the amount of space that would be freed if all of this dataset's snapshots were destroyed. Note that this is not simply the sum of the snapshots' used properties because space can be shared by multiple snapshots.

userused@user
    The amount of space consumed by the specified user in this dataset. Space is charged to the owner of each file, as displayed by ls -l. The amount of space charged is displayed by du and ls -s. See the zfs userspace subcommand for more information.

    Unprivileged users can access only their own space usage. The root user, or a user who has been granted the userused privilege with zfs allow, can access everyone's usage.

    The userused@... properties are not displayed by zfs get all. The user's name must be appended after the @ symbol, using one of the following forms:

    •   POSIX name (for example, joe)

    •   POSIX numeric ID (for example, 789)

    •   SID name (for example, joe.smith@mydomain)

    •   SID numeric ID (for example, S-1-123-456-789)

    Files created on Linux always have POSIX owners.

userobjused@user
    The userobjused property is similar to userused but instead it counts the number of objects consumed by a user. This property counts all objects allocated on behalf of the user, it may differ from the results of system tools such as df -i.

    When the property xattr=on is set on a file system additional objects will be created per-file to store extended attributes. These additional objects are reflected in the userobjused value and are counted against the user's userobjquota. When a file system is configured to use xattr=sa no additional internal objects are normally required.

userrefs
    This property is set to the number of user holds on this snapshot. User holds are set by using the zfs hold command.

groupused@group
    The amount of space consumed by the specified group in this dataset. Space is charged to the group of each file, as displayed by ls -l. See the userused@user property for more information.

    Unprivileged users can only access their own groups' space usage. The root user, or a user who has been granted the groupused privilege with zfs allow, can access all groups' usage.

groupobjused@group
    The number of objects consumed by the specified group in this dataset. Multiple objects may be charged to the group for each file when extended attributes are in use. See the userobjused@user property for more information.

    Unprivileged users can only access their own groups' space usage. The root user, or a user who has been granted the groupobjused privilege with zfs allow, can access all groups' usage.

volblocksize
    For volumes, specifies the block size of the volume. The blocksize cannot be changed once the volume has been written, so it should be set at volume creation time. The default blocksize for volumes is 8 Kbytes. Any power of 2 from 512 bytes to 128 Kbytes is valid.

    This property can also be referred to by its shortened column name, volblock.

written
    The amount of space referenced by this dataset, that was written since the previous snapshot (i.e. that is not referenced by the previous snapshot).

written@snapshot
    The amount of referenced space written to this dataset since the specified snapshot. This is the space that is referenced by this dataset but was not referenced by the specified snapshot.

    The snapshot may be specified as a short snapshot name (just the part after the @), in which case it will be interpreted as a snapshot in the same filesystem as this dataset. The snapshot may be a full snapshot name (filesystem@snapshot), which for clones may be a snapshot in the origin's filesystem (or the origin of the origin's filesystem, etc.)

The following native properties can be used to change the behavior of a ZFS dataset.

    aclinherit=discard|noallow| restricted|passthrough|passthrough-x Controls how ACEs are inherited when files and directories are created.

    discard
        does not inherit any ACEs.

    noallow
        only inherits inheritable ACEs that specify "deny" permissions.

    restricted
        default, removes the write_acl and write_owner permissions when the ACE is inherited.

    passthrough
        inherits all inheritable ACEs without any modifications.

    passthrough-x
        same meaning as passthrough, except that the owner@, group@, and everyone@ ACEs inherit the execute permission only if the file creation mode also requests the execute bit.

    When the property value is set to passthrough, files are created with a mode determined by the inheritable ACEs. If no inheritable ACEs exist that affect the mode, then the mode is set in accordance to the requested mode from the application.

    The aclinherit property does not apply to posix ACLs.

acltype=off|noacl|posixacl
    Controls whether ACLs are enabled and if so what type of ACL to use.

    off default, when a file system has the acltype property set to off then ACLs are disabled.

    noacl
        an alias for off

    posixacl
        indicates posix ACLs should be used. Posix ACLs are specific to Linux and are not functional on other platforms. Posix ACLs are stored as an extended attribute and therefore will not overwrite any existing NFSv4 ACLs which may be set.

    To obtain the best performance when setting posixacl users are strongly encouraged to set the xattr=sa property. This will result in the posix ACL being stored more efficiently on disk. But as a consequence of this all new extended attributes will only be accessible from OpenZFS implementations which support the xattr=sa property. See the xattr property for more details.

atime=on|off
    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 other similar utilities. The values on and off are equivalent to the atime and noatime mount options. The default value is on. See also relatime below.

canmount=on|off|noauto
    If this property is set to off, the file system cannot be mounted, and is ignored by zfs mount -a. Setting this property to off is similar to setting the mountpoint property to none, except that the dataset still has a normal mountpoint property, which can be inherited. Setting this property to off allows datasets to be used solely as a mechanism to inherit properties. One example of setting canmount=off is to have two datasets with the same mountpoint, so that the children of both datasets appear in the same directory, but might have different inherited characteristics.

    When set to noauto, a dataset can only be mounted and unmounted explicitly. The dataset is not mounted automatically when the dataset is created or imported, nor is it mounted by the zfs mount -a command or unmounted by the zfs unmount -a command.

    This property is not inherited.

    checksum=on|off|fletcher2| fletcher4|sha256|noparity| sha512|skein|edonr Controls the checksum used to verify data integrity. The default value is on, which automatically selects an appropriate algorithm (currently, fletcher4, but this may change in future releases). The value off disables integrity checking on user data. The value noparity not only disables integrity but also disables maintaining parity for user data. This setting is used internally by a dump device residing on a RAID-Z pool and should not be used by any other dataset. Disabling checksums is NOT a recommended practice.

    The sha512, skein, and edonr checksum algorithms require enabling the appropriate features on the pool. Please see zpool-features(5) for more information on these algorithms.

    Changing this property affects only newly-written data.

    Salted checksum algorithms (edonr, skein) are currently not supported for any filesystem on the boot pools.

    compression=on|off|gzip| gzip-N|lz4|lzjb|zle Controls the compression algorithm used for this dataset.

    Setting compression to on indicates that the current default compression algorithm should be used. The default balances compression and decompression speed, with compression ratio and is expected to work well on a wide variety of workloads. Unlike all other settings for this property, on does not select a fixed compression type. As new compression algorithms are added to ZFS and enabled on a pool, the default compression algorithm may change. The current default compression algorithm is either lzjb or, if the lz4_compress feature is enabled, lz4.

    The lz4 compression algorithm is a high-performance replacement for the lzjb algorithm. It features significantly faster compression and decompression, as well as a moderately higher compression ratio than lzjb, but can only be used on pools with the lz4_compress feature set to enabled. See zpool-features(5) for details on ZFS feature flags and the lz4_compress feature.

    The lzjb compression algorithm is optimized for performance while providing decent data compression.

    The gzip compression algorithm uses the same compression as the gzip(1) command. You can specify the gzip level by using the value gzip-N, where N is an integer from 1 (fastest) to 9 (best compression ratio). Currently, gzip is equivalent to gzip-6 (which is also the default for gzip(1)).

    The zle compression algorithm compresses runs of zeros.

    This property can also be referred to by its shortened column name compress. Changing this property affects only newly-written data.

    context=none| SELinux_User:SElinux_Role:Selinux_Type:Sensitivity_Level This flag sets the SELinux context for all files in the file system under a mount point for that file system. See selinux(8) for more information.

    fscontext=none| SELinux_User:SElinux_Role:Selinux_Type:Sensitivity_Level This flag sets the SELinux context for the file system file system being mounted. See selinux(8) for more information.

    defcontext=none| SELinux_User:SElinux_Role:Selinux_Type:Sensitivity_Level This flag sets the SELinux default context for unlabeled files. See selinux(8) for more information.

    rootcontext=none| SELinux_User:SElinux_Role:Selinux_Type:Sensitivity_Level This flag sets the SELinux context for the root inode of the file system. See selinux(8) for more information.

copies=1|2|3
    Controls the number of copies of data stored for this dataset. These copies are in addition to any redundancy provided by the pool, for example, mirroring or RAID-Z. The copies are stored on different disks, if possible. The space used by multiple copies is charged to the associated file and dataset, changing the used property and counting against quotas and reservations.

    Changing this property only affects newly-written data. Therefore, set this property at file system creation time by using the -o copies=N option.

    Remember that ZFS will not import a pool with a missing top-level vdev. Do NOT create, for example a two-disk striped pool and set copies=2 on some datasets thinking you have setup redundancy for them. When a disk fails you will not be able to import the pool and will have lost all of your data.

devices=on|off
    Controls whether device nodes can be opened on this file system. The default value is on. The values on and off are equivalent to the dev and nodev mount options.

    dnodesize=legacy|auto|1k| 2k|4k|8k|16k Specifies a compatibility mode or literal value for the size of dnodes in the file system. The default value is legacy. Setting this property to a value other than legacy requires the large_dnode pool feature to be enabled.

    Consider setting dnodesize to auto if the dataset uses the xattr=sa property setting and the workload makes heavy use of extended attributes. This may be applicable to SELinux-enabled systems, Lustre servers, and Samba servers, for example. Literal values are supported for cases where the optimal size is known in advance and for performance testing.

    Leave dnodesize set to legacy if you need to receive a send stream of this dataset on a pool that doesn't enable the large_dnode feature, or if you need to import this pool on a system that doesn't support the large_dnode feature.

    This property can also be referred to by its shortened column name, dnsize.

    encryption=off|on|aes-128-ccm| aes-192-ccm|aes-256-ccm|aes-128-gcm| aes-192-gcm|aes-256-gcm Controls the encryption cipher suite (block cipher, key length, and mode) used for this dataset. Requires the encryption feature to be enabled on the pool. Requires a keyformat to be set at dataset creation time.

    Selecting encryption=on when creating a dataset indicates that the default encryption suite will be selected, which is currently aes-256-ccm. In order to provide consistent data protection, encryption must be specified at dataset creation time and it cannot be changed afterwards.

    For more details and caveats about encryption see the Encryption section.

keyformat=raw|hex|passphrase
    Controls what format the user's encryption key will be provided as. This property is only set when the dataset is encrypted.

    Raw keys and hex keys must be 32 bytes long (regardless of the chosen encryption suite) and must be randomly generated. A raw key can be generated with the following command:

        # dd if=/dev/urandom of=/path/to/output/key bs=32 count=1

    Passphrases must be between 8 and 512 bytes long and will be processed through PBKDF2 before being used (see the pbkdf2iters property). Even though the encryption suite cannot be changed after dataset creation, the keyformat can be with zfs change-key.

    keylocation=prompt|file://</absolute/file/path> Controls where the user's encryption key will be loaded from by default for commands such as zfs load-key and zfs mount -l. This property is only set for encrypted datasets which are encryption roots. If unspecified, the default is prompt.

    Even though the encryption suite cannot be changed after dataset creation, the keylocation can be with either zfs set or zfs change-key. If prompt is selected ZFS will ask for the key at the command prompt when it is required to access the encrypted data (see zfs load-key for details). This setting will also allow the key to be passed in via STDIN, but users should be careful not to place keys which should be kept secret on the command line. If a file URI is selected, the key will be loaded from the specified absolute file path.

pbkdf2iters=iterations
    Controls the number of PBKDF2 iterations that a passphrase encryption key should be run through when processing it into an encryption key. This property is only defined when encryption is enabled and a keyformat of passphrase is selected. The goal of PBKDF2 is to significantly increase the computational difficulty needed to brute force a user's passphrase. This is accomplished by forcing the attacker to run each passphrase through a computationally expensive hashing function many times before they arrive at the resulting key. A user who actually knows the passphrase will only have to pay this cost once. As CPUs become better at processing, this number should be raised to ensure that a brute force attack is still not possible. The current default is 350000 and the minimum is 100000. This property may be changed with zfs change-key.

exec=on|off
    Controls whether processes can be executed from within this file system. The default value is on. The values on and off are equivalent to the exec and noexec mount options.

filesystem_limit=count|none
    Limits the number of filesystems and volumes that can exist under this point in the dataset tree. The limit is not enforced if the user is allowed to change the limit. Setting a filesystem_limit to on a descendent of a filesystem that already has a filesystem_limit does not override the ancestor's filesystem_limit, but rather imposes an additional limit. This feature must be enabled to be used (see zpool-features(5)).

mountpoint=path|none|legacy
    Controls the mount point used for this file system. See the Mount Points section for more information on how this property is used.

    When the mountpoint property is changed for a file system, the file system and any children 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.

nbmand=on|off
    Controls whether the file system should be mounted with nbmand (Non Blocking mandatory locks). This is used for SMB clients. Changes to this property only take effect when the file system is umounted and remounted. See mount(8) for more information on nbmand mounts. This property is not used on Linux.

overlay=off|on
    Allow mounting on a busy directory or a directory which already contains files or directories. This is the default mount behavior for Linux file systems. For consistency with OpenZFS on other platforms overlay mounts are off by default. Set to on to enable overlay mounts.

primarycache=all|none|metadata
    Controls what is cached in the primary cache (ARC). If this property is set to all, then both user data and metadata is cached. If this property is set to none, then neither user data nor metadata is cached. If this property is set to metadata, then only metadata is cached. The default value is all.

quota=size|none
    Limits the amount of space a dataset and its descendents can consume. This property enforces a hard limit on the amount of space used. This includes all space consumed by descendents, including file systems and snapshots. Setting a quota on a descendent of a dataset 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.

snapshot_limit=count|none
    Limits the number of snapshots that can be created on a dataset and its descendents. Setting a snapshot_limit on a descendent of a dataset that already has a snapshot_limit does not override the ancestor's snapshot_limit, but rather imposes an additional limit. The limit is not enforced if the user is allowed to change the limit. For example, this means that recursive snapshots taken from the global zone are counted against each delegated dataset within a zone. This feature must be enabled to be used (see zpool-features(5)).

userquota@user=size|none
    Limits the amount of space consumed by the specified user. User space consumption is identified by the userspace@user property.

    Enforcement of user quotas may be delayed by several seconds. This delay means that a user might exceed their quota before the system notices that they are over quota and begins to refuse additional writes with the EDQUOT error message. See the zfs userspace subcommand for more information.

    Unprivileged users can only access their own groups' space usage. The root user, or a user who has been granted the userquota privilege with zfs allow, can get and set everyone's quota.

    This property is not available on volumes, on file systems before version 4, or on pools before version 15. The userquota@... properties are not displayed by zfs get all. The user's name must be appended after the @ symbol, using one of the following forms:

    •   POSIX name (for example, joe)

    •   POSIX numeric ID (for example, 789)

    •   SID name (for example, joe.smith@mydomain)

    •   SID numeric ID (for example, S-1-123-456-789)

    Files created on Linux always have POSIX owners.

userobjquota@user=size|none
    The userobjquota is similar to userquota but it limits the number of objects a user can create. Please refer to userobjused for more information about how objects are counted.

groupquota@group=size|none
    Limits the amount of space consumed by the specified group. Group space consumption is identified by the groupused@group property.

    Unprivileged users can access only their own groups' space usage. The root user, or a user who has been granted the groupquota privilege with zfs allow, can get and set all groups' quotas.

groupobjquota@group=size|none
    The groupobjquota is similar to groupquota but it limits number of objects a group can consume. Please refer to userobjused for more information about how objects are counted.

readonly=on|off
    Controls whether this dataset can be modified. The default value is off. The values on and off are equivalent to the ro and rw mount options.

    This property can also be referred to by its shortened column name, rdonly.

recordsize=size
    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 tunes block sizes according to internal algorithms optimized for typical access patterns.

    For databases that create very large files but access them in small random chunks, these algorithms may be suboptimal. Specifying a recordsize 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 may adversely affect performance.

    The size specified must be a power of two greater than or equal to 512 and less than or equal to 128 Kbytes. If the large_blocks feature is enabled on the pool, the size may be up to 1 Mbyte. See zpool-features(5) for details on ZFS feature flags.

    Changing the file system's recordsize affects only files created afterward; existing files are unaffected.

    This property can also be referred to by its shortened column name, recsize.

redundant_metadata=all|most
    Controls what types of metadata are stored redundantly. ZFS stores an extra copy of metadata, so that if a single block is corrupted, the amount of user data lost is limited. This extra copy is in addition to any redundancy provided at the pool level (e.g. by mirroring or RAID-Z), and is in addition to an extra copy specified by the copies property (up to a total of 3 copies). For example if the pool is mirrored, copies=2, and redundant_metadata=most, then ZFS stores 6 copies of most metadata, and 4 copies of data and some metadata.

    When set to all, ZFS stores an extra copy of all metadata. If a single on-disk block is corrupt, at worst a single block of user data (which is recordsize bytes long) can be lost.

    When set to most, ZFS stores an extra copy of most types of metadata. This can improve performance of random writes, because less metadata must be written. In practice, at worst about 100 blocks (of recordsize bytes each) of user data can be lost if a single on-disk block is corrupt. The exact behavior of which metadata blocks are stored redundantly may change in future releases.

    The default value is all.

refquota=size|none
    Limits the amount of space a dataset can consume. This property enforces a hard limit on the amount of space used. This hard limit does not include space used by descendents, including file systems and snapshots.

refreservation=size|none
    The minimum amount of space guaranteed to a dataset, not including its descendents. When the amount of 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 datasets' space used, and counts against the parent datasets' quotas and reservations.

    If refreservation is set, a snapshot is only allowed if there is enough free pool space outside of this reservation to accommodate the current number of "referenced" bytes in the dataset.

    This property can also be referred to by its shortened column name, refreserv.

relatime=on|off
    Controls the manner in which the access time is updated when atime=on is set. Turning this property on causes the access time to be updated relative to the modify or change time. Access time is only updated if the previous access time was earlier than the current modify or change time or if the existing access time hasn't been updated within the past 24 hours. The default value is off. The values on and off are equivalent to the relatime and norelatime mount options.

reservation=size|none
    The minimum amount of space guaranteed to a dataset and its descendants. When the amount of space used is below this value, the dataset is treated as if it were taking up the amount of space specified by its reservation. Reservations are accounted for in the parent datasets' space used, and count against the parent datasets' quotas and reservations.

    This property can also be referred to by its shortened column name, reserv.

secondarycache=all|none|metadata
    Controls what is cached in the secondary cache (L2ARC). If this property is set to all, then both user data and metadata is cached. If this property is set to none, then neither user data nor metadata is cached. If this property is set to metadata, then only metadata is cached. The default value is all.

setuid=on|off
    Controls whether the setuid bit is respected for the file system. The default value is on. The values on and off are equivalent to the suid and nosuid mount options.

sharesmb=on|off|opts
    Controls whether the file system is shared by using Samba USERSHARES and what options are to be used. Otherwise, the file system is automatically shared and unshared with the zfs share and zfs unshare commands. If the property is set to on, the net(8) command is invoked to create a USERSHARE.

    Because SMB shares requires a resource name, a unique resource name is constructed from the dataset name. The constructed name is a copy of the dataset name except that the characters in the dataset name, which would be invalid in the resource name, are replaced with underscore (_) characters. Linux does not currently support additional options which might be available on Solaris.

    If the sharesmb property is set to off, the file systems are unshared.

    The share is created with the ACL (Access Control List) "Everyone:F" ("F" stands for "full permissions", ie. read and write permissions) and no guest access (which means Samba must be able to authenticate a real user, system passwd/shadow, LDAP or smbpasswd based) by default. This means that any additional access control (disallow specific user specific access etc) must be done on the underlying file system.

sharenfs=on|off|opts
    Controls whether the file system is shared via NFS, and what options are to be used. A file system with a sharenfs property of off is managed with the exportfs(8) command and entries in the /etc/exports file. Otherwise, the file system is automatically shared and unshared with the zfs share and zfs unshare commands. If the property is set to on, the dataset is shared using the default options:

    sec=sys,rw,crossmnt,no_subtree_check,no_root_squash

    See exports(5) for the meaning of the default options. Otherwise, the exportfs(8) command is invoked with options equivalent to the contents of this property.

    When the sharenfs property is changed for a dataset, the dataset and any children inheriting the property are re-shared with the new options, only if the property was previously off, or if they were shared before the property was changed. If the new property is off, the file systems are unshared.

logbias=latency|throughput
    Provide a hint to ZFS about handling of synchronous requests in this dataset. If logbias is set to latency (the default), ZFS will use pool log devices (if configured) to handle the requests at low latency. If logbias is set to throughput, ZFS will not use configured pool log devices. ZFS will instead optimize synchronous operations for global pool throughput and efficient use of resources.

snapdev=hidden|visible
    Controls whether the volume snapshot devices under /dev/zvol/<pool> are hidden or visible. The default value is hidden.

snapdir=hidden|visible
    Controls whether the .zfs directory is hidden or visible in the root of the file system as discussed in the Snapshots section. The default value is hidden.

sync=standard|always|disabled
    Controls the behavior of synchronous requests (e.g. fsync, O_DSYNC). standard is the POSIX specified behavior of ensuring all synchronous requests are written to stable storage and all devices are flushed to ensure data is not cached by device controllers (this is the default). always causes every file system transaction to be written and flushed before its system call returns. This has a large performance penalty. disabled disables synchronous requests. File system transactions are only committed to stable storage periodically. This option will give the highest performance. However, it is very dangerous as ZFS would be ignoring the synchronous transaction demands of applications such as databases or NFS. Administrators should only use this option when the risks are understood.

version=N|current
    The on-disk version of this file system, which is independent of the pool version. This property can only be set to later supported versions. See the zfs upgrade command.

volsize=size
    For volumes, specifies the logical size of the volume. By default, creating a volume establishes a reservation of equal size. For storage pools with a version number of 9 or higher, a refreservation is set instead. Any changes to volsize are reflected in an equivalent change to the reservation (or refreservation). The volsize can only be set to a multiple of volblocksize, and cannot be zero.

    The reservation is kept equal to the volume's logical size to prevent unexpected behavior for consumers. Without the reservation, the volume could run out of space, resulting 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 it is in use (particularly when shrinking the size). Extreme care should be used when adjusting the volume size.

    Though not recommended, a "sparse volume" (also known as "thin provisioning") can be created by specifying the -s option to the zfs create -V command, or by changing the reservation after the volume has been created. A "sparse volume" is a volume where the reservation is less then the volume size. Consequently, writes to a sparse volume can fail with ENOSPC when the pool is low on space. For a sparse volume, changes to volsize are not reflected in the reservation.

volmode=default | full | geom | dev | none
    This property specifies how volumes should be exposed to the OS. Setting it to full exposes volumes as fully fledged block devices, providing maximal functionality. The value geom is just an alias for full and is kept for compatibility. Setting it to dev hides its partitions. Volumes with property set to none are not exposed outside ZFS, but can be snapshoted, cloned, replicated, etc, that can be suitable for backup purposes. Value default means that volumes exposition is controlled by system-wide tunable zvol_volmode, where full, dev and none are encoded as 1, 2 and 3 respectively. The default values is full.

vscan=on|off
    Controls whether regular files should be scanned for viruses when a file is opened and closed. In addition to enabling this property, the virus scan service must also be enabled for virus scanning to occur. The default value is off. This property is not used on Linux.

xattr=on|off|sa
    Controls whether extended attributes are enabled for this file system. Two styles of extended attributes are supported either directory based or system attribute based.

    The default value of on enables directory based extended attributes. This style of extended attribute imposes no practical limit on either the size or number of attributes which can be set on a file. Although under Linux the getxattr(2) and setxattr(2) system calls limit the maximum size to 64K. This is the most compatible style of extended attribute and is supported by all OpenZFS implementations.

    System attribute based xattrs can be enabled by setting the value to sa. The key advantage of this type of xattr is improved performance. Storing extended attributes as system attributes significantly decreases the amount of disk IO required. Up to 64K of data may be stored per-file in the space reserved for system attributes. If there is not enough space available for an extended attribute then it will be automatically written as a directory based xattr. System attribute based extended attributes are not accessible on platforms which do not support the xattr=sa feature.

    The use of system attribute based xattrs is strongly encouraged for users of SELinux or posix ACLs. Both of these features heavily rely of extended attributes and benefit significantly from the reduced access time.

    The values on and off are equivalent to the xattr and noxattr mount options.

zoned=on|off
    Controls whether the dataset is managed from a non-global zone. Zones are a Solaris feature and are not relevant on Linux. The default value is off.

The following three properties cannot be changed after the file system is created, and therefore, should be set when the file system is created. If the properties are not set with the zfs create or zpool create commands, these properties are inherited from the parent dataset. If the parent dataset lacks these properties due to having been created prior to these features being supported, the new file system will have the default values for these properties.

    casesensitivity=sensitive| insensitive|mixed Indicates whether the file name matching algorithm used by the file system should be case-sensitive, case-insensitive, or allow a combination of both styles of matching. The default value for the casesensitivity property is sensitive. Traditionally, UNIX and POSIX file systems have case-sensitive file names.

    The mixed value for the casesensitivity property indicates that 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 SMB server product. For more information about the mixed value behavior, see the "ZFS Administration Guide".

    normalization=none|formC| formD|formKC|formKD Indicates whether the 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.

utf8only=on|off
    Indicates whether the 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.

The casesensitivity, normalization, and utf8only properties are also new permissions that can be assigned to non-privileged users by using the ZFS delegated administration feature.

  Temporary Mount Point Properties
When a file system is mounted, either through mount(8) for legacy mounts or the zfs mount command for normal file systems, its mount options are set according to its properties. The correlation between properties and mount options is as follows:

        PROPERTY                MOUNT OPTION
        atime                   atime/noatime
        canmount                auto/noauto
        devices                 dev/nodev
        exec                    exec/noexec
        readonly                ro/rw
        relatime                relatime/norelatime
        setuid                  suid/nosuid
        xattr                   xattr/noxattr

In addition, these options can be set on a per-mount basis using the -o option, without affecting the property that is stored on disk. The values specified on the command line override the values stored in the dataset. The nosuid option is an alias for nodevices,nosetuid. These properties are reported as "temporary" by the zfs get command. If the properties are changed while the dataset is mounted, the new setting overrides any temporary settings.

  User Properties
In addition to the standard native properties, ZFS supports arbitrary user properties. User properties have no effect on ZFS behavior, but applications or administrators can use them to annotate datasets (file systems, volumes, and snapshots).

User property names must contain a colon (""): character to distinguish them from native properties. They may contain lowercase letters, numbers, and the following punctuation characters: colon (""):, dash ("-"), period ("")., and underscore ("_"). The expected convention is that the property name is divided into two portions such as module:property, but this namespace is not enforced by ZFS. User property names can be at most 256 characters, and cannot begin with a dash ("-").

When making programmatic use of user properties, it is strongly suggested to use a reversed DNS domain name for the module component of property names to reduce the chance that two independently-developed packages use the same property name for different purposes.

The values of user properties are arbitrary strings, are always inherited, and are never validated. All of the commands that operate on properties (zfs list, zfs get, zfs set, and so forth) can be used to manipulate both native properties and user properties. Use the zfs inherit command to clear a user property. If the property is not defined in any parent dataset, it is removed entirely. Property values are limited to 8192 bytes.

  ZFS Volumes as Swap
ZFS volumes may be used as swap devices. After creating the volume with the zfs create -V command set up and enable the swap area using the mkswap(8) and swapon(8) commands. Do not swap to a file on a ZFS file system. A ZFS swap file configuration is not supported.

  Encryption
Enabling the encryption feature allows for the creation of encrypted filesystems and volumes. zfs will encrypt all user data including file and zvol data, file attributes, ACLs, permission bits, directory listings, FUID mappings, and userused / groupused data. zfs will not encrypt metadata related to the pool structure, including dataset names, dataset hierarchy, file size, file holes, and dedup tables. Key rotation is managed internally by the kernel module and changing the user's key does not require re-encrypting the entire dataset. Datasets can be scrubbed, resilvered, renamed, and deleted without the encryption keys being loaded (see the zfs load-key subcommand for more info on key loading).

Creating an encrypted dataset requires specifying the encryption and keyformat properties at creation time, along with an optional keylocation and pbkdf2iters. After entering an encryption key, the created dataset will become an encryption root. Any descendant datasets will inherit their encryption key from the encryption root by default, meaning that loading, unloading, or changing the key for the encryption root will implicitly do the same for all inheriting datasets. If this inheritance is not desired, simply supply a keyformat when creating the child dataset or use zfs change-key to break an existing relationship, creating a new encryption root on the child. Note that the child's keyformat may match that of the parent while still creating a new encryption root, and that changing the encryption property alone does not create a new encryption root; this would simply use a different cipher suite with the same key as its encryption root. The one exception is that clones will always use their origin's encryption key. As a result of this exception, some encryption-related properties (namely keystatus, keyformat, keylocation, and pbkdf2iters) do not inherit like other ZFS properties and instead use the value determined by their encryption root. Encryption root inheritance can be tracked via the read-only encryptionroot property.

Encryption changes the behavior of a few zfs operations. Encryption is applied after compression so compression ratios are preserved. Normally checksums in ZFS are 256 bits long, but for encrypted data the checksum is 128 bits of the user-chosen checksum and 128 bits of MAC from the encryption suite, which provides additional protection against maliciously altered data. Deduplication is still possible with encryption enabled but for security, datasets will only dedup against themselves, their snapshots, and their clones.

There are a few limitations on encrypted datasets. Encrypted data cannot be embedded via the embedded_data feature. Encrypted datasets may not have copies=3 since the implementation stores some encryption metadata where the third copy would normally be. Since compression is applied before encryption datasets may be vulnerable to a CRIME-like attack if applications accessing the data allow for it. Deduplication with encryption will leak information about which blocks are equivalent in a dataset and will incur an extra CPU cost per block written.

SUBCOMMANDS
All subcommands that modify state are logged persistently to the pool in their original form.

zfs -?
    Displays a help message.

    zfs create [-p] [-o property=value]... filesystem Creates a new ZFS file system. The file system is automatically mounted according to the mountpoint property inherited from the parent.

    -o property=value
        Sets the specified property as if the command zfs set property=value was invoked at the same time the dataset was created. Any editable ZFS property can also be set at creation time. Multiple -o options can be specified. An error results if the same property is specified in multiple -o options.

    -p  Creates all the non-existing parent datasets. Datasets created in this manner are automatically mounted according to the mountpoint property inherited from their parent. Any property specified on the command line using the -o option is ignored. If the target filesystem already exists, the operation completes successfully.

    zfs create [-ps] [-b blocksize] [-o property=value]... -V size volume Creates a volume of the given size. The volume is exported as a block device in /dev/zvol/path, where path is the name of the volume in the ZFS namespace. The size represents the logical size as exported by the device. By default, a reservation of equal size is created.

    size is automatically rounded up to the nearest 128 Kbytes to ensure that the volume has an integral number of blocks regardless of blocksize.

    -b blocksize
        Equivalent to -o volblocksize=blocksize. If this option is specified in conjunction with -o volblocksize, the resulting behavior is undefined.

    -o property=value
        Sets the specified property as if the zfs set property=value command was invoked at the same time the dataset was created. Any editable ZFS property can also be set at creation time. Multiple -o options can be specified. An error results if the same property is specified in multiple -o options.

    -p  Creates all the non-existing parent datasets. Datasets created in this manner are automatically mounted according to the mountpoint property inherited from their parent. Any property specified on the command line using the -o option is ignored. If the target filesystem already exists, the operation completes successfully.

    -s  Creates a sparse volume with no reservation. See volsize in the Native Properties section for more information about sparse volumes.

    zfs destroy [-Rfnprv] filesystem|volume Destroys the given dataset. By default, the command unshares any file systems that are currently shared, unmounts any file systems that are currently mounted, and refuses to destroy a dataset that has active dependents (children or clones).

    -R  Recursively destroy all dependents, including cloned file systems outside the target hierarchy.

    -f  Force an unmount of any file systems using the unmount -f command. This option has no effect on non-file systems or unmounted file systems.

    -n  Do a dry-run ("No-op") deletion. No data will be deleted. This is useful in conjunction with the -v or -p flags to determine what data would be deleted.

    -p  Print machine-parsable verbose information about the deleted data.

    -r  Recursively destroy all children.

    -v  Print verbose information about the deleted data.

    Extreme care should be taken when applying either the -r or the -R options, as they can destroy large portions of a pool and cause unexpected behavior for mounted file systems in use.

    zfs destroy [-Rdnprv] filesystem|volume@snap [%snap[,snap[%snap]]]... The given snapshots are destroyed immediately if and only if the zfs destroy command without the -d option would have destroyed it. Such immediate destruction would occur, for example, if the snapshot had no clones and the user-initiated reference count were zero.

    If a snapshot does not qualify for immediate destruction, it is marked for deferred deletion. In this state, it exists as a usable, visible snapshot until both of the preconditions listed above are met, at which point it is destroyed.

    An inclusive range of snapshots may be specified by separating the first and last snapshots with a percent sign. The first and/or last snapshots may be left blank, in which case the filesystem's oldest or newest snapshot will be implied.

    Multiple snapshots (or ranges of snapshots) of the same filesystem or volume may be specified in a comma-separated list of snapshots. Only the snapshot's short name (the part after the @) should be specified when using a range or comma-separated list to identify multiple snapshots.

    -R  Recursively destroy all clones of these snapshots, including the clones, snapshots, and children. If this flag is specified, the -d flag will have no effect.

    -d  Defer snapshot deletion.

    -n  Do a dry-run ("No-op") deletion. No data will be deleted. This is useful in conjunction with the -p or -v flags to determine what data would be deleted.

    -p  Print machine-parsable verbose information about the deleted data.

    -r  Destroy (or mark for deferred deletion) all snapshots with this name in descendent file systems.

    -v  Print verbose information about the deleted data.

        Extreme care should be taken when applying either the -r or the -R options, as they can destroy large portions of a pool and cause unexpected behavior for mounted file systems in use.

    zfs destroy filesystem|volume#bookmark The given bookmark is destroyed.

    zfs snapshot [-r] [-o property=value]... filesystem@snapname|volume@snapname... Creates snapshots with the given names. All previous modifications by successful system calls to the file system are part of the snapshots. Snapshots are taken atomically, so that all snapshots correspond to the same moment in time. zfs snap can be used as an alias for zfs snapshot. See the Snapshots section for details.

    -o property=value
        Sets the specified property; see zfs create for details.

    -r  Recursively create snapshots of all descendent datasets

    zfs rollback [-Rfr] snapshot Roll back the given dataset to a previous snapshot. When a dataset is rolled back, all data that has changed since the snapshot is discarded, and the dataset reverts to the state at the time of the snapshot. By default, the command refuses to roll back to a snapshot other than the most recent one. In order to do so, all intermediate snapshots and bookmarks must be destroyed by specifying the -r option.

    The -rR options do not recursively destroy the child snapshots of a recursive snapshot. Only direct snapshots of the specified filesystem are destroyed by either of these options. To completely roll back a recursive snapshot, you must rollback the individual child snapshots.

    -R  Destroy any more recent snapshots and bookmarks, as well as any clones of those snapshots.

    -f  Used with the -R option to force an unmount of any clone file systems that are to be destroyed.

    -r  Destroy any snapshots and bookmarks more recent than the one specified.

    zfs clone [-p] [-o property=value]... snapshot filesystem|volume Creates a clone of the given snapshot. See the Clones section for details. The target dataset can be located anywhere in the ZFS hierarchy, and is created as the same type as the original.

    -o property=value
        Sets the specified property; see zfs create for details.

    -p  Creates all the non-existing parent datasets. Datasets created in this manner are automatically mounted according to the mountpoint property inherited from their parent. If the target filesystem or volume already exists, the operation completes successfully.

    zfs promote clone-filesystem Promotes a clone file system to no longer be dependent on its "origin" snapshot. This makes it possible to destroy the file system that the clone was created from. The clone parent-child dependency relationship is reversed, so that the origin file system becomes a clone of the specified file system.

    The snapshot that was cloned, and any snapshots previous to this snapshot, are now owned by the promoted clone. The space they use moves from the origin file system to the promoted clone, so enough space must be available to accommodate these snapshots. No new space is consumed by this operation, but the space accounting is adjusted. The promoted clone must not have any conflicting snapshot names of its own. The rename subcommand can be used to rename any conflicting snapshots.

    zfs rename [-f] filesystem|volume|snapshot filesystem|volume|snapshot

    zfs rename [-fp] filesystem|volume filesystem|volume Renames the given dataset. The new target can be located anywhere in the ZFS hierarchy, with the exception of snapshots. Snapshots can only be renamed within the parent file system or volume. When renaming a snapshot, the parent file system of the snapshot does not need to be specified as part of the second argument. Renamed file systems can inherit new mount points, in which case they are unmounted and remounted at the new mount point.

    -f  Force unmount any filesystems that need to be unmounted in the process.

    -p  Creates all the nonexistent parent datasets. Datasets created in this manner are automatically mounted according to the mountpoint property inherited from their parent.

    zfs rename -r snapshot snapshot Recursively rename the snapshots of all descendent datasets. Snapshots are the only dataset that can be renamed recursively.

    zfs list [-r|-d depth] [-Hp] [-o property[,property]...] [-s property]... [-S property]... [-t type[,type]...] [filesystem|volume|snapshot]... Lists the property information for the given datasets in tabular form. If specified, you can list property information by the absolute pathname or the relative pathname. By default, all file systems and volumes are displayed. Snapshots are displayed if the listsnaps property is on (the default is off). The following fields are displayed, name,used,available,referenced, mountpoint.

    -H  Used for scripting mode. Do not print headers and separate fields by a single tab instead of arbitrary white space.

    -S property
        Same as the -s option, but sorts by property in descending order.

    -d depth
        Recursively display any children of the dataset, limiting the recursion to depth. A depth of 1 will display only the dataset and its direct children.

    -o property
        A comma-separated list of properties to display. The property must be:

        •   One of the properties described in the Native Properties section

        •   A user property

        •   The value name to display the dataset name

        •   The value space to display space usage properties on file systems and volumes. This is a shortcut for specifying -o name,avail,used,usedsnap, usedds,usedrefreserv,usedchild -t filesystem,volume syntax.

    -p  Display numbers in parsable (exact) values.

    -r  Recursively display any children of the dataset on the command line.

    -s property
        A property for sorting the output by column in ascending order based on the value of the property. The property must be one of the properties described in the Properties section, or the special value name to sort by the dataset name. Multiple properties can be specified at one time using multiple -s property options. Multiple -s options are evaluated from left to right in decreasing order of importance. The following is a list of sorting criteria:

        •   Numeric types sort in numeric order.

        •   String types sort in alphabetical order.

        •   Types inappropriate for a row sort that row to the literal bottom, regardless of the specified ordering.

        If no sorting options are specified the existing behavior of zfs list is preserved.

    -t type
        A comma-separated list of types to display, where type is one of filesystem, snapshot, volume, bookmark, or all. For example, specifying -t snapshot displays only snapshots.

    zfs set property=value [property=value]... filesystem|volume|snapshot... Sets the property or list of properties to the given value(s) for each dataset. Only some properties can be edited. See the Properties section for more information on what properties can be set and acceptable values. Numeric values can be specified as exact values, or in a human-readable form with a suffix of B, K, M, G, T, P, E, Z (for bytes, kilobytes, megabytes, gigabytes, terabytes, petabytes, exabytes, or zettabytes, respectively). User properties can be set on snapshots. For more information, see the User Properties section.

    zfs get [-r|-d depth] [-Hp] [-o field[,field]...] [-s source[,source]...] [-t type[,type]...] all | property[,property]... filesystem|volume|snapshot|bookmark... Displays properties for the given datasets. If no datasets are specified, then the command displays properties for all datasets on the system. For each property, the following columns are displayed:

            name      Dataset name
            property  Property name
            value     Property value
            source    Property source.  Can either be local, default,
                      temporary, inherited, or none (-).

    All columns are displayed by default, though this can be controlled by using the -o option. This command takes a comma-separated list of properties as described in the Native Properties and User Properties sections.

    The special value all can be used to display all properties that apply to the given dataset's type (filesystem, volume, snapshot, or bookmark).

    -H  Display output in a form more easily parsed by scripts. Any headers are omitted, and fields are explicitly separated by a single tab instead of an arbitrary amount of space.

    -d depth
        Recursively display any children of the dataset, limiting the recursion to depth. A depth of 1 will display only the dataset and its direct children.

    -o field
        A comma-separated list of columns to display. name,property,value,source is the default value.

    -p  Display numbers in parsable (exact) values.

    -r  Recursively display properties for any children.

    -s source
        A comma-separated list of sources to display. Those properties coming from a source other than those in this list are ignored. Each source must be one of the following: local, default, inherited, temporary, and none. The default value is all sources.

    -t type
        A comma-separated list of types to display, where type is one of filesystem, snapshot, volume, bookmark, or all.

    zfs inherit [-rS] property filesystem|volume|snapshot... Clears the specified property, causing it to be inherited from an ancestor, restored to default if no ancestor has the property set, or with the -S option reverted to the received value if one exists. See the Properties section for a listing of default values, and details on which properties can be inherited.

    -r  Recursively inherit the given property for all children.

    -S  Revert the property to the received value if one exists; otherwise operate as if the -S option was not specified.

    zfs upgrade Displays a list of file systems that are not the most recent version.

    zfs upgrade -v Displays a list of currently supported file system versions.

    zfs upgrade [-r] [-V version] -a | filesystem Upgrades file systems to a new on-disk version. Once this is done, the file systems will no longer be accessible on systems running older versions of the software. zfs send streams generated from new snapshots of these file systems cannot be accessed on systems running older versions of the software.

    In general, the file system version is independent of the pool version. See zpool(8) for information on the zpool upgrade command.

    In some cases, the file system version and the pool version are interrelated and the pool version must be upgraded before the file system version can be upgraded.

    -V version
        Upgrade to the specified version. If the -V flag is not specified, this command upgrades to the most recent version. This option can only be used to increase the version number, and only up to the most recent version supported by this software.

    -a  Upgrade all file systems on all imported pools.

    filesystem
        Upgrade the specified file system.

    -r  Upgrade the specified file system and all descendent file systems.

    zfs userspace [-Hinp] [-o field[,field]...] [-s field]... [-S field]... [-t type[,type]...] filesystem|snapshot Displays space consumed by, and quotas on, each user in the specified filesystem or snapshot. This corresponds to the userused@user, userobjused@user, userquota@user, and userobjquota@user properties.

    -H  Do not print headers, use tab-delimited output.

    -S field
        Sort by this field in reverse order. See -s.

    -i  Translate SID to POSIX ID. The POSIX ID may be ephemeral if no mapping exists. Normal POSIX interfaces (for example, stat(2), ls -l) perform this translation, so the -i option allows the output from zfs userspace to be compared directly with those utilities. However, -i may lead to confusion if some files were created by an SMB user before a SMB-to-POSIX name mapping was established. In such a case, some files will be owned by the SMB entity and some by the POSIX entity. However, the -i option will report that the POSIX entity has the total usage and quota for both.

    -n  Print numeric ID instead of user/group name.

    -o field[,field]...
        Display only the specified fields from the following set: type, name, used, quota. The default is to display all fields.

    -p  Use exact (parsable) numeric output.

    -s field
        Sort output by this field. The -s and -S flags may be specified multiple times to sort first by one field, then by another. The default is -s type -s name.

    -t type[,type]...
        Print only the specified types from the following set: all, posixuser, smbuser, posixgroup, smbgroup. The default is -t posixuser,smbuser. The default can be changed to include group types.

    zfs groupspace [-Hinp] [-o field[,field]...] [-s field]... [-S field]... [-t type[,type]...] filesystem|snapshot Displays space consumed by, and quotas on, each group in the specified filesystem or snapshot. This subcommand is identical to zfs userspace, except that the default types to display are -t posixgroup,smbgroup.

    zfs mount Displays all ZFS file systems currently mounted.

    zfs mount [-Olv] [-o options] -a | filesystem Mounts ZFS file systems.

    -O  Perform an overlay mount. See mount(8) for more information.

    -a  Mount all available ZFS file systems. Invoked automatically as part of the boot process.

    filesystem
        Mount the specified filesystem.

    -o options
        An optional, comma-separated list of mount options to use temporarily for the duration of the mount. See the Temporary Mount Point Properties section for details.

    -l  Load keys for encrypted filesystems as they are being mounted. This is equivalent to executing zfs load-key on each encryption root before mounting it. Note that if a filesystem has a keylocation of prompt this will cause the terminal to interactively block after asking for the key.

    -v  Report mount progress.

    zfs unmount [-f] -a | filesystem|mountpoint Unmounts currently mounted ZFS file systems.

    -a  Unmount all available ZFS file systems. Invoked automatically as part of the shutdown process.

    filesystem|mountpoint
        Unmount the specified filesystem. The command can also be given a path to a ZFS file system mount point on the system.

    -f  Forcefully unmount the file system, even if it is currently in use.

    zfs share -a | filesystem Shares available ZFS file systems.

    -a  Share all available ZFS file systems. Invoked automatically as part of the boot process.

    filesystem
        Share the specified filesystem according to the sharenfs and sharesmb properties. File systems are shared when the sharenfs or sharesmb property is set.

    zfs unshare -a | filesystem|mountpoint Unshares currently shared ZFS file systems.

    -a  Unshare all available ZFS file systems. Invoked automatically as part of the shutdown process.

    filesystem|mountpoint
        Unshare the specified filesystem. The command can also be given a path to a ZFS file system shared on the system.

    zfs bookmark snapshot bookmark Creates a bookmark of the given snapshot. Bookmarks mark the point in time when the snapshot was created, and can be used as the incremental source for a zfs send command.

    This feature must be enabled to be used. See zpool-features(5) for details on ZFS feature flags and the bookmarks feature.

    zfs send [-DLPRcenpvw] [[-I|-i] snapshot] snapshot Creates a stream representation of the second snapshot, which is written to standard output. The output can be redirected to a file or to a different system (for example, using ssh(1)). By default, a full stream is generated.

    -D, --dedup
        Generate a deduplicated stream. Blocks which would have been sent multiple times in the send stream will only be sent once. The receiving system must also support this feature to receive a deduplicated stream. This flag can be used regardless of the dataset's dedup property, but performance will be much better if the filesystem uses a dedup-capable checksum (for example, sha256).

    -I snapshot
        Generate a stream package that sends all intermediary snapshots from the first snapshot to the second snapshot. For example, -I @a fs@d is similar to -i @a fs@b; -i @b fs@c; -i @c fs@d. The incremental source may be specified as with the -i option.

    -L, --large-block
        Generate a stream which may contain blocks larger than 128KB. This flag has no effect if the large_blocks pool feature is disabled, or if the recordsize property of this filesystem has never been set above 128KB. The receiving system must have the large_blocks pool feature enabled as well. See zpool-features(5) for details on ZFS feature flags and the large_blocks feature.

    -P, --parsable
        Print machine-parsable verbose information about the stream package generated.

    -R, --replicate
        Generate a replication stream package, which will replicate the specified file system, and all descendent file systems, up to the named snapshot. When received, all properties, snapshots, descendent file systems, and clones are preserved.

        If the -i or -I flags are used in conjunction with the -R flag, an incremental replication stream is generated. The current values of properties, and current snapshot and file system names are set when the stream is received. If the -F flag is specified when this stream is received, snapshots and file systems that do not exist on the sending side are destroyed.

    -e, --embed
        Generate a more compact stream by using WRITE_EMBEDDED records for blocks which are stored more compactly on disk by the embedded_data pool feature. This flag has no effect if the embedded_data feature is disabled. The receiving system must have the embedded_data feature enabled. If the lz4_compress feature is active on the sending system, then the receiving system must have that feature enabled as well. Datasets that are sent with this flag may not be received as an encrypted dataset, since encrypted datasets cannot use the embedded_data feature. See zpool-features(5) for details on ZFS feature flags and the embedded_data feature.

    -c, --compressed
        Generate a more compact stream by using compressed WRITE records for blocks which are compressed on disk and in memory (see the compression property for details). If the lz4_compress feature is active on the sending system, then the receiving system must have that feature enabled as well. If the large_blocks feature is enabled on the sending system but the -L option is not supplied in conjunction with -c, then the data will be decompressed before sending so it can be split into smaller block sizes.

    -w, --raw
        For encrypted datasets, send data exactly as it exists on disk. This allows backups to be taken even if encryption keys are not currently loaded. The backup may then be received on an untrusted machine since that machine will not have the encryption keys to read the protected data or alter it without being detected. Upon being received, the dataset will have the same encryption keys as it did on the send side, although the keylocation property will be defaulted to prompt if not otherwise provided. For unencrypted datasets, this flag will be equivalent to -Lec. Note that if you do not use this flag for sending encrypted datasets, data will be sent unencrypted and may be re-encrypted with a different encryption key on the receiving system, which will disable the ability to do a raw send to that system for incrementals.

    -i snapshot
        Generate an incremental stream from the first snapshot (the incremental source) to the second snapshot (the incremental target). The incremental source can be specified as the last component of the snapshot name (the @ character and following) and it is assumed to be from the same file system as the incremental target.

        If the destination is a clone, the source may be the origin snapshot, which must be fully specified (for example, pool/fs@origin, not just @origin).

    -n, --dryrun
        Do a dry-run ("No-op") send. Do not generate any actual send data. This is useful in conjunction with the -v or -P flags to determine what data will be sent. In this case, the verbose output will be written to standard output (contrast with a non-dry-run, where the stream is written to standard output and the verbose output goes to standard error).

    -p, --props
        Include the dataset's properties in the stream. This flag is implicit when -R is specified. The receiving system must also support this feature. Sends of encrypted datasets must use -w when using this flag.

    -v, --verbose
        Print verbose information about the stream package generated. This information includes a per-second report of how much data has been sent.

        The format of the stream is committed. You will be able to receive your streams on future versions of ZFS.

    zfs send [-LPcenvw] [-i snapshot|bookmark] filesystem|volume|snapshot Generate a send stream, which may be of a filesystem, and may be incremental from a bookmark. If the destination is a filesystem or volume, the pool must be read-only, or the filesystem must not be mounted. When the stream generated from a filesystem or volume is received, the default snapshot name will be "--head--".

    -L, --large-block
        Generate a stream which may contain blocks larger than 128KB. This flag has no effect if the large_blocks pool feature is disabled, or if the recordsize property of this filesystem has never been set above 128KB. The receiving system must have the large_blocks pool feature enabled as well. See zpool-features(5) for details on ZFS feature flags and the large_blocks feature.

    -P, --parsable
        Print machine-parsable verbose information about the stream package generated.

    -c, --compressed
        Generate a more compact stream by using compressed WRITE records for blocks which are compressed on disk and in memory (see the compression property for details). If the lz4_compress feature is active on the sending system, then the receiving system must have that feature enabled as well. If the large_blocks feature is enabled on the sending system but the -L option is not supplied in conjunction with -c, then the data will be decompressed before sending so it can be split into smaller block sizes.

    -w, --raw
        For encrypted datasets, send data exactly as it exists on disk. This allows backups to be taken even if encryption keys are not currently loaded. The backup may then be received on an untrusted machine since that machine will not have the encryption keys to read the protected data or alter it without being detected. Upon being received, the dataset will have the same encryption keys as it did on the send side, although the keylocation property will be defaulted to prompt if not otherwise provided. For unencrypted datasets, this flag will be equivalent to -Lec. Note that if you do not use this flag for sending encrypted datasets, data will be sent unencrypted and may be re-encrypted with a different encryption key on the receiving system, which will disable the ability to do a raw send to that system for incrementals.

    -e, --embed
        Generate a more compact stream by using WRITE_EMBEDDED records for blocks which are stored more compactly on disk by the embedded_data pool feature. This flag has no effect if the embedded_data feature is disabled. The receiving system must have the embedded_data feature enabled. If the lz4_compress feature is active on the sending system, then the receiving system must have that feature enabled as well. Datasets that are sent with this flag may not be received as an encrypted dataset, since encrypted datasets cannot use the embedded_data feature. See zpool-features(5) for details on ZFS feature flags and the embedded_data feature.

    -i snapshot|bookmark
        Generate an incremental send stream. The incremental source must be an earlier snapshot in the destination's history. It will commonly be an earlier snapshot in the destination's file system, in which case it can be specified as the last component of the name (the # or @ character and following).

        If the incremental target is a clone, the incremental source can be the origin snapshot, or an earlier snapshot in the origin's filesystem, or the origin's origin, etc.

    -n, --dryrun
        Do a dry-run ("No-op") send. Do not generate any actual send data. This is useful in conjunction with the -v or -P flags to determine what data will be sent. In this case, the verbose output will be written to standard output (contrast with a non-dry-run, where the stream is written to standard output and the verbose output goes to standard error).

    -v, --verbose
        Print verbose information about the stream package generated. This information includes a per-second report of how much data has been sent.

    zfs send [-Penv] -t receive_resume_token Creates a send stream which resumes an interrupted receive. The receive_resume_token is the value of this property on the filesystem or volume that was being received into. See the documentation for zfs receive -s for more details.

    zfs receive [-Fnsuv] [-o origin=snapshot] [-o property=value] [-x property] filesystem|volume|snapshot

    zfs receive [-Fnsuv] [-d|-e] [-o origin=snapshot] [-o property=value] [-x property] filesystem Creates a snapshot whose contents are as specified in the stream provided on standard input. If a full stream is received, then a new file system is created as well. Streams are created using the zfs send subcommand, which by default creates a full stream. zfs recv can be used as an alias for zfs receive.

    If an incremental stream is received, then the destination file system must already exist, and its most recent snapshot must match the incremental stream's source. For zvols, the destination device link is destroyed and recreated, which means the zvol cannot be accessed during the receive operation.

    When a snapshot replication package stream that is generated by using the zfs send -R command is received, any snapshots that do not exist on the sending location are destroyed by using the zfs destroy -d command.

    If -o property=value or -x property is specified, it applies to the effective value of the property throughout the entire subtree of replicated datasets. Effective property values will be set ( -o ) or inherited ( -x ) on the topmost in the replicated subtree. In descendant datasets, if the property is set by the send stream, it will be overridden by forcing the property to be inherited from the top‐most file system. Received properties are retained in spite of being overridden and may be restored with zfs inherit -S. Specifying -o origin=snapshot is a special case because, even if origin is a read-only property and cannot be set, it's allowed to receive the send stream as a clone of the given snapshot.

    Raw encrypted send streams (created with zfs send -w ) may only be received as is, and cannot be re-encrypted, decrypted, or recompressed by the receive process. Unencrypted streams can be received as encrypted datasets, either through inheritance or by specifying encryption parameters with the -o options.

    The name of the snapshot (and file system, if a full stream is received) that this subcommand creates depends on the argument type and the use of the -d or -e options.

    If the argument is a snapshot name, the specified snapshot is created. If the argument is a file system or volume name, a snapshot with the same name as the sent snapshot is created within the specified filesystem or volume. If neither of the -d or -e options are specified, the provided target snapshot name is used exactly as provided.

    The -d and -e options cause the file system name of the target snapshot to be determined by appending a portion of the sent snapshot's name to the specified target filesystem. If the -d option is specified, all but the first element of the sent snapshot's file system path (usually the pool name) is used and any required intermediate file systems within the specified one are created. If the -e option is specified, then only the last element of the sent snapshot's file system name (i.e. the name of the source file system itself) is used as the target file system name.

    -F  Force a rollback of the file system to the most recent snapshot before performing the receive operation. If receiving an incremental replication stream (for example, one generated by zfs send -R [-i|-I]), destroy snapshots and file systems that do not exist on the sending side.

    -d  Discard the first element of the sent snapshot's file system name, using the remaining elements to determine the name of the target file system for the new snapshot as described in the paragraph above.

    -e  Discard all but the last element of the sent snapshot's file system name, using that element to determine the name of the target file system for the new snapshot as described in the paragraph above.

    -n  Do not actually receive the stream. This can be useful in conjunction with the -v option to verify the name the receive operation would use.

    -o origin=snapshot
        Forces the stream to be received as a clone of the given snapshot. If the stream is a full send stream, this will create the filesystem described by the stream as a clone of the specified snapshot. Which snapshot was specified will not affect the success or failure of the receive, as long as the snapshot does exist. If the stream is an incremental send stream, all the normal verification will be performed.

    -o property=value
        Sets the specified property as if the command zfs set property=value was invoked immediately before the receive. When receiving a stream from zfs send -R, causes the property to be inherited by all descendant datasets, as through zfs inherit property was run on any descendant datasets that have this property set on the sending system.

        Any editable property can be set at receive time. Set-once properties bound to the received data, such as normalization and casesensitivity, cannot be set at receive time even when the datasets are newly created by zfs receive. Additionally both settable properties version and volsize cannot be set at receive time.

        The -o option may be specified multiple times, for different properties. An error results if the same property is specified in multiple -o or -x options.

    -s  If the receive is interrupted, save the partially received state, rather than deleting it. Interruption may be due to premature termination of the stream (e.g. due to network failure or failure of the remote system if the stream is being read over a network connection), a checksum error in the stream, termination of the zfs receive process, or unclean shutdown of the system.

        The receive can be resumed with a stream generated by zfs send -t token, where the token is the value of the receive_resume_token property of the filesystem or volume which is received into.

        To use this flag, the storage pool must have the extensible_dataset feature enabled. See zpool-features(5) for details on ZFS feature flags.

    -u  File system that is associated with the received stream is not mounted.

    -v  Print verbose information about the stream and the time required to perform the receive operation.

    -x property
        Ensures that the effective value of the specified property after the receive is unaffected by the value of that property in the send stream (if any), as if the property had been excluded from the send stream.

        If the specified property is not present in the send stream, this option does nothing.

        If a received property needs to be overridden, the effective value will be set or inherited, depending on whether the property is inheritable or not.

        In the case of an incremental update, -x leaves any existing local setting or explicit inheritance unchanged.

        All -o restrictions on set-once and special properties apply equally to -x.

    zfs receive -A filesystem|volume Abort an interrupted zfs receive -s, deleting its saved partially received state.

    zfs allow filesystem|volume Displays permissions that have been delegated on the specified filesystem or volume. See the other forms of zfs allow for more information.

    Delegations are supported under Linux with the exception of mount, unmount, mountpoint, canmount, rename, and share. These permissions cannot be delegated because the Linux mount(8) command restricts modifications of the global namespace to the root user.

    zfs allow [-dglu] user|group[,user|group]... perm|@setname[,perm|@ setname]... filesystem|volume
    zfs allow [-dl] -e|everyone perm|@setname[,perm|@ setname]... filesystem|volume Delegates ZFS administration permission for the file systems to non-privileged users.

    -d  Allow only for the descendent file systems.

    -e|everyone
        Specifies that the permissions be delegated to everyone.

    -g group[,group]...
        Explicitly specify that permissions are delegated to the group.

    -l  Allow "locally" only for the specified file system.

    -u user[,user]...
        Explicitly specify that permissions are delegated to the user.

    user|group[,user|group]...
        Specifies to whom the permissions are delegated. Multiple entities can be specified as a comma-separated list. If neither of the -gu 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 -g or -u options. To specify a group with the same name as a user, use the -g options.

        perm|@setname[,perm|@ setname]... The permissions to delegate. Multiple permissions may be specified as a comma-separated list. Permission names are the same as ZFS subcommand and property names. See the property list below. Property set names, which begin with @, may be specified. See the -s form below for details.

    If neither of the -dl options are specified, or both are, then the permissions are allowed for the file system or volume, and all of its descendents.

    Permissions are generally the ability to use a ZFS subcommand or change a ZFS property. The following permissions are available:

        NAME             TYPE           NOTES
        allow            subcommand     Must also have the permission that is
                                        being allowed
        clone            subcommand     Must also have the 'create' ability and
                                        'mount' ability in the origin file system
        create           subcommand     Must also have the 'mount' ability
        destroy          subcommand     Must also have the 'mount' ability
        diff             subcommand     Allows lookup of paths within a dataset
                                        given an object number, and the ability
                                        to create snapshots necessary to
                                        'zfs diff'.
        load-key         subcommand     Allows loading and unloading of encryption key
                                        (see 'zfs load-key' and 'zfs unload-key').
        change-key       subcommand     Allows changing an encryption key via
                                        'zfs change-key'.
        mount            subcommand     Allows mount/umount of ZFS datasets
        promote          subcommand     Must also have the 'mount' and 'promote'
                                        ability in the origin file system
        receive          subcommand     Must also have the 'mount' and 'create'
                                        ability
        rename           subcommand     Must also have the 'mount' and 'create'
                                        ability in the new parent
        rollback         subcommand     Must also have the 'mount' ability
        send             subcommand
        share            subcommand     Allows sharing file systems over NFS
                                        or SMB protocols
        snapshot         subcommand     Must also have the 'mount' ability
        groupquota       other          Allows accessing any groupquota@...
                                        property
        groupused        other          Allows reading any groupused@... property
        userprop         other          Allows changing any user property
        userquota        other          Allows accessing any userquota@...
                                        property
        userused         other          Allows reading any userused@... property
        aclinherit       property
        acltype          property
        atime            property
        canmount         property
        casesensitivity  property
        checksum         property
        compression      property
        copies           property
        devices          property
        exec             property
        filesystem_limit property
        mountpoint       property
        nbmand           property
        normalization    property
        primarycache     property
        quota            property
        readonly         property
        recordsize       property
        refquota         property
        refreservation   property
        reservation      property
        secondarycache   property
        setuid           property
        sharenfs         property
        sharesmb         property
        snapdir          property
        snapshot_limit   property
        utf8only         property
        version          property
        volblocksize     property
        volsize          property
        vscan            property
        xattr            property
        zoned            property

    zfs allow -c perm|@setname[,perm|@ setname]... filesystem|volume Sets "create time" permissions. These permissions are granted (locally) to the creator of any newly-created descendent file system.

    zfs allow -s @setname perm|@setname[,perm|@ setname]... filesystem|volume Defines or adds permissions to a permission set. The set can be used by other zfs allow commands for the specified file system and its descendents. Sets are evaluated dynamically, so changes to a set are immediately reflected. Permission sets follow the same naming restrictions as ZFS file systems, but the name must begin with @, and can be no more than 64 characters long.

    zfs unallow [-dglru] user|group[,user|group]... [perm|@setname[,perm|@ setname]...] filesystem|volume
    zfs unallow [-dlr] -e|everyone [perm|@setname[,perm|@ setname]...] filesystem|volume
    zfs unallow [-r] -c [perm|@setname[,perm|@ setname]...] filesystem|volume Removes permissions that were granted with the zfs allow command. No permissions are explicitly denied, so other permissions granted are still in effect. For example, if the permission is granted by an ancestor. If no permissions are specified, then all permissions for the specified user, group, or everyone are removed. Specifying everyone (or using the -e option) only removes the permissions that were granted to everyone, not all permissions for every user and group. See the zfs allow command for a description of the -ldugec options.

    -r  Recursively remove the permissions from this file system and all descendents.

    zfs unallow [-r] -s @setname [perm|@setname[,perm|@ setname]...] filesystem|volume Removes permissions from a permission set. If no permissions are specified, then all permissions are removed, thus removing the set entirely.

    zfs hold [-r] tag snapshot... Adds a single reference, named with the tag argument, to the specified snapshot or snapshots. Each snapshot has its own tag namespace, and tags must be unique within that space.

    If a hold exists on a snapshot, attempts to destroy that snapshot by using the zfs destroy command return EBUSY.

    -r  Specifies that a hold with the given tag is applied recursively to the snapshots of all descendent file systems.

    zfs holds [-r] snapshot... Lists all existing user references for the given snapshot or snapshots.

    -r  Lists the holds that are set on the named descendent snapshots, in addition to listing the holds on the named snapshot.

    zfs release [-r] tag snapshot... Removes a single reference, named with the tag argument, from the specified snapshot or snapshots. The tag must already exist for each snapshot. If a hold exists on a snapshot, attempts to destroy that snapshot by using the zfs destroy command return EBUSY.

    -r  Recursively releases a hold with the given tag on the snapshots of all descendent file systems.

    zfs diff [-FHt] snapshot snapshot|filesystem Display the difference between a snapshot of a given filesystem and another snapshot of that filesystem from a later time or the current contents of the filesystem. The first column is a character indicating the type of change, the other columns indicate pathname, new pathname (in case of rename), change in link count, and optionally file type and/or change time. The types of change are:

        -       The path has been removed
        +       The path has been created
        M       The path has been modified
        R       The path has been renamed

    -F  Display an indication of the type of file, in a manner similar to the - option of ls(1).

            B       Block device
            C       Character device
            /       Directory
            >       Door
            |       Named pipe
            @       Symbolic link
            P       Event port
            =       Socket
            F       Regular file

    -H  Give more parsable tab-separated output, without header lines and without arrows.

    -t  Display the path's inode change time as the first column of output.

    zfs load-key [-nr] [-L keylocation] -a | filesystem Load the key for filesystem, allowing it and all children that inherit the keylocation property to be accessed. The key will be expected in the format specified by the keyformat and location specified by the keylocation property. Note that if the keylocation is set to prompt the terminal will interactively wait for the key to be entered. Loading a key will not automatically mount the dataset. If that functionality is desired, zfs mount -l will ask for the key and mount the dataset. Once the key is loaded the keystatus property will become available.

    -r  Recursively loads the keys for the specified filesystem and all descendent encryption roots.

    -a  Loads the keys for all encryption roots in all imported pools.

    -n  Do a dry-run ("No-op") load-key. This will cause zfs to simply check that the provided key is correct. This command may be run even if the key is already loaded.

    -L keylocation
        Use keylocation instead of the keylocation property. This will not change the value of the property on the dataset. Note that if used with either -r or -a, keylocation may only be given as prompt.

    zfs unload-key [-r] -a | filesystem Unloads a key from ZFS, removing the ability to access the dataset and all of its children that inherit the keylocation property. This requires that the dataset is not currently open or mounted. Once the key is unloaded the keystatus property will become unavailable.

    -r  Recursively unloads the keys for the specified filesystem and all descendent encryption roots.

    -a  Unloads the keys for all encryption roots in all imported pools.

    zfs change-key [-l] [-o keylocation=value] [-o keyformat=value] [-o pbkdf2iters=value] filesystem

    zfs change-key -i [-l] filesystem Allows a user to change the encryption key used to access a dataset. This command requires that the existing key for the dataset is already loaded into ZFS. This command may also be used to change the keylocation, keyformat, and pbkdf2iters properties as needed. If the dataset was not previously an encryption root it will become one. Alternatively, the -i flag may be provided to cause an encryption root to inherit the parent's key instead.

    -l  Ensures the key is loaded before attempting to change the key. This is effectively equivalent to "zfs load-key filesystem; zfs change-key filesystem"

    -o property=value
        Allows the user to set encryption key properties ( keyformat, keylocation, and pbkdf2iters ) while changing the key. This is the only way to alter keyformat and pbkdf2iters after the dataset has been created.

    -i  Indicates that zfs should make filesystem inherit the key of its parent. Note that this command can only be run on an encryption root that has an encrypted parent.

EXIT STATUS
The zfs utility exits 0 on success, 1 if an error occurs, and 2 if invalid command line options were specified.

EXAMPLES

Example 1 Creating a ZFS File System Hierarchy
    The following commands create a file system named pool/home and a file system named pool/home/bob. The mount point /export/home is set for the parent file system, and is automatically inherited by the child file system.

        # zfs create pool/home
        # zfs set mountpoint=/export/home pool/home
        # zfs create pool/home/bob

Example 2 Creating a ZFS Snapshot
    The following command creates a snapshot named yesterday. This snapshot is mounted on demand in the .zfs/snapshot directory at the root of the pool/home/bob file system.

        # zfs snapshot pool/home/bob@yesterday

Example 3 Creating and Destroying Multiple Snapshots
    The following command creates snapshots named yesterday of pool/home and all of its descendent file systems. Each snapshot is mounted on demand in the .zfs/snapshot directory at the root of its file system. The second command destroys the newly created snapshots.

        # zfs snapshot -r pool/home@yesterday
        # zfs destroy -r pool/home@yesterday

Example 4 Disabling and Enabling File System Compression
    The following command disables the compression property for all file systems under pool/home. The next command explicitly enables compression for pool/home/anne.

        # zfs set compression=off pool/home
        # zfs set compression=on pool/home/anne

Example 5 Listing ZFS Datasets
    The following command lists all active file systems and volumes in the system. Snapshots are displayed if the listsnaps property is on. The default is off. See zpool(8) for more information on pool properties.

        # zfs list
        NAME                      USED  AVAIL  REFER  MOUNTPOINT
        pool                      450K   457G    18K  /pool
        pool/home                 315K   457G    21K  /export/home
        pool/home/anne             18K   457G    18K  /export/home/anne
        pool/home/bob             276K   457G   276K  /export/home/bob

Example 6 Setting a Quota on a ZFS File System
    The following command sets a quota of 50 Gbytes for pool/home/bob.

        # zfs set quota=50G pool/home/bob

Example 7 Listing ZFS Properties
    The following command lists all properties for pool/home/bob.

        # zfs get all pool/home/bob
        NAME           PROPERTY              VALUE                  SOURCE
        pool/home/bob  type                  filesystem             -
        pool/home/bob  creation              Tue Jul 21 15:53 2009  -
        pool/home/bob  used                  21K                    -
        pool/home/bob  available             20.0G                  -
        pool/home/bob  referenced            21K                    -
        pool/home/bob  compressratio         1.00x                  -
        pool/home/bob  mounted               yes                    -
        pool/home/bob  quota                 20G                    local
        pool/home/bob  reservation           none                   default
        pool/home/bob  recordsize            128K                   default
        pool/home/bob  mountpoint            /pool/home/bob         default
        pool/home/bob  sharenfs              off                    default
        pool/home/bob  checksum              on                     default
        pool/home/bob  compression           on                     local
        pool/home/bob  atime                 on                     default
        pool/home/bob  devices               on                     default
        pool/home/bob  exec                  on                     default
        pool/home/bob  setuid                on                     default
        pool/home/bob  readonly              off                    default
        pool/home/bob  zoned                 off                    default
        pool/home/bob  snapdir               hidden                 default
        pool/home/bob  acltype               off                    default
        pool/home/bob  aclinherit            restricted             default
        pool/home/bob  canmount              on                     default
        pool/home/bob  xattr                 on                     default
        pool/home/bob  copies                1                      default
        pool/home/bob  version               4                      -
        pool/home/bob  utf8only              off                    -
        pool/home/bob  normalization         none                   -
        pool/home/bob  casesensitivity       sensitive              -
        pool/home/bob  vscan                 off                    default
        pool/home/bob  nbmand                off                    default
        pool/home/bob  sharesmb              off                    default
        pool/home/bob  refquota              none                   default
        pool/home/bob  refreservation        none                   default
        pool/home/bob  primarycache          all                    default
        pool/home/bob  secondarycache        all                    default
        pool/home/bob  usedbysnapshots       0                      -
        pool/home/bob  usedbydataset         21K                    -
        pool/home/bob  usedbychildren        0                      -
        pool/home/bob  usedbyrefreservation  0                      -

    The following command gets a single property value.

        # zfs get -H -o value compression pool/home/bob
        on

    The following command lists all properties with local settings for pool/home/bob.

        # zfs get -r -s local -o name,property,value all pool/home/bob
        NAME           PROPERTY              VALUE
        pool/home/bob  quota                 20G
        pool/home/bob  compression           on

Example 8 Rolling Back a ZFS File System
    The following command reverts the contents of pool/home/anne to the snapshot named yesterday, deleting all intermediate snapshots.

        # zfs rollback -r pool/home/anne@yesterday

Example 9 Creating a ZFS Clone
    The following command creates a writable file system whose initial contents are the same as pool/home/bob@yesterday.

        # zfs clone pool/home/bob@yesterday pool/clone

Example 10 Promoting a ZFS Clone
    The following commands illustrate how to test out changes to a file system, and then replace the original file system with the changed one, using clones, clone promotion, and renaming:

        # zfs create pool/project/production
          populate /pool/project/production with data
        # zfs snapshot pool/project/production@today
        # zfs clone pool/project/production@today pool/project/beta
          make changes to /pool/project/beta and test them
        # zfs promote pool/project/beta
        # zfs rename pool/project/production pool/project/legacy
        # zfs rename pool/project/beta pool/project/production
          once the legacy version is no longer needed, it can be destroyed
        # zfs destroy pool/project/legacy

Example 11 Inheriting ZFS Properties
    The following command causes pool/home/bob and pool/home/anne to inherit the checksum property from their parent.

        # zfs inherit checksum pool/home/bob pool/home/anne

Example 12 Remotely Replicating ZFS Data
    The following commands send a full stream and then an incremental stream to a remote machine, restoring them into poolB/received/fs@a and poolB/received/fs@b, respectively. poolB must contain the file system poolB/received, and must not initially contain poolB/received/fs.

        # zfs send pool/fs@a | \
          ssh host zfs receive poolB/received/fs@a
        # zfs send -i a pool/fs@b | \
          ssh host zfs receive poolB/received/fs

Example 13 Using the zfs receive -d Option
    The following command sends a full stream of poolA/fsA/fsB@snap to a remote machine, receiving it into poolB/received/fsA/fsB@snap. The fsA/fsB@snap portion of the received snapshot's name is determined from the name of the sent snapshot. poolB must contain the file system poolB/received. If poolB/received/fsA does not exist, it is created as an empty file system.

        # zfs send poolA/fsA/fsB@snap | \
          ssh host zfs receive -d poolB/received

Example 14 Setting User Properties
    The following example sets the user-defined com.example:department property for a dataset.

        # zfs set com.example:department=12345 tank/accounting

Example 15 Performing a Rolling Snapshot
    The following example shows how to maintain a history of snapshots with a consistent naming scheme. To keep a week's worth of snapshots, the user destroys the oldest snapshot, renames the remaining snapshots, and then creates a new snapshot, as follows:

        # zfs destroy -r pool/users@7daysago
        # zfs rename -r pool/users@6daysago @7daysago
        # zfs rename -r pool/users@5daysago @6daysago
        # zfs rename -r pool/users@yesterday @5daysago
        # zfs rename -r pool/users@yesterday @4daysago
        # zfs rename -r pool/users@yesterday @3daysago
        # zfs rename -r pool/users@yesterday @2daysago
        # zfs rename -r pool/users@today @yesterday
        # zfs snapshot -r pool/users@today

Example 16 Setting sharenfs Property Options on a ZFS File System
    The following commands show how to set sharenfs property options to enable rw access for a set of IP addresses and to enable root access for system neo on the tank/home file system.

        # zfs set sharenfs='rw=@123.123.0.0/16,root=neo' tank/home

    If you are using DNS for host name resolution, specify the fully qualified hostname.

Example 17 Delegating ZFS Administration Permissions on a ZFS Dataset
    The following example shows how to set permissions so that user cindys can create, destroy, mount, and take snapshots on tank/cindys. The permissions on tank/cindys are also displayed.

        # zfs allow cindys create,destroy,mount,snapshot tank/cindys
        # zfs allow tank/cindys
        ---- Permissions on tank/cindys --------------------------------------
        Local+Descendent permissions:
                user cindys create,destroy,mount,snapshot

    Because the tank/cindys mount point permission is set to 755 by default, user cindys will be unable to mount file systems under tank/cindys. Add an ACE similar to the following syntax to provide mount point access:

        # chmod A+user:cindys:add_subdirectory:allow /tank/cindys

Example 18 Delegating Create Time Permissions on a ZFS Dataset
    The following example shows how to grant anyone in the group staff to create file systems in tank/users. This syntax also allows staff members to destroy their own file systems, but not destroy anyone else's file system. The permissions on tank/users are also displayed.

        # zfs allow staff create,mount tank/users
        # zfs allow -c destroy tank/users
        # zfs allow tank/users
        ---- Permissions on tank/users ---------------------------------------
        Permission sets:
                destroy
        Local+Descendent permissions:
                group staff create,mount

Example 19 Defining and Granting a Permission Set on a ZFS Dataset
    The following example shows how to define and grant a permission set on the tank/users file system. The permissions on tank/users are also displayed.

        # zfs allow -s @pset create,destroy,snapshot,mount tank/users
        # zfs allow staff @pset tank/users
        # zfs allow tank/users
        ---- Permissions on tank/users ---------------------------------------
        Permission sets:
                @pset create,destroy,mount,snapshot
        Local+Descendent permissions:
                group staff @pset

Example 20 Delegating Property Permissions on a ZFS Dataset
    The following example shows to grant the ability to set quotas and reservations on the users/home file system. The permissions on users/home are also displayed.

        # zfs allow cindys quota,reservation users/home
        # zfs allow users/home
        ---- Permissions on users/home ---------------------------------------
        Local+Descendent permissions:
                user cindys quota,reservation
        cindys% zfs set quota=10G users/home/marks
        cindys% zfs get quota users/home/marks
        NAME              PROPERTY  VALUE  SOURCE
        users/home/marks  quota     10G    local

Example 21 Removing ZFS Delegated Permissions on a ZFS Dataset
    The following example shows how to remove the snapshot permission from the staff group on the tank/users file system. The permissions on tank/users are also displayed.

        # zfs unallow staff snapshot tank/users
        # zfs allow tank/users
        ---- Permissions on tank/users ---------------------------------------
        Permission sets:
                @pset create,destroy,mount,snapshot
        Local+Descendent permissions:
                group staff @pset

Example 22 Showing the differences between a snapshot and a ZFS Dataset
    The following example shows how to see what has changed between a prior snapshot of a ZFS dataset and its current state. The -F option is used to indicate type information for the files affected.

        # zfs diff -F tank/test@before tank/test
        M       /       /tank/test/
        M       F       /tank/test/linked      (+1)
        R       F       /tank/test/oldname -> /tank/test/newname
        -       F       /tank/test/deleted
        +       F       /tank/test/created
        M       F       /tank/test/modified

Example 23 Creating a bookmark
    The following example create a bookmark to a snapshot. This bookmark can then be used instead of snapshot in send streams.

        # zfs bookmark rpool@snapshot rpool#bookmark

Example 24 Setting sharesmb Property Options on a ZFS File System
    The following example show how to share SMB filesystem through ZFS. Note that that a user and his/her password must be given.

        # smbmount //127.0.0.1/share_tmp /mnt/tmp \
          -o user=workgroup/turbo,password=obrut,uid=1000

    Minimal /etc/samba/smb.conf configuration required:

    Samba will need to listen to 'localhost' (127.0.0.1) for the ZFS utilities to communicate with Samba. This is the default behavior for most Linux distributions.

    Samba must be able to authenticate a user. This can be done in a number of ways, depending on if using the system password file, LDAP or the Samba specific smbpasswd file. How to do this is outside the scope of this manual. Please refer to the smb.conf(5) man page for more information.

    See the USERSHARE section of the smb.conf(5) man page for all configuration options in case you need to modify any options to the share afterwards. Do note that any changes done with the net(8) command will be undone if the share is ever unshared (such as at a reboot etc).

INTERFACE STABILITY
Committed.

SEE ALSO
attr(1), gzip(1), ssh(1), chmod(2), fsync(2), stat(2), write(2), acl(5), attributes(5), exports(5), exportfs(8), mount(8), net(8), selinux(8), zpool(8)