Table of Contents
ZFS Plugin For OMV6
Summary
The ZFS plugin makes it easy for users to take advantage of ZFS, with an easy installation and making ZFS's more important features available within Openmediavault's GUI.
What is ZFS?
ZFS (the Zettabyte File System) is an advanced “Copy on Write” file system with several desirable features.
The more important among ZFS' several features are as follows:
- Pooled storage (Built in logical volume management)
- Snapshots (Creates file, folder, and filesystem and volume histories.)
- Data integrity verification and automatic repair
- RAID-Z, Zmirror and implementations of ZFS are the functional equivalents to legacy RAID, without legacy RAID drawbacks such as the “write hole” and silent data corruption.
Data integrity and repair, and data restoration (VIA snapshots) are among ZFS' more important features.
More detail information on capabilities and limits is available → here.
| Note | |
| While this external resource is informative, creating a ZFS pool on the command line, in accordance with external references, is not recommended. This document will walk users through a ZFS installation process that is compatible with the ZFS plugin and Openmediavault. | |
Prerequisites
- OMV-Extras must be pre-installed.
Installation
To get started with ZFS and to create an easy installation path to the most stable server possible, some preliminary settings and adjustments are recommended.
Disable Backports:
Linux backport kernels are released quickly to support the “latest and greatest - cutting edge” hardware. As a consequence the “userland” (software supported by the latest backport kernels) may not be complete. ZFS at times, may not be in the software repo's of backports kernels, immediately after their release. To avoid broken package issues it's best to use the mainline kernel, by disabling “backports”.
Install the Proxmox kernel:
Due to licensing conflicts, Debian does not build ZFS kernel modules into any of their kernels by default. This may result in an extensive build process during installation which is prone to errors. These issues can be avoided by using the Proxmox-Debian kernel which has ZFS kernel modules preinstalled by default. As kernel upgrades become available and are performed, the userland for the Proxmox kernel will allwasy have the required packages to support ZFS. In the bottom line, using the Proxmox kernel decreases the possibility of an installation error while increasing a default. as However, the Proxmox kernel