ZFS under linux, does it work?

Question

Could I get ZFS to work properly in Linux?

Are there any caveats / limitations?

Answer 1

ZFS is not in the official Linux kernel, and never will be unless Oracle relicenses the code under something compatible with the GPL.

Additionally, NetApp claims they own patents on some technology used in ZFS. NetApp settled their lawsuit with Sun after the Oracle buyout, but that settlement doesn't protect any other Linux distributor. (Red Hat, Ubuntu, SuSE...)

Today, your best options are:

• Switch to btrfs, which has similar features to ZFS but doesn't have the GPL license conflict and has been in the mainline kernel for testing since 2.6.29 (released in January 2009)

• Use a different OS for your file server (FreeBSD 9, say) and use NFS to connect it to your Linux boxes

• Use ZFS on FUSE, a userspace implementation, which works neatly around the kernel licensing issue at the expense of a significant amount of performance

• If you are able to integrate a kernel patch on-site, you can use the Behlendorf port of ZFS to Linux. The license conflict means you cannot sell or give the patched server away to someone outside your organization, as that would constitute distributing non-GPL-compatible code (ZFS) linked to GPL code (the Linux kernel).

Incidentally, btrfs is also backed by Oracle, but was started years before the Sun acquisition. I don't believe the two will ever merge, or one be deprecated in favor of the other due to the license conflict and patent issue. ZFS is too popular to go away, but there will continue to be demand for a ZFS alternative.

Answer 2

Several answers here mention the Behlendorf ZFS port.

Keep in mind that the Behlendorf ZFS port is currently targeted towards Lustre users with extremely large filesystems. This is what Lawrence Livermore National Labs, the US Department of Energy and other research facilities need, because they run very large filesystems (100TB - multi-Petabyte systems in the near future). Lustre runs on Linux, and is running into problems when used for filesystems above certain sizes. Some people hope to solve this problem using ZFS, which is where zfsonlinux.org comes into play.

In order for ZFS to be useful for the rest of us, the ZPL (ZFS POSIX Layer) must be ported to Linux, so that administrators can interact with the filesystem. zfsonlinux.org has a development version of the ZPL, and KQ Infotech provides another implementation of the ZPL, which is a fork of the zfsonlinux.org code.

Behlendorf wants help to improve the ZPL and to merge in any changes from KQ Infotech into the zfsonlinux.org repository. If you can do this, the community will benefit greatly, and you will be a rockstar.

Answer 3

I don't know how well they work, but there are two ports of ZFS available for Linux - a FUSE implementation and a in-kernel filesystem implementation.

Answer 4

You can with the FUSE version of ZFS. The limitation is that it runs as a userspace process.

Answer 5

I have set up ZFS Fuse on debian/lenny for my home NAS. I didn't encounter any problems or limitations. Search for ZFS on my blog for some more related posts.

I did try BTRFS first, but found that it simply wasn't ready yet. This was in february 2010.

Answer 6

Oh yes, now you can! There is ZFS on Linux Project. ZFS has been successfully ported to multiple platforms and now there is a a functional Linux ZFS kernel port.

• Use Ubuntu + Native ZFS for Linux PPA.
• Use RPM-compatible distributive for example CentOS or OLE.
• You can compile package by yourself from sources for your Linux distributive.

My real experience is using Ubuntu + Native ZFS - it working very stable from daily repositories.

Answer 7

ZFS Fuse indeed works.

CAVEAT: Make sure that the 'other' operating systems you'll use the drive for supports the same version the ZFS Fuse - BSD usually runs a couple of versions later than the Linux ones.