zpool(1M) System Administration Commands zpool(1M)NAMEzpool - configures ZFS storage pools
SYNOPSISzpool [-?]
zpool create [-fn] [-R root] [-m mountpoint] pool vdev ...
zpool destroy [-f] pool
zpool add [-fn] pool vdev
zpool remove pool vdev
zpool list [-H] [-o field[,field]*] [pool] ...
zpool iostat [-v] [pool] ... [interval [count]]
zpool status [-xv] [pool] ...
zpool offline [-t] pool device ...
zpool online pool device ...
zpool clear pool [device] ...
zpool attach [-f] pool device new_device
zpool detach pool device
zpool replace [-f] pool device [new_device]
zpool scrub [-s] pool ...
zpool export [-f] pool
zpool import [-d dir] [-D]
zpool import [-d dir] [-D] [-f] [-o opts] [-R root] pool | id
[newpool]
zpool import [-d dir] [-D] [-f] [-a]
zpool upgrade
zpool upgrade -v
zpool upgrade [-a | pool]
zpool history [pool] ...
DESCRIPTION
The zpool command configures ZFS storage pools. A storage pool is a
collection of devices that provides physical storage and data replica‐
tion for ZFS datasets.
All datasets within a storage pool share the same space. See zfs(1M)
for information on managing datasets.
Virtual Devices (vdevs)
A "virtual device" describes a single device or a collection of devices
organized according to certain performance and fault characteristics.
The following virtual devices are supported:
disk A block device, typically located under "/dev/dsk". ZFS can
use individual slices or partitions, though the recommended
mode of operation is to use whole disks. A disk can be speci‐
fied by a full path, or it can be a shorthand name (the rela‐
tive portion of the path under "/dev/dsk"). A whole disk can
be specified by omitting the slice or partition designation.
For example, "c0t0d0" is equivalent to "/dev/dsk/c0t0d0s2".
When given a whole disk, ZFS automatically labels the disk,
if necessary.
file A regular file. The use of files as a backing store is
strongly discouraged. It is designed primarily for experimen‐
tal purposes, as the fault tolerance of a file is only as
good as the file system of which it is a part. A file must be
specified by a full path.
mirror A mirror of two or more devices. Data is replicated in an
identical fashion across all components of a mirror. A mirror
with N disks of size X can hold X bytes and can withstand
(N-1) devices failing before data integrity is compromised.
raidz A variation on RAID-5 that allows for better distribution of
raidz1 parity and eliminates the "RAID-5 write hole" (in which data
raidz2 and parity become inconsistent after a power loss). Data and
parity is striped across all disks within a raidz group.
A raidz group can have either single- or double-parity, mean‐
ing that the raidz group can sustain one or two failures
respectively without losing any data. The raidz1 vdev type
specifies a single-parity raidz group and the raidz2 vdev
type specifies a double-parity raidz group. The raidz vdev
type is an alias for raidz1.
A raidz group with N disks of size X with P parity disks can
hold approximately (N-P)*X bytes and can withstand one device
failing before data integrity is compromised. The minimum
number of devices in a raidz group is one more than the num‐
ber of parity disks. The recommended number is between 3 and
9.
spare A special pseudo-vdev which keeps track of available hot
spares for a pool. For more information, see the "Hot Spares"
section.
Virtual devices cannot be nested, so a mirror or raidz virtual device
can only contain files or disks. Mirrors of mirrors (or other combina‐
tions) are not allowed.
A pool can have any number of virtual devices at the top of the config‐
uration (known as "root vdevs"). Data is dynamically distributed across
all top-level devices to balance data among devices. As new virtual
devices are added, ZFS automatically places data on the newly available
devices.
Virtual devices are specified one at a time on the command line, sepa‐
rated by whitespace. The keywords "mirror" and "raidz" are used to dis‐
tinguish where a group ends and another begins. For example, the fol‐
lowing creates two root vdevs, each a mirror of two disks:
# zpool create mypool mirror c0t0d0 c0t1d0 mirror c1t0d0 c1t1d0
Device Failure and Recovery
ZFS supports a rich set of mechanisms for handling device failure and
data corruption. All metadata and data is checksummed, and ZFS automat‐
ically repairs bad data from a good copy when corruption is detected.
In order to take advantage of these features, a pool must make use of
some form of redundancy, using either mirrored or raidz groups. While
ZFS supports running in a non-redundant configuration, where each root
vdev is simply a disk or file, this is strongly discouraged. A single
case of bit corruption can render some or all of your data unavailable.
A pool's health status is described by one of three states: online,
degraded, or faulted. An online pool has all devices operating nor‐
mally. A degraded pool is one in which one or more devices have failed,
but the data is still available due to a redundant configuration. A
faulted pool has one or more failed devices, and there is insufficient
redundancy to replicate the missing data.
Hot Spares
ZFS allows devices to be associated with pools as "hot spares". These
devices are not actively used in the pool, but when an active device
fails, it is automatically replaced by a hot spare. To create a pool
with hot spares, specify a "spare" vdev with any number of devices. For
example,
# zpool create pool mirror c0d0 c1d0 spare c2d0 c3d0
Spares can be shared across multiple pools, and can be added with the
"zpool add" command and removed with the "zpool remove" command. Once a
spare replacement is initiated, a new "spare" vdev is created within
the configuration that will remain there until the original device is
replaced. At this point, the hot spare becomes available again if
another device fails.
An in-progress spare replacement can be cancelled by detaching the hot
spare. If the original faulted device is detached, then the hot spare
assumes its place in the configuration, and is removed from the spare
list of all active pools.
Alternate Root Pools
The "zpool create -R" and "zpool import -R" commands allow users to
create and import a pool with a different root path. By default, when‐
ever a pool is created or imported on a system, it is permanently added
so that it is available whenever the system boots. For removable media,
or when in recovery situations, this may not always be desirable. An
alternate root pool does not persist on the system. Instead, it exists
only until exported or the system is rebooted, at which point it will
have to be imported again.
In addition, all mount points in the pool are prefixed with the given
root, so a pool can be constrained to a particular area of the file
system. This is most useful when importing unknown pools from removable
media, as the mount points of any file systems cannot be trusted.
When creating an alternate root pool, the default mount point is "/",
rather than the normal default "/pool".
Subcommands
All subcommands that modify state are logged persistently to the pool
in their original form.
The zpool command provides subcommands to create and destroy storage
pools, add capacity to storage pools, and provide information about the
storage pools. The following subcommands are supported:
zpool -?
Displays a help message.
zpool create [-fn] [-R root] [-m mountpoint] pool vdev ...
Creates a new storage pool containing the virtual devices specified
on the command line. The pool name must begin with a letter, and
can only contain alphanumeric characters as well as underscore
("_"), dash ("-"), and period ("."). The pool names "mirror",
"raidz", and "spare" are reserved, as are names beginning with the
pattern "c[0-9]". The vdev specification is described in the "Vir‐
tual Devices" section.
The command verifies that each device specified is accessible and
not currently in use by another subsystem. There are some uses,
such as being currently mounted, or specified as the dedicated dump
device, that prevents a device from ever being used by ZFS. Other
uses, such as having a preexisting UFS file system, can be overrid‐
den with the -f option.
The command also checks that the replication strategy for the pool
is consistent. An attempt to combine redundant and non-redundant
storage in a single pool, or to mix disks and files, results in an
error unless -f is specified. The use of differently sized devices
within a single raidz or mirror group is also flagged as an error
unless -f is specified.
Unless the -R option is specified, the default mount point is
"/pool". The mount point must not exist or must be empty, or else
the root dataset cannot be mounted. This can be overridden with the
-m option.
-f Forces use of vdevs, even if they appear in use or
specify a conflicting replication level. Not all
devices can be overridden in this manner.
-n Displays the configuration that would be used
without actually creating the pool. The actual
pool creation can still fail due to insufficient
privileges or device sharing.
-R root Creates the pool with an alternate root. See the
"Alternate Root Pools" section. The root dataset
has its mount point set to "/" as part of this
operation.
-m mountpoint Sets the mount point for the root dataset. The
default mount point is "/pool". The mount point
must be an absolute path, "legacy", or "none". For
more information on dataset mount points, see
zfs(1M).
zpool destroy [-f] pool
Destroys the given pool, freeing up any devices for other use. This
command tries to unmount any active datasets before destroying the
pool.
-f Forces any active datasets contained within the pool to be
unmounted.
zpool add [-fn] pool vdev ...
Adds the specified virtual devices to the given pool. The vdev
specification is described in the "Virtual Devices" section. The
behavior of the -f option, and the device checks performed are
described in the "zpool create" subcommand.
-f Forces use of vdevs, even if they appear in use or specify a
conflicting replication level. Not all devices can be over‐
ridden in this manner.
-n Displays the configuration that would be used without actu‐
ally adding the vdevs. The actual pool creation can still
fail due to insufficient privileges or device sharing.
Do not add a disk that is currently configured as a quorum device
to a zpool. Once a disk is in a zpool, that disk can then be con‐
figured as a quorum device.
zpool remove pool vdev
Removes the given vdev from the pool. This command currently only
supports removing hot spares. Devices which are part of a mirror
can be removed using the "zpool detach" command. Raidz and top-
level vdevs cannot be removed from a pool.
zpool list [-H] [-o field[,field*]] [pool] ...
Lists the given pools along with a health status and space usage.
When given no arguments, all pools in the system are listed.
-H Scripted mode. Do not display headers, and separate
fields by a single tab instead of arbitrary space.
-o field Comma-separated list of fields to display. Each field
must be one of:
name Pool name
size Total size
used Amount of space used
available Amount of space available
capacity Percentage of pool space used
health Health status
The default is all fields.
This command reports actual physical space available to the storage
pool. The physical space can be different from the total amount of
space that any contained datasets can actually use. The amount of
space used in a raidz configuration depends on the characteristics
of the data being written. In addition, ZFS reserves some space for
internal accounting that the zfs(1M) command takes into account,
but the zpool command does not. For non-full pools of a reasonable
size, these effects should be invisible. For small pools, or pools
that are close to being completely full, these discrepancies may
become more noticeable.
zpool iostat [-v] [pool] ... [interval [count]]
Displays I/O statistics for the given pools. When given an inter‐
val, the statistics are printed every interval seconds until Ctrl-C
is pressed. If no pools are specified, statistics for every pool in
the system is shown. If count is specified, the command exits after
count reports are printed.
-v Verbose statistics. Reports usage statistics for individual
vdevs within the pool, in addition to the pool-wide statis‐
tics.
zpool status [-xv] [pool] ...
Displays the detailed health status for the given pools. If no pool
is specified, then the status of each pool in the system is dis‐
played.
If a scrub or resilver is in progress, this command reports the
percentage done and the estimated time to completion. Both of these
are only approximate, because the amount of data in the pool and
the other workloads on the system can change.
-x Only display status for pools that are exhibiting errors or
are otherwise unavailable.
-v Displays verbose data error information, printing out a com‐
plete list of all data errors since the last complete pool
scrub.
zpool offline [-t] pool device ...
Takes the specified physical device offline. While the device is
offline, no attempt is made to read or write to the device.
This command is not applicable to spares.
-t Temporary. Upon reboot, the specified physical device reverts
to its previous state.
zpool online pool device ...
Brings the specified physical device online.
This command is not applicable to spares.
zpool clear pool [device] ...
Clears device errors in a pool. If no arguments are specified, all
device errors within the pool are cleared. If one or more devices
is specified, only those errors associated with the specified
device or devices are cleared.
zpool attach [-f] pool device new_device
Attaches new_device to an existing zpool device. The existing
device cannot be part of a raidz configuration. If device is not
currently part of a mirrored configuration, device automatically
transforms into a two-way mirror of device and new_device. If
device is part of a two-way mirror, attaching new_device creates a
three-way mirror, and so on. In either case, new_device begins to
resilver immediately.
-f Forces use of new_device, even if its appears to be in use.
Not all devices can be overridden in this manner.
zpool detach pool device
Detaches device from a mirror. The operation is refused if there
are no other valid replicas of the data.
zpool replace [-f] pool old_device [new_device]
Replaces old_device with new_device. This is equivalent to attach‐
ing new_device, waiting for it to resilver, and then detaching
old_device.
The size of new_device must be greater than or equal to the minimum
size of all the devices in a mirror or raidz configuration.
If new_device is not specified, it defaults to old_device. This
form of replacement is useful after an existing disk has failed and
has been physically replaced. In this case, the new disk may have
the same /dev/dsk path as the old device, even though it is actu‐
ally a different disk. ZFS recognizes this.
-f Forces use of new_device, even if its appears to be in use.
Not all devices can be overridden in this manner.
zpool scrub [-s] pool ...
Begins a scrub. The scrub examines all data in the specified pools
to verify that it checksums correctly. For replicated (mirror or
raidz) devices, ZFS automatically repairs any damage discovered
during the scrub. The "zpool status" command reports the progress
of the scrub and summarizes the results of the scrub upon comple‐
tion.
Scrubbing and resilvering are very similar operations. The differ‐
ence is that resilvering only examines data that ZFS knows to be
out of date (for example, when attaching a new device to a mirror
or replacing an existing device), whereas scrubbing examines all
data to discover silent errors due to hardware faults or disk fail‐
ure.
Because scrubbing and resilvering are I/O-intensive operations, ZFS
only allows one at a time. If a scrub is already in progress, the
"zpool scrub" command terminates it and starts a new scrub. If a
resilver is in progress, ZFS does not allow a scrub to be started
until the resilver completes.
-s Stop scrubbing.
zpool export [-f] pool ...
Exports the given pools from the system. All devices are marked as
exported, but are still considered in use by other subsystems. The
devices can be moved between systems (even those of different endi‐
anness) and imported as long as a sufficient number of devices are
present.
Before exporting the pool, all datasets within the pool are
unmounted.
For pools to be portable, you must give the zpool command whole
disks, not just slices, so that ZFS can label the disks with porta‐
ble EFI labels. Otherwise, disk drivers on platforms of different
endianness will not recognize the disks.
-f Forcefully unmount all datasets, using the "unmount -f" com‐
mand.
zpool import [-d dir] [-D]
Lists pools available to import. If the -d option is not specified,
this command searches for devices in "/dev/dsk". The -d option can
be specified multiple times, and all directories are searched. If
the device appears to be part of an exported pool, this command
displays a summary of the pool with the name of the pool, a numeric
identifier, as well as the vdev layout and current health of the
device for each device or file. Destroyed pools, pools that were
previously destroyed with the "-zpool destroy" command, are not
listed unless the -D option is specified.
The numeric identifier is unique, and can be used instead of the
pool name when multiple exported pools of the same name are avail‐
able.
-d dir Searches for devices or files in dir. The -d option can
be specified multiple times.
-D Lists destroyed pools only.
zpool import [-d dir] [-D] [-f] [-o opts] [-R root] pool | id [newpool]
Imports a specific pool. A pool can be identified by its name or
the numeric identifier. If newpool is specified, the pool is
imported using the name newpool. Otherwise, it is imported with the
same name as its exported name.
If a device is removed from a system without running "zpool export"
first, the device appears as potentially active. It cannot be
determined if this was a failed export, or whether the device is
really in use from another host. To import a pool in this state,
the -f option is required.
-d dir Searches for devices or files in dir. The -d option can
be specified multiple times.
-D Imports destroyed pool. The -f option is also required.
-f Forces import, even if the pool appears to be poten‐
tially active.
-o opts Comma-separated list of mount options to use when mount‐
ing datasets within the pool. See zfs(1M) for a descrip‐
tion of dataset properties and mount options.
-R root Imports pool(s) with an alternate root. See the "Alter‐
nate Root Pools" section.
zpool import [-d dir] [-D] [-f] [-a]
Imports all pools found in the search directories. Identical to the
previous command, except that all pools with a sufficient number of
devices available are imported. Destroyed pools, pools that were
previously destroyed with the "-zpool destroy" command, will not be
imported unless the -D option is specified.
-d dir Searches for devices or files in dir. The -d option can
be specified multiple times.
-D Imports destroyed pools only. The -f option is also
required.
-f Forces import, even if the pool appears to be potentially
active.
zpool upgrade
Displays all pools formatted using a different ZFS on-disk version.
Older versions can continue to be used, but some features may not
be available. These pools can be upgraded using "zpool upgrade -a".
Pools that are formatted with a more recent version are also dis‐
played, although these pools will be inaccessible on the system.
zpool upgrade -v
Displays ZFS versions supported by the current software. The cur‐
rent ZFS versions and all previous supportedversions are displayed,
along with an explanation of the features provided with each ver‐
sion.
zpool upgrade [-a | pool]
Upgrades the given pool to the latest on-disk version. Once this is
done, the pool will no longer be accessible on systems running
older versions of the software.
-a Upgrades all pools.
zpool history [pool] ...
Displays the command history of the specified pools (or all pools
if no pool is specified).
EXAMPLES
Example 1 Creating a RAID-Z Storage Pool
The following command creates a pool with a single raidz root vdev that
consists of six disks.
# zpool create tank raidz c0t0d0 c0t1d0 c0t2d0 c0t3d0 c0t4d0 c0t5d0
Example 2 Creating a Mirrored Storage Pool
The following command creates a pool with two mirrors, where each mir‐
ror contains two disks.
# zpool create tank mirror c0t0d0 c0t1d0 mirror c0t2d0 c0t3d0
Example 3 Creating a ZFS Storage Pool by Using Slices
The following command creates an unmirrored pool using two disk slices.
# zpool create tank /dev/dsk/c0t0d0s1 c0t1d0s4
Example 4 Creating a ZFS Storage Pool by Using Files
The following command creates an unmirrored pool using files. While not
recommended, a pool based on files can be useful for experimental pur‐
poses.
# zpool create tank /path/to/file/a /path/to/file/b
Example 5 Adding a Mirror to a ZFS Storage Pool
The following command adds two mirrored disks to the pool "tank",
assuming the pool is already made up of two-way mirrors. The additional
space is immediately available to any datasets within the pool.
# zpool add tank mirror c1t0d0 c1t1d0
Example 6 Listing Available ZFS Storage Pools
The following command lists all available pools on the system. In this
case, the pool zion is faulted due to a missing device.
The results from this command are similar to the following:
# zpool list
NAME SIZE USED AVAIL CAP HEALTH ALTROOT
pool 67.5G 2.92M 67.5G 0% ONLINE -
tank 67.5G 2.92M 67.5G 0% ONLINE -
zion - - - 0% FAULTED -
Example 7 Destroying a ZFS Storage Pool
The following command destroys the pool "tank" and any datasets con‐
tained within.
# zpool destroy -f tank
Example 8 Exporting a ZFS Storage Pool
The following command exports the devices in pool tank so that they can
be relocated or later imported.
# zpool export tank
Example 9 Importing a ZFS Storage Pool
The following command displays available pools, and then imports the
pool "tank" for use on the system.
The results from this command are similar to the following:
# zpool import
pool: tank
id: 15451357997522795478
state: ONLINE
action: The pool can be imported using its name or numeric identifier.
config:
tank ONLINE
mirror ONLINE
c1t2d0 ONLINE
c1t3d0 ONLINE
# zpool import tank
Example 10 Upgrading All ZFS Storage Pools to the Current Version
The following command upgrades all ZFS Storage pools to the current
version of the software.
# zpool upgrade -a
This system is currently running ZFS version 2.
Example 11 Managing Hot Spares
The following command creates a new pool with an available hot spare:
# zpool create tank mirror c0t0d0 c0t1d0 spare c0t2d0
If one of the disks were to fail, the pool would be reduced to the
degraded state. The failed device can be replaced using the following
command:
# zpool replace tank c0t0d0 c0t3d0
Once the data has been resilvered, the spare is automatically removed
and is made available should another device fails. The hot spare can
be permanently removed from the pool using the following command:
# zpool remove tank c0t2d0
EXIT STATUS
The following exit values are returned:
0 Successful completion.
1 An error occurred.
2 Invalid command line options were specified.
ATTRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:
┌─────────────────────────────┬─────────────────────────────┐
│ ATTRIBUTE TYPE │ ATTRIBUTE VALUE │
├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
│Availability │SUNWzfsu │
├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
│Interface Stability │Evolving │
└─────────────────────────────┴─────────────────────────────┘
SEE ALSOzfs(1M), attributes(5)SunOS 5.11 14 Nov 2006 zpool(1M)
