Install ZFS on Ubuntu [Debian]

There are two ways to install ZFS on Ubuntu: using jonathonf's PPA and compiling from sources.

Ubuntu install ZFS

Ubuntu repo

Ubuntu comes with the ZFS package, but usually it is a bit outdated:

sudo apt install zfsutils-linux

jonathonf's PPA

To install the latest ZFS version, add jonathonf's PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:jonathonf/zfs

And then install ZFS and zfs-dkms to update ZFS Linux kernel modules:

sudo apt install zfsutils-linux zfs-dkms

Compile from sources

You can also compileopen in new window and install ZFS from sources, but you will need to re-compile ZFS Linux kernel modules whenever Linix kernel is updated.

Install dependencies:

sudo apt install build-essential autoconf automake libtool gawk alien fakeroot dkms libblkid-dev uuid-dev libudev-dev libssl-dev zlib1g-dev libaio-dev libattr1-dev libelf-dev linux-headers-$(uname -r) python3 python3-dev python3-setuptools python3-cffi libffi-dev python3-packaging git

Compile ZFS:

git clone https://github.com/openzfs/zfs
cd ./zfs
git checkout master
sh autogen.sh
./configure
make -s -j$(nproc)

Unmount existing ZFS datasets and export pools:

sudo zfs unmount -a
sudo zpool export -a
sudo systemctl stop zfs-send

Unload existing ZFS modules:

sudo ./scripts/zfs.sh -u

Install newly compiled ZFS:

sudo make install
sudo ldconfig
sudo depmod

Load freshly built Linux modules:

sudo ./scripts/zfs.sh

And make sure that ZFS services are enabled:

sudo systemctl enable zfs.target zfs-import.target zfs-mount.service zfs-import-cache.service zfs-import-scan.service
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