Creating Intermediate ZFS Datasets

Solaris Express Community Edition, build 68: You can use the -p option with the zfs create, zfs clone, and zfs rename commands to quickly create a non-existent intermediate dataset, if it doesn't already exist.

For example, create ZFS datasets (users/area51) in the datab storage pool.

# zfs list
NAME                        USED  AVAIL  REFER  MOUNTPOINT
datab                       106K  16.5G    18K  /datab
# zfs create -p -o compression=on datab/users/area51

If the intermediate dataset exists during the create operation, the operation completes successfully.

Properties specified apply to the target dataset, not to the intermediate datasets. For example:

# zfs get mountpoint,compression datab/users/area51
NAME                PROPERTY     VALUE                SOURCE
datab/users/area51  mountpoint   /datab/users/area51  default
datab/users/area51  compression  on                   local

The intermediate dataset is created with the default mount point. Any additional properties are disabled for the intermediate dataset. For example:

# zfs get mountpoint,compression datab/users
NAME         PROPERTY     VALUE         SOURCE
datab/users  mountpoint   /datab/users  default
datab/users  compression  off           default

For more information, see zfs(1M).