Settable ZFS Native Properties

Settable native properties are properties whose values can be both retrieved and set. Settable native properties are set by using the zfs set command, as described in Setting ZFS Properties or by using the zfs create command as described in Creating a ZFS File System. With the exceptions of quotas and reservations, settable native properties are inherited. For more information about quotas and reservations, see Setting ZFS Quotas and Reservations.

Some settable native properties are specific to a particular type of dataset. In such cases, the dataset type is mentioned in the description in Table 6–1. If not specifically mentioned, a property applies to all dataset types: file systems, volumes, clones, and snapshots.

The settable properties are listed here and described in Table 6–1.

• aclinherit

  For a detailed description, see ACL Properties.

• aclmode

  For a detailed description, see ACL Properties.

• atime

• canmount

• checksum

• compression

• copies

• devices

• exec

• mountpoint

• primarycache

• quota

• readonly

• recordsize

  For a detailed description, see recordsize Property.

• refquota

• refreservation

• reservation

• secondarycache

• shareiscsi

• sharenfs

• setuid

• snapdir

• version

• volsize

  For a detailed description, see volsize Property.

• volblocksize

• zoned

• xattr

canmount Property

If the canmount property is set to off, the file system cannot be mounted by using the zfs mount or zfs mount -a commands. Setting this property to off is similar to setting the mountpoint property to none, except that the dataset still has a normal mountpoint property that can be inherited. For example, you can set this property to off, establish inheritable properties for descendent file systems, but the parent file system itself is never mounted nor is it accessible to users. In this case, the parent file system is serving as a container so that you can set properties on the container, but the container itself is never accessible.

In the following example, userpool is created, and its canmount property is set to off. Mount points for descendent user file systems are set to one common mount point, /export/home. Properties that are set on the parent file system are inherited by descendent file systems, but the parent file system itself is never mounted.

# zpool create userpool mirror c0t5d0 c1t6d0
# zfs set canmount=off userpool
# zfs set mountpoint=/export/home userpool
# zfs set compression=on userpool
# zfs create userpool/user1
# zfs create userpool/user2
# zfs mount
userpool/user1                  /export/home/user1
userpool/user2                  /export/home/user2

Setting the canmount property to noauto means that the dataset can only be mounted explicitly, not automatically. This value setting is used by the Oracle Solaris upgrade software so that only those datasets belonging to the active boot environment are mounted at boot time.

recordsize Property

The recordsize property specifies a suggested block size for files in the file system.

This property is designed solely for use with database workloads that access files in fixed-size records. ZFS automatically adjust block sizes according to internal algorithms optimized for typical access patterns. For databases that create very large files but access the files in small random chunks, these algorithms might be suboptimal. Specifying a recordsize value greater than or equal to the record size of the database can result in significant performance gains. Use of this property for general purpose file systems is strongly discouraged and might adversely affect performance. The size specified must be a power of 2 greater than or equal to 512 bytes and less than or equal to 128 KB. Changing the file system's recordsize value only affects files created afterward. Existing files are unaffected.

The property abbreviation is recsize.

volsize Property

The volsize property specifies the logical size of the volume. By default, creating a volume establishes a reservation for the same amount. Any changes to volsize are reflected in an equivalent change to the reservation. These checks are used to prevent unexpected behavior for users. A volume that contains less space than it claims is available can result in undefined behavior or data corruption, depending on how the volume is used. These effects can also occur when the volume size is changed while the volume is in use, particularly when you shrink the size. Use extreme care when adjusting the volume size.

Though not recommended, you can create a sparse volume by specifying the -s flag to zfs create -V or by changing the reservation after the volume has been created. A sparse volume is a volume whose reservation is not equal to the volume size. For a sparse volume, changes to volsize are not reflected in the reservation.

For more information about using volumes, see ZFS Volumes.