Managing ZFS Mount Points

By default, all ZFS file systems are mounted by ZFS at boot by using the Service Management Facility 's (SMF)svc://system/filesystem/local service. File systems are mounted under /path, where path is the name of the file system.

You can override the default mount point by setting the mountpoint property to a specific path by using the zfs set command. ZFS automatically creates this mount point, if needed, and automatically mounts this file system when the zfs mount -a command is invoked, without requiring you to edit the /etc/vfstab file.

The mountpoint property is inherited. For example, if pool/home has mountpoint set to /export/stuff, then pool/home/user inherits /export/stuff/user for its mountpoint property.

The mountpoint property can be set to none to prevent the file system from being mounted. In addition, the canmount property is available for determining whether a file system can be mounted. For more information about the canmount property, see The canmount Property.

If desired, file systems can also be explicitly managed through legacy mount interfaces by setting the mountpoint property to legacy by using zfs set. Doing so prevents ZFS from automatically mounting and managing this file system. Legacy tools including the mount and umount commands, and the /etc/vfstab file must be used instead. For more information about legacy mounts, see Legacy Mount Points.

When changing mount point management strategies, the following behaviors apply:

• Automatic mount point behavior

• Legacy mount point behavior

Automatic Mount Points

• When changing from legacy or none, ZFS automatically mounts the file system.

• If ZFS is currently managing the file system but it is currently unmounted, and the mountpoint property is changed, the file system remains unmounted.

You can also set the default mount point for the root dataset at creation time by using zpool create's -m option. For more information about creating pools, see Creating a ZFS Storage Pool.

Any dataset whose mountpoint property is not legacy is managed by ZFS. In the following example, a dataset is created whose mount point is automatically managed by ZFS.

# zfs create pool/filesystem
# zfs get mountpoint pool/filesystem
NAME             PROPERTY      VALUE                      SOURCE
pool/filesystem  mountpoint    /pool/filesystem           default
# zfs get mounted pool/filesystem
NAME             PROPERTY      VALUE                      SOURCE
pool/filesystem  mounted       yes                        -

You can also explicitly set the mountpoint property as shown in the following example:

# zfs set mountpoint=/mnt pool/filesystem
# zfs get mountpoint pool/filesystem
NAME             PROPERTY      VALUE                      SOURCE
pool/filesystem  mountpoint    /mnt                       local
# zfs get mounted pool/filesystem
NAME             PROPERTY      VALUE                      SOURCE
pool/filesystem  mounted       yes                        -

When the mountpoint property is changed, the file system is automatically unmounted from the old mount point and remounted to the new mount point. Mount point directories are created as needed. If ZFS is unable to unmount a file system due to it being active, an error is reported and a forced manual unmount is necessary.

Legacy Mount Points

You can manage ZFS file systems with legacy tools by setting the mountpoint property to legacy. Legacy file systems must be managed through the mount and umount commands and the /etc/vfstab file. ZFS does not automatically mount legacy file systems on boot, and the ZFS mount and umount commands do not operate on datasets of this type. The following examples show how to set up and manage a ZFS dataset in legacy mode:

# zfs set mountpoint=legacy tank/home/eschrock
# mount -F zfs tank/home/eschrock /mnt

To automatically mount a legacy file system on boot, you must add an entry to the /etc/vfstab file. The following example shows what the entry in the /etc/vfstab file might look like:

#device         device        mount           FS      fsck    mount   mount
#to mount       to fsck       point           type    pass    at boot options
#

tank/home/eschrock -		/mnt		   zfs		-		yes		-	

Note that the device to fsck and fsck pass entries are set to -. This syntax is because the fsck command is not applicable to ZFS file systems. For more information regarding data integrity and the lack of need for fsck in ZFS, see Transactional Semantics.