By default, a ZFS file system is automatically mounted when it is created. You can determine specific mount-point behavior for a file system as described in this section.
You can also set the default mount point for a pool's file system at creation time by using zpool create's –m option. For more information about creating pools, see Creating ZFS Storage Pools.
All ZFS file systems are mounted by ZFS at boot time 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 using the zfs set command to set the mountpoint property to a specific path. ZFS automatically creates the specified mount point, if needed, and automatically mounts the associated file system.
ZFS file systems are automatically mounted at boot time without requiring you to edit the /etc/vfstab file.
The mountpoint property is inherited. For example, if pool/home has the mountpoint property set to /export/stuff, then pool/home/user inherits /export/stuff/user for its mountpoint property value.
To prevent a file system from being mounted, set the mountpoint property to none. In addition, the canmount property can be used to control whether a file system can be mounted. For more information about the canmount property, see The canmount Property.
File systems can also be explicitly managed through legacy mount interfaces by using zfs set to set the mountpoint property to legacy. Doing so prevents ZFS from automatically mounting and managing a 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 you change the mountpoint property from legacy or none to a specific path, ZFS automatically mounts the file system.
If ZFS is managing a file system but it is currently unmounted, and the mountpoint property is changed, the file system remains unmounted.
Any file system whose mountpoint property is not legacy is managed by ZFS. In the following example, a file system 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.
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 at boot time, and the ZFS mount and umount commands do not operate on file systems of this type. The following examples show how to set up and manage a ZFS file system in legacy mode:
# zfs set mountpoint=legacy tank/home/eric # mount -F zfs tank/home/eschrock /mnt
To automatically mount a legacy file system at boot time, 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/eric - /mnt zfs - yes -
The device to fsck and fsck pass entries are set to - because the fsck command is not applicable to ZFS file systems. For more information about ZFS data integrity, see Transactional Semantics.