Managing ZFS File Systems in Oracle^® Solaris 11.3

How to Destroy a ZFS File System

To destroy a ZFS file system, use the zfs destroy command. By default, all of the snapshots for the dataset will be destroyed. The destroyed file system is automatically unmounted and unshared. For more information about automatically managed mounts or automatically managed shares, see Automatic Mount Points.

1. Become root.
2. Destroy the ZFS file system.

   # zfs destroy tank/home/mark

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   Caution  -  No confirmation prompt appears with the destroy subcommand. Use it with extreme caution.

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   Caution  -  No confirmation prompt appears with the –f, –r, or –R options to the zfs destroy command, so use these options carefully.

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Example 29  Destroying an Active ZFS File System

If the file system to be destroyed is busy and cannot be unmounted, the zfs destroy command fails. To destroy an active file system, use the –f option. Use this option with caution as it can unmount, unshare, and destroy active file systems, causing unexpected application behavior.

# zfs destroy -f tank/home/matt

Example 30  Destroying a ZFS File System with Descendents

The zfs destroy command also fails if a file system has descendents. To recursively destroy a file system and all its descendents, use the –r option.

# zfs destroy tank/ws
cannot destroy 'tank/ws': filesystem has children
use '-r' to destroy the following datasets:
tank/ws/jeff
tank/ws/bill
tank/ws/mark
# zfs destroy -r tank/ws

Example 31  Destroying a ZFS File System with Dependents

If the file system to be destroyed has indirect dependents, even the recursive destroy command fails. To force the destruction of all dependents, including cloned file systems outside the target hierarchy, the –R option must be used. Use extreme caution with this option.

# zfs destroy -r tank/home/eric
cannot destroy 'tank/home/eric': filesystem has dependent clones
use '-R' to destroy the following datasets:
tank//home/eric-clone
# zfs destroy -R tank/home/eric