Working With the File System Control Directory (.zfs)

A file system stores snapshots and clones in its .zfs control directory. Note that the control directory is not visible in directory listings by default. To make the control directory visible, see Making the File System Control Directory (.zfs) Visible (BUI) and Making the File System Control Directory (.zfs) Visible (CLI). Note that having the control directory hidden prevents backup software from inadvertently backing up snapshots in addition to new data.

The file system control directory contains the following snapshot and clone directories:

• .zfs/snapshot: Contains a list of all snapshots on the file system. You can access these read-only snapshots in the same way that you access other file-system data.

• .zfs/clone: Contains a list of all clones of the file system that have their mountpoint property set to the clonedir value. You can access the clones mounted here in the same way that you can access other file-system data. The clones are shared with the file system of which they are a clone.

  By default, a file system or clone is mounted at /export/name, where name is the name of the file system, snapshot, or clone.

To prepare a file system share to use the control directory, see Mounting a Clone File System in the Control Directory (BUI) and Mounting a Clone File System in the Control Directory (CLI).

To access the hidden and visible file system snapshot directories, see Accessing the Hidden File System Snapshot Directory (CLI) and Accessing the Visible File System Snapshot Directory (CLI).