Last Updated: Dec 12, 2018

ZFS on Linux is a poorly designed software solution to get ZFS up and running in Linux environments. Unlike FreeBSD, ZFS does not work with the Linux kernel natively. The developers of ZFS on Linux come up a crappy hack. By injecting the ZFS into the kernel via DKMS, Linux kernel will understand what is ZFS. It works very well, and it really works with a single assumption: The system will never be updated or rebooted after installing ZFS on Linux. So what will happen after you update the system (e.g., kernel, ZFS on Linux packages) and the system got rebooted? There is a good chance that your ZFS module will not be loaded. Otherwise you are not here, right?

There are two steps to rescue your data back. We will start with removing your DKMS module first. If it does not work, we will reinstall the ZFS packages. Also, I am assuming that your system is booted to the new kernel. Please keep in mind that ZFS on Linux does not work with Linux kernel v4. It only works with v3.

If you need to access your data, the easiest way is to boot to the old working kernel. Once you are ready to clean up the mess created by the ZFS on Linux team, boot to the new kernel and follow my instructions below.

Step 1: Clean up and Reinstall DKMS Modules

Most of the time, the ZFS on Linux messes up the DKMS modules after the update. I suggest to clean up and reinstall DKMS modules once again. As of December 12, 2018, the ZFS on Linux will remove all of the DKMS modules for no reason.

First, check your DKMS status. You will need to clean up the DKMS if it is empty or dirty (multiple kernels installed). If it is clean (single kernel only), you can skip this step.

#dkms status

#An example of dirty DKMS status (This is bad):
spl, 0.7.12, 3.10.0-862.14.4.el7: installed (original_module exists) (WARNING! Diff between built and installed module!)
spl, 0.7.12, 3.10.0-957.1.3.el7: installed (original_module exists)
zfs, 0.7.12, 3.10.0-862.14.4.el7: installed (original_module exists) (WARNING! Diff between built and installed module!)
zfs, 0.7.12, 3.10.0-957.1.3.el7: installed (original_module exists)

#An example of empty DKMS status (This is bad):
(empty)

#An example of clean DKMS status (This is good):
spl, 0.7.12, 3.10.0-957.1.3.el7.x86_64, x86_64: installed
zfs, 0.7.12, 3.10.0-957.1.3.el7.x86_64, x86_64: installed 

or 

spl, 0.7.12, 3.10.0-957.1.3.el7.x86_64, x86_64: installed
zfs, 0.7.12, 3.10.0-957.1.3.el7.x86_64, x86_64: installed (original_module exists)

In my example above, my ZFS on Linux is 0.7.12, my old kernel is 3.10.0-862.14.4.el7, my new kernel is 3.10.0-957.1.3.el7. Your version may be different.

You may want to remove both ZFS and SPL DKMS modules first, then reinstall them:

sudo dkms remove zfs/0.7.12 --all; 
sudo dkms remove spl/0.7.12 --all; 

Sometimes, you will need to remove the old kernel manually:

sudo dkms remove zfs/0.7.12 -k 3.10.0-862.14.4.el7.x86_64; 
sudo dkms remove spl/0.7.12 -k 3.10.0-862.14.4.el7.x86_64;

Time to reinstall them:

sudo dkms --force install spl/0.7.12; 
sudo dkms --force install zfs/0.7.12;

Run the DKMS status again. You should see both ZPL and SPL are attached to the new kernel:

spl, 0.7.12, 3.10.0-957.1.3.el7.x86_64, x86_64: installed
zfs, 0.7.12, 3.10.0-957.1.3.el7.x86_64, x86_64: installed (original_module exists)

Try to load the ZFS module and import your ZFS data:

sudo /sbin/modprobe zfs
sudo zpool import -a

If everything looks good, you can reboot your system and test to see if the ZFS is loaded automatically or not. Once everything is okay, remove the old kernel from the system.

sudo package-cleanup --oldkernels --count=1 -y

That’s it, you are good to go.

Step 2: Reinstall ZFS packages

If you have tried the first step and it didn’t work. You may want to reinstall the ZFS packages. Here is a typical error message:

You try to import the ZFS data and the system complains:

#zpool import -a
The ZFS modules are not loaded.
Try running '/sbin/modprobe zfs' as root to load them.

So you try to load the ZFS module and the system complains again:

#/sbin/modprobe zfs
modprobe: FATAL: Module zfs not found.
or
modprobe: ERROR: could not insert 'zfs': Invalid argument

What you need to do is to erase all the ZFS and related packages:

yum erase zfs zfs-dkms libzfs2 spl spl-dkms libzpool2 -y

Please reboot the system. This step is very important.

reboot

After that, try to install ZFS again.

yum install zfs -y

If the system complaints about mismatch dependent packages, try to remove the affected packages first and run the installation again.

After the installation, try to start the ZFS module:

/sbin/modprobe zfs
zpool import -a

If the ZFS is up and running, please clean up your DKMS from step 1. If it complains again, please follow the steps below:

1. Reboot
2. Clear the cache of the yum repository and try to update the system again. (sudo yum clean all)
3. Reboot to the latest kernel
4. Erase the ZFS and related packages, try it again.

If you already tried it for more than 3 times without any luck, don’t waste your time. You may want to bring the ZFS disks to a different server. The new server should be able to recognize the ZFS disks. For the original server, you can connect to the ZFS disks on the new server via NFS using the original path. That will minimize the impact of changes.

Keep in mind that the ZFS version is very important. The server with newer ZFS version can read the ZFS disks created in older ZFS versions. You can always check the ZFS versions by running the following:

#Get the version of the host:
sudo zfs upgrade -v
sudo zpool upgrade -v


#Get the version of the ZFS disks:
sudo zfs get version
sudo zpool get version

This is pretty much what I need to do on my 50 servers every month. Good luck!

Let’s all agree with this fact: ZFS is foreign to Linux. It is not native. You can’t expect that ZFS on Linux will run smoothly as FreeBSD or Solaris. Having using ZFS on Linux since 2013 (and ZFS on FreeBSD since 2009), I’ve noticed that ZFS does not like Linux (well, at least RHEL 7). Here are some few examples:

• ZFS is not loaded at the boot time. You will need to manually start it or load it via cron. Good luck if you have other services (like Apache, MySQL, NFS, or even users’ home directories) that depend on the ZFS.
• Every single time you update the kernel, ZFS will not work after the reboot without some manual work. What if the system runs the update automatically, and one day there is a power failure which makes your server to reboot to a new kernel? Your system will not be able to mount your ZFS volume. If you integrate ZFS with other service applications such as web, database or network drive, oh well, good luck and I hope you will catch this problem fast enough before receiving thousands of emails and calls from your end-users.
• If you exclude the kernel from the updates (/etc/yum.conf), you will eventually run into trouble, because there are tons of other packages that require the latest kernel. In the other words, running the command: yum update -y will fail. You will need to run yum update –skip-broken, which means you will miss many latest packages. Here is an example:

  --> Finished Dependency Resolution
  Error: Package: hypervvssd-0-0.29.20160216git.el7.x86_64 (base)
             Requires: kernel >= 3.10.0-384.el7
             Installed: kernel-3.10.0-327.el7.x86_64 (@anaconda)
                 kernel = 3.10.0-327.el7
             Installed: kernel-3.10.0-327.22.2.el7.x86_64 (@updates)
                 kernel = 3.10.0-327.22.2.el7
  Error: Package: hypervfcopyd-0-0.29.20160216git.el7.x86_64 (base)
             Requires: kernel >= 3.10.0-384.el7
             Installed: kernel-3.10.0-327.el7.x86_64 (@anaconda)
                 kernel = 3.10.0-327.el7
             Installed: kernel-3.10.0-327.22.2.el7.x86_64 (@updates)
                 kernel = 3.10.0-327.22.2.el7
  Error: Package: hypervkvpd-0-0.29.20160216git.el7.x86_64 (base)
             Requires: kernel >= 3.10.0-384.el7
             Installed: kernel-3.10.0-327.el7.x86_64 (@anaconda)
                 kernel = 3.10.0-327.el7
             Installed: kernel-3.10.0-327.22.2.el7.x86_64 (@updates)
                 kernel = 3.10.0-327.22.2.el7
   You could try using --skip-broken to work around the problem
   You could try running: rpm -Va --nofiles --nodigest
  

• If you are running the stable Linux distributions like RHEL 7, you can load a more recent kernel like 4.x by installing the package: kernel-ml. However, don’t expect that ZFS will work with version 4:

  Loading new spl-0.6.5.9 DKMS files...
  Building for 4.11.2-1.el7.elrepo.x86_64
  Building initial module for 4.11.2-1.el7.elrepo.x86_64
  configure: error: unknown
  Error! Bad return status for module build on kernel: 4.11.2-1.el7.elrepo.x86_64 (x86_64)
  Consult /var/lib/dkms/spl/0.6.5.9/build/make.log for more information.
  
  

Running ZFS on Linux is like putting a giraffe in the wild in Alaska. It is just not the right thing to do. Unfortunately, there are so many things that only available on Linux so we have to live with it. Just like FUSE (Filesystem in Userspace), many people feel hesitated to run their file systems on the userspace instead of kernel level, but hey, see how many people are happy with GlusterFS, a distributed file system that live on FUSE! Personally I just think it is not a right thing to do, especially in an enterprise environment. Running a production file system at the userspace level, seriously?

Anyway, if you are running into trouble after upgrading your Linux kernel (and you almost had a heart attack when you think your data may be lost), you have two choices:

1. Simply boot to the previous working kernel if you need to get your data back in quick. However, keep in mind that this will create two problems:
   • Since you already update the system with the new kernel and the new packages, your new packages probably will not work with the old kernel, and that may give you extra headache.
   • Unless you manually overwrite the kernel boot order (boot loader config), otherwise you may get into the same trouble in the next boot.
2. If you want a more “permanent” fix, you will need to rebuild the dkms ZFS and SPL modules. See below for the instructions. Keep in mind that you will have the same problem again when the kernel receives a new update.

You’ve tried to load the ZFS and realize that it is no longer available:

#sudo zpool import
The ZFS modules are not loaded.
Try running '/sbin/modprobe zfs' as root to load them.

#sudo /sbin/modprobe zfs
modprobe: FATAL: Module zfs not found.

You may want to check the dkms status. Write down the version number. In my case, it is 0.6.5.9

#sudo dkms status
spl, 0.6.5.9, 3.10.0-327.28.3.el7.x86_64, x86_64: installed (WARNING! Diff between built and installed module!) (WARNING! Diff between built and installed module!)
spl, 0.6.5.9, 3.10.0-514.2.2.el7.x86_64, x86_64: installed (WARNING! Diff between built and installed module!) (WARNING! Diff between built and installed module!)
zfs, 0.6.5.9, 3.10.0-327.28.3.el7.x86_64, x86_64: installed (WARNING! Diff between built and installed module!) (WARNING! Diff between built and installed module!) (WARNING! Diff between built and installed module!) (WARNING! Diff between built and installed module!) (WARNING! Diff between built and installed module!) (WARNING! Diff between built and installed module!)

Before running the following commands, make sure that you know what you are doing.

#Make sure that you reboot to the kernel you want to fix.
#Find out what is the current kernel
uname -a
Linux 3.10.0-514.2.2.el7.x86_64 #1 SMP Tue Dec 6 23:06:41 UTC 2016 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

#In my example, it is:
3.10.0-514.2.2.el7.x86_64

#Now, let's get into the fun part. We will remove them and reinstall them.
#Don't forget to match your version, in my base, my version is: 0.6.5.9
sudo dkms remove zfs/0.6.5.9 --all
sudo dkms remove spl/0.6.5.9 --all
sudo dkms --force install spl/0.6.5.9
sudo dkms --force install zfs/0.6.5.9

#or you can run these commands in one line, so that you don't need to wait:
sudo dkms remove zfs/0.6.5.9 --all; sudo dkms remove spl/0.6.5.9 --all; sudo dkms --force install spl/0.6.5.9; sudo dkms --force install zfs/0.6.5.9;

And we will verify the result.

#sudo dkms status
spl, 0.6.5.9, 3.10.0-514.2.2.el7.x86_64, x86_64: installed
zfs, 0.6.5.9, 3.10.0-514.2.2.el7.x86_64, x86_64: installed

Finally we can start the ZFS again.

sudo /sbin/modprobe zfs

Your ZFS pool should back. You can verify it by rebooting your machine. Notice that Linux may not automatically mount the ZFS volumes. You may want to mount it manually or via cron job.

Here is how to mount the ZFS volumes manually.

sudo zpool import -a

You may want to remove all of the old kernels too.

sudo package-cleanup --oldkernels --count=1 -y