Upgrade to 16.04 LTS from ubuntu server 14.04 LTS with ubuntu-zfs

I have a storage server running Ubuntu Server 14.04 LTS. I have ubuntu-zfs installed on it and I already use ZFS as my files system for the stored data.

I am trying to look into what issues i might have trying to upgrade from 14.04 to 16.04. Here are some of my worries:

1. Will the upgrade convert the ubuntu-zfs setup in 14.04 to the native ZFS in 16.04? I'm thinking that the safest way would be to export the pools uninstall ubuntu-zfs upgrade to 16.04 and then re-import the pools, but i would rather not go through the trouble if i don't have to.

2. Will there be issues importing pools created with ubuntu-zfs in 16.04 with native ZFS?

Thanks

Solution 1:

I found the upgrade straightforward(ish) in my case of non-root ZFS, just needing to remove old tools before adding new ones and nothing was left in a weird state:

# Export ZFS Pool first - may need to switch to single user mode for this
zfs umount -a; zpool export <poolname>
# Remove old ZFS stuff
apt-get remove ubuntu-zfs zfs-doc spl-dkms
apt-get autoremove
add-apt-repository --remove ppa:zfs-native/stable

# upgrade time!
do-release-upgrade

apt install zfsutils-linux

#reboot

...and on reboot my zpools / zfs file systems all imported and mounted OK

Solution 2:

FWIW, I have the same dilemma - although I'll probably wait until 16.04.1 before I take the jump.

From what I can see, Xenial simply includes native replacement libraries for the zfs-linux stuff, e.g. ZFS on Linux lists 0.6.5.6-1~trusty (et al); native 'buntu has 0.6.5.6-0ubuntu8.

So, I'm assuming that it could be viewed as a change in PPA as much as anything, with kernel support meaning no dkms rebuilding. But...