Category Archives: ZFS

ZFS ‘Failed to start Mark current ZSYS boot as successful’ fix

On Ubuntu 20.04 after installing the NVIDIA driver 510 metapackage the system stopped booting. It will either hang with a black screen and blinking cursor on the top left or show the following error message: Attempting to revert from a snapshot ends up with the same error message. This wasn’t the case on another separate… Read More: ZFS ‘Failed to start Mark current ZSYS boot as successful’… »

Raspberry Pi : Configuring a Time Capsule/Backintime server

In this post, I am setting up a Time Capsule and Backintime server. I am using a Raspberry Pi that has Ubuntu installed, with a USB disk that has been configured into a ZFS pool. Setting up backup users You are going to have to create users for each of the services/users that will be… Read More: Raspberry Pi : Configuring a Time Capsule/Backintime server »

ZFS: Setting up ZFS storage on Ubuntu

If you are new to ZFS, I would advise doing a little bit of research first to understand the fundamentals. Jim Salter’s articles on storage and ZFS are very recommended. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/05/zfs-101-understanding-zfs-storage-and-performance/ The examples below are to create a pool from a single disk, with separate datasets used for network backups. In some examples, I might… Read More: ZFS: Setting up ZFS storage on Ubuntu »

Ubuntu: ZFS bpool is full and not running snapshots during apt updates

When running apt to update my system I kept seeing a message saying that bpool had less than 20% space free and that the automatic snapshotting would not run. What I didn’t realise is that this would apply to the rpool even if it had plenty of free space. They are run together and have… Read More: Ubuntu: ZFS bpool is full and not running snapshots during… »

Ubuntu 20.04: Install Ubuntu with ZFS and encryption

Ubuntu 20.04 offers installing ZFS as the default filesystem. This has lots of advantages. My favourite is being able to revert the system and home partitions (simultaneously or individually) to a previous state through the boot menu. One major drawback for me is the lack of an option to encrypt the filesystem during the installation.… Read More: Ubuntu 20.04: Install Ubuntu with ZFS and encryption »