On 25/12/19 12:13PM, Marc Baudoin wrote: > Hi, > > OpenZFS 2.4.0 has just been released: > > https://github.com/openzfs/zfs/releases/tag/zfs-2.4.0 > > The release notes don't mention NetBSD as a supported platform, > only Linux and FreeBSD.
Because of what OpenZFS really is under the hood: ZoL (ZFS On Linux), ported to FreeBSD [1]. OpenZFS doesn't care about illumos, much less NetBSD. Replacing OpenZFS with ZoL was a terrible choice, because it gave everybody on the outside the false impression that OpenZFS is still the upstream of all ZFS ports, when factually it isn't, at least anymore. Up to 2019, OpenZFS was a shared ground for the various ZFS ports to sync from and integrate with. Now, as it typically happens with anything from the Linux ecosystem, they keep breaking compatibility [2] with other implementations, at a pace where it becomes impossible to catch up with. [1] https://github.com/openzfs/zfs/releases/tag/zfs-2.0.0 [2] https://illumos.topicbox.com/groups/discuss/Ta2162fbb2358fa0e-M33e5f65a2831f11c3a277afa > Moreover, there aren't much resources about ZFS on NetBSD, I'm > only aware of one page on the Wiki: > > https://wiki.netbsd.org/zfs/ > Long story short, our ZFS implementation is based on that of FreeBSD 12. However, during the release cycle of FreeBSD 13, FreeBSD moved its ZFS codebase to ZoL,[3] leaving NetBSD without an upstream to pull from. I think this negatively impacted the possibility of keeping ZFS on NetBSD in a up-to-date shape. That said it's not like the ZFS is abandoned: it is still actively maintained and has seen some fixes and improvements since the release of NetBSD 10.0.[4] [3] https://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-fs/2018-December/027085.html [4] https://github.com/NetBSD/src/tree/trunk/external/cddl/osnet > It looks like ZFS is not as important to NetBSD as it is to > FreeBSD (having ZFS as a main feature as well as the default > ZFS-on-root installation are some of their strength). > > What's the plan for ZFS on NetBSD? I'm not enough into NetBSD development to provide a reliable statement on this, but the available TODO [4] seems clear about what needs to be done still. As for updating our codebase, NetBSD will have to decide sooner or later whether to rebase on OpenZFS or illumos ZFS. As emerged in this thread, NetBSD's ZFS port is becoming increasingly outdated. In my opinion, updating ZFS on NetBSD should be top priority. Otherwise, the fewer users choose NetBSD for ZFS storage, the fewer bugs are reported and fixes contributed...it becomes the usual vicious cycle, and the risk is that of letting a fully functional port of the most advanced and widely available file-system bitrot. I'm a strong proponent of switching to current illumos ZFS, because: * illumos values stability at least as much as NetBSD does. * NetBSD lacks the resources to keep up with OpenZFS. To back this up, I will link a couple of threads to check out (if you're interested in a comparison between these two): * Status of OpenZFS integration within Illumos [5] * illumos future and compatibility with OpenZFS [6] [5] https://www.reddit.com/r/illumos/comments/1izdpdk/status_of_openzfs_integration_within_illumos/ [6] https://illumos.topicbox.com/groups/discuss/T627f77e1b29a7b53/illumos-future-and-compatibility-with-open-zfs
