How to install ZFS binaries

The tar ball will extract a “build” directory. After you’ve made a backup of:

/usr/sbin/zfs
/usr/sbin/zpool
/usr/lib/libzfs.dylib
/System/Library/Extensions/zfs.kext
/System/Library/Filesystems/zfs.fs

you can:

sudo cp build/Leopard_Release/zfs /usr/sbin/zfs
sudo cp build/Leopard_Release/zpool /usr/sbin/zpool
sudo cp build/Leopard_Release/libzfs.dylib /usr/lib/libzfs.dylib

Not sure about cp(1) semantics, so we blow the existing directories away

sudo /bin/rm -rf /System/Library/Filesystems/zfs.fs /System/Library/Extensions/zfs.kext

sudo cp -R build/Leopard_Release/zfs.fs /System/Library/Filesystems/zfs.fs
sudo cp -R build/Leopard_Release/zfs.kext /System/Library/Extensions/zfs.kext

Also, make sure that all the files are owned by root:wheel after you have copied them over. If not you can do:

sudo chown -R root:wheel /System/Library/Extensions/zfs.kext
sudo chown -R root:wheel /System/Library/Filesystems/zfs.fs
sudo chown -R root:wheel /usr/sbin/zpool
sudo chown -R root:wheel /usr/sbin/zfs
sudo chown -R root:wheel /usr/lib/libzfs.dylib

Then reboot.

How to compile ZFS source

The tar ball will extract to a top level directory of the same name as the version you have downloaded: eg. ‘zfs-111’. There are two main things you will need in order to build the ZFS source.

You will need to have the latest version of Xcode installed (part of the Developer tools). Open the zfs project in Xcode and select the "Leopard_Release" configuration in the build configuration menu at the top.

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