[sf-lug] Ubuntu zsys?

[Michael Paoli]

Well ... I've certainly done a far bit with ZFS ... but
not on Ubuntu and not so recently (though still using it ...
just not so actively mucking about with it).

And don't have experience with Ubuntu's Zsys ... as far as I can
easily tell from some reading, this is Ubuntu's own thing (some
downstreams may (have) pick(ed) it up - but head of the beast seems
to be Ubuntu) to have a "helper" interface to ZFS and, as far as I can
tell, is still also considered - even by Ubuntu - as "experimental".
I'd also guestimate, if Ubuntu's dependencies are properly set up,
it's likely feasible to rip that software out ... though how deep one
may need go in reverse dependencies thereof ... who knows.
E.g. if Ubuntu makes Desktop Environment (DE) mandatory or
the like (e.g. for non-Server), and makes that depend upon some
GUI file manager and makes that depend upon Zsys ... uhm, yeah,
that.  But I'm guestimating it's probably not that bad to rip it
out ... as Ubuntu-Server uses the same repos ... as does the
other *buntus too, e.g. Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Xubuntu, ...
So, they're all really just the same distro ... just different default
set of packages installed and slightly different configurations thereof
(e.g. I recall doing a detailed comparison once-upon-a-time between
a pair of *buntus - only differences were packages installed by default,
and some configuration files (but did include some core ones, e.g. like
/etc/passwd having some different default user(s) - so not just config
files for differing package sets, but at least some more common files
too)).  Anyway, if Ubuntu-Server doesn't install by default or require
the Zsys stuff and it can be removed (while still keeping ZFS), likely
it can be removed from the other *butnus too,
probably just a question/matter of what else needs (or should) be
removed along with such removal of Zsys.

Anyway, most of their documentation reads approximately ...
about bare skeleton man pages which mostly reference same
small set thereof ... source ... README ...
"Link to blog posts until we have an internal documentation" ...
bloggy bits:
https://didrocks.fr/2020/05/21/zfs-focus-on-ubuntu-20.04-lts-whats-new/
Anyway, if one is going to use ZSys, I might advise:
remember, "experimental".
And, probably keep a watch on the reported bugs ... yeah,
those also topped search results presently without even
trying to specifically look for problems/issues/bugs.

Anyway, ... might be interesting to experiment/"play" with,
but whether or not it ends up being of much/any consequence and
sticking around or setting any particular growth/direction trends,
I think that's still very much yet to be seen.

So, anyway, my observations/guestimations on it thus far,
and thus far no hands-on with ZSys.

> From: "Alan Swithenbank" <alans at cuervo.stanford.edu>
> Subject: [sf-lug] Ubuntu zsys?
> Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2022 00:41:29 +0000 (UTC)

> Hi,
>
> Anyone had any encounters with Ubuntu zsys? I'm putting
> together up a new box, and planned to set up zfs (been
> using it). But, it sounds like Canonical has decided it
> will install zsys by default now if you install zfs. The
> fact that documentation mentions black-magic and repeated
> tries to make it through their choosen communications
> framework (gRPC) is a bit disconcerting. Not that Canonical
> doing something that doesn't work well is too surprising these
> days...;^) But, if anyone has any thoughts, I'd be happy to
> hear them.
>
> thanks!
>
> Alan Swithenbank (waterdog)
>
> PS, here's what is actually said:
>
> "the unix socket which activates on demand zsysd is using  
> SO_PEERCRED to pass credentials (who/when) and with some (black  
> magic) wizardry and
> multiple attempts, we were able to make it work over gRPC, the communication
> RPC framework we are using. As this whole combination was not really
> documented anywhere on the Internet, it may be useful to document that in
> a more technical blog post in the future."