ZFS-DIFF(8)

💖 ZFS-DIFF(8) 💖

okay bestie, so this is zfs-diff from the System Manager's Manual, and it's genuinely one of the most useful little tools in the whole ZFS family, no cap.

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✨ NAME ✨

zfs-diff — show difference between ZFS snapshots 🦋

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

zfs diff [-FHth] snapshot snapshot|filesystem

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💅 DESCRIPTION 💅

So what this does is it shows you the difference between a snapshot of a given filesystem and another snapshot of that same filesystem from a later time, OR the current contents of the filesystem. Basically a glow-up reveal for your data. ✨

The first column is a character telling you the type of change. The other columns are giving pathname, new pathname (in the rename case, obviously 💁), change in link count, and optionally file type and/or change time.

The types of change are, and this is important so pay attention bestie:

• - — The path has been removed 💀
• + — The path has been created 🎀
• M — The path has been modified ✏️
• R — The path has been renamed 👑

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⭐ OPTIONS ⭐

• -F — Displays an indication of the type of file, in a manner similar to the -F option of ls(1). Here's the whole lil alphabet of file types, memorise it iykyk:
  • B — Block device
  • C — Character device
  • / — Directory
  • > — Door
  • | — Named pipe
  • @ — Symbolic link
  • P — Event port
  • = — Socket
  • F — Regular file
• -H — Gives you more parsable tab-separated output, without header lines and without arrows. so if you're piping this into a script, this is your main character flag fr fr 🔥
• -t — Displays the path's inode change time as the first column of output. like a little timestamp baddie in front 💜
• -h — Do not \0ooo-escape non-ASCII paths. so your weird lil unicode filenames get to live their truth 🌈

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🌈 EXAMPLES 🌈

🍓 Example 1: Showing the differences between a snapshot and a ZFS Dataset

The following example shows how to see what has changed between a prior snapshot of a ZFS dataset and its current state. The -F option is used to indicate type information for the files affected.

# zfs diff -F tank/test@before tank/test
M       /       /tank/test/
M       F       /tank/test/linked      (+1)
R       F       /tank/test/oldname -> /tank/test/newname
-       F       /tank/test/deleted
+       F       /tank/test/created
M       F       /tank/test/modified

look at that output. directory modified, a linked file went up by one link count, a rename with the lil -> arrow, one deleted, one created, one modified. the whole character arc in six lines. we love to see it. 👑

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🫶 SEE ALSO 🫶

zfs-snapshot(8)

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okay that's the whole page bestie, you ate that, go diff some snapshots and slay ✨

this one's from OpenZFS, dated July 11, 2022 — mwah, kisses, take care of your datasets 💖💅