ZFS_PREPARE_DISK(8)

💖 zfs_prepare_disk(8) 💖

okay bestie, gather round, because this one is a script, and it's the glow-up station your disks visit before they get to join the pool. it lives in section 8 of the System Manager's Manual, and honestly? she's optional but she's iconic. 🎀

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✨ NAME ✨

zfs_prepare_disk — the special little script that gets run before bringing a disk into a pool. like, the pre-game ritual. the outfit check. the vibe check before the disk walks into the party. 🦋

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🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

so here's the tea: zfs_prepare_disk is an optional script that gets called by libzfs before bringing a disk into a pool. it's yours to modify, bestie — you can make it run literally whatever commands are necessary to get a disk ready for inclusion into the pool. no cap. 🙈

wanna update the drive's firmware? wanna check the drive's health? just add lines to zfs_prepare_disk and it's handled. it's giving personal assistant energy. 💅

and because she's optional, she can absolutely be removed if you don't need her — no hard feelings, no drama. libzfs will look for the script at:

/usr/lib/zfs-linux/zfs_prepare_disk

that's her address. that's where she hangs out. 👑

🧚 Properties 🧚

zfs_prepare_disk gets passed the following environment variables — think of them as the little notes she gets handed on her way in:

• POOL_NAME — Name of the pool. 💜
• VDEV_PATH — Path to the disk (like /dev/sda).
• VDEV_PREPARE — Reason why the disk is being prepared for inclusion ('create', 'add', 'replace', or 'autoreplace'). This can be useful if you only want the script to be run under certain actions.
• VDEV_UPATH — Path to one of the underlying devices for the disk. For multipath this would return one of the /dev/sd* paths to the disk. If the device is not a device mapper device, then VDEV_UPATH just returns the same value as VDEV_PATH.
• VDEV_ENC_SYSFS_PATH — Path to the disk's enclosure sysfs path, if available.

not me needing to say this but: some of these variables may have a blank value. POOL_NAME is blank at pool creation time, for example. so like, don't be shocked when it ghosts you. 😭

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🌈 ENVIRONMENT 🌈

zfs_prepare_disk runs with a limited $PATH. that's it, that's the whole vibe. plan accordingly, bestie. ✨

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⭐ EXIT STATUS ⭐

zfs_prepare_disk should return 0 on success, non-zero otherwise.

and if non-zero is returned, the disk will not be included in the pool. no invite, no party, no pool. fr fr. 💀

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and that's the whole page, bestie 🫶 — this gem came from OpenZFS, dated August 30, 2023, and it's your System Manager's Manual serving it up in section 8. slay, go prepare some disks, and remember: return 0 or the disk stays outside. periodt. 💖✨🌸