As you know I created the DRAID project, based in ZFS.

One of our customers wanted a special custom version for their RHEL6.10 installation with a custom Kernel.

This post describes how to compile and install ZFS 7.x for RHEL6.

First create a VM with RHEL6.10. Myself I used Virtual Box on Ubuntu.

If you need to install a Custom Kernel matching the destination Servers, do it.

Download the source code from ZFS for Linux.

install the following packages which are required by zfs compiler:

sudo yum groupinstall "Development Tools"
sudo yum install autoconf automake libtool wget libtirpc-devel rpm-build
sudo yum install zlib-devel libuuid-devel libattr-devel libblkid-devel libselinux-devel libudev-devel
sudo yum install parted lsscsi ksh openssl-devel elfutils-libelf-develsudo yum install kernel-devel-$(uname -r)

Steps to compile the code:

1- Make sure  the zfs file exists under zfs/contrib/initramfs/scripts/local-top/

if not exists, create a file called zfs  under zfs/contrib/initramfs/scripts/local-top/  and add the following to that file:

#!/bin/sh PREREQ=”mdadm mdrun multipath” prereqs() {        echo “$PREREQ” } case $1 in # get pre-requisites prereqs)        prereqs        exit 0        ;; esac # # Helper functions # message() {        if [ -x /bin/plymouth ] && plymouth –ping; then                plymouth message –text=”$@”        else                echo “$@” >&2        fi        return 0 } udev_settle() {        # Wait for udev to be ready, see https://launchpad.net/bugs/85640        if [ -x /sbin/udevadm ]; then                /sbin/udevadm settle –timeout=30        elif [ -x /sbin/udevsettle ]; then                /sbin/udevsettle –timeout=30        fi        return 0 } activate_vg() {        # Sanity checks        if [ ! -x /sbin/lvm ]; then                [ “$quiet” != “y” ] && message “lvm is not available”                return 1        fi        # Detect and activate available volume groups        /sbin/lvm vgscan        /sbin/lvm vgchange -a y –sysinit        return $? } udev_settle activate_vg exit 0

make the created zfs file executable:

chmod +x  zfs/contrib/initramfs/scripts/local-top/zfs

2-  inside  draid-zfs-2019-05-09 folder, execute the following commands:execute Auto generate script:

./autogen.sh

execute configuration script:

./configure

Please note we use this specific configuration for bettter results:

./configure –disable-pyzfs –with-spec=redhat

create rpms:

make rpm

remove all test rpms:

rm zfs-test*.rpm

3- install all created rpms

yum install *x86_64* -y

4- verify that zfs is been installed

zfs

this command will display zfs help. 

Another interesting trick I instructed my Team to do is to add a version number to zfs, with a parameter -v or –version.

So if you want to do the same, you have to edit:

zfs/cmd/zfs/zfs_main.c

Under:

cmdname = argv[1];

In my code is line 7926, then add:

/* DRAIDTEAM - added new command to display zfs version*/
if ((strcmp(cmdname, "-v") == 0) || (strcmp(cmdname, "--version") == 0)) {
    (void) fprintf(stdout, "0.7.0_DRAID-1.2.9.08021755\n");
    return (0);
}

You can check the Kernel Module info by using modinfo zfs, but I found it handy to allow to just do:

zfs -v