zrepl/docs/content/install/_index.md

+++ title = "Installation" weight = 20 +++

{{% notice note %}} Note: check out the [tutorial]({{< relref "tutorial/_index.md" >}}) if you want a first impression of zrepl. {{% /notice %}}

User Privileges

It is possible to run zrepl as an unprivileged user in combination with ZFS delegation.

Also, there is the possibility to run it in a jail on FreeBSD by delegating a dataset to the jail.

However, until we get around documenting those setups, you will have to run zrepl as root or experiment yourself :)

Installation

zrepl is currently not packaged on any operating system. Signed & versioned releases are planned but not available yet.

Check out the sources yourself, compile and install to the zrepl user's $PATH.
Note: if the zrepl binary is not in $PATH, you will have to adjust the examples in the [tutorial]({{< relref "tutorial/_index.md" >}}).

# NOTE: you may want to checkout & build as an unprivileged user
cd /root
git clone https://github.com/zrepl/zrepl.git
cd zrepl
go build -o zrepl
cp zrepl /usr/local/bin/zrepl
rehash
# see if it worked
zrepl help

Configuration Files

zrepl searches for its main configuration file in the following locations (in that order):

• /etc/zrepl/zrepl.yml
• /usr/local/etc/zrepl/zrepl.yml

Copy a config from the tutorial or the cmd/sampleconf directory to one of these locations and customize it to your setup.

Runtime Directories

For default settings, the following should to the trick. Check out the [configuration documentation]({{< relref "configuration/misc.md#runtime-directories-unix-sockets" >}}) for more information.

mkdir -p /var/run/zrepl/stdinserver
chmod -R 0700 /var/run/zrepl

Running the Daemon

All work zrepl done is performed by a daemon process.

There are no rc(8) or systemd.service(5) service definitions yet.

The daemon does not fork and writes all log output to stderr.

zrepl daemon

FreeBSD ships with the daemon(8) utility which is also a good start for writing an rc(8) file:

daemon -o /var/log/zrepl.log \
       -p /var/run/zrepl/daemon.pid \
       zrepl --config /usr/local/etc/zrepl/zrepl.yml daemon

{{% notice info %}} Make sure to read the first lines of log output after the daemon starts: if the daemon cannot create the [stdinserver]({{< relref "configuration/transports.md#stdinserver" >}}) sockets in the runtime directory, it will complain but not terminate as other tasks such as taking periodic snapshots might still work and are equally important. {{% / notice %}}

Restarting

The daemon handles SIGINT and SIGTERM for graceful shutdown.

Graceful shutdown means at worst that a job will not be rescheduled for the next interval.

The daemon exits as soon as all jobs have reported shut down.