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, fetch dependencies using dep, 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
dep ensure
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

Alternatively, use CLI flags to specify a config location.

Copy a config from the [tutorial]({{< relref "tutorial/_index.md" >}}) or the cmd/sampleconf directory to one of these locations and customize it to your setup.

Runtime Directories

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

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

Running the Daemon

All actual work zrepl does is performed by a daemon process.

Logging is configurable via the config file. Please refer to the [logging documentation]({{< relref "configuration/logging.md" >}}).

zrepl daemon

There are no rc(8) or systemd.service(5) service definitions yet. Note the daemon(8) utility on FreeBSD.

{{% notice info %}} Make sure to actually monitor the error level output of zrepl: some configuration errors will not make the daemon exit.
Example: if the daemon cannot create the [stdinserver]({{< relref "configuration/transports.md#stdinserver" >}}) sockets in the runtime directory, it will emit an error message but not exit because other tasks such as periodic snapshots & pruning are of equal importance. {{% / 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.