Determine if zfs is the actual filesystem

Question

With Solaris 11 the default filesystem should be zfs, but following the official guide I obtained (with cat /etc/default/fs)

LOCAL=ufs

Is this an error? I thought that the same information was in the output of the mount command, but it wasn't. It is just a list of all the mountpoints.

With mount -p instead:

rpool/ROOT/GUI - / zfs - no 
/devices - /devices devfs - no 
/dev - /dev dev - no 
ctfs - /system/contract ctfs - no 
proc - /proc proc - no 
mnttab - /etc/mnttab mntfs - no 
swap - /system/volatile tmpfs - no xattr
objfs - /system/object objfs - no 
sharefs - /etc/dfs/sharetab sharefs - no 
/usr/lib/libc/libc_hwcap1.so.1 - /lib/libc.so.1 lofs - no 
fd - /dev/fd fd - no rw
rpool/ROOT/GUI/var - /var zfs - no rw,devices,setuid,nonbmand,exec,rstchown,xattr,atime
swap - /tmp tmpfs - no xattr
rpool/VARSHARE - /var/share zfs - no rw,devices,setuid,nonbmand,exec,rstchown,xattr,atime
rpool/export - /export zfs - no rw,devices,setuid,nonbmand,exec,rstchown,xattr,atime
rpool/export/home - /export/home zfs - no rw,devices,setuid,nonbmand,exec,rstchown,xattr,atime
rpool/export/home/user - /export/home/user zfs - no rw,devices,setuid,nonbmand,exec,rstchown,xattr,atime
rpool - /rpool zfs - no rw,devices,setuid,nonbmand,exec,rstchown,xattr,atime
rpool/VARSHARE/zones - /system/zones zfs - no rw,devices,setuid,nonbmand,exec,rstchown,xattr,atime
rpool/VARSHARE/pkg - /var/share/pkg zfs - no rw,devices,setuid,nonbmand,exec,rstchown,xattr,atime
rpool/VARSHARE/pkg/repositories - /var/share/pkg/repositories zfs - no rw,devices,setuid,nonbmand,exec,rstchown,xattr,atime

It shows that the root filesystem has zfs. Also with zfs list I obtain

NAME                              USED  AVAIL  REFER  MOUNTPOINT
rpool                            7,09G  42,1G  4,65M  /rpool
rpool/ROOT                       4,97G  42,1G    31K  legacy
rpool/ROOT/GUI                   4,96G  42,1G  4,40G  /
rpool/ROOT/GUI/var                462M  42,1G   231M  /var
rpool/ROOT/solaris               9,97M  42,1G  2,42G  /
rpool/ROOT/solaris/var            570K  42,1G   305M  /var
rpool/VARSHARE                   2,53M  42,1G  2,44M  /var/share
rpool/VARSHARE/pkg                 63K  42,1G    32K  /var/share/pkg
rpool/VARSHARE/pkg/repositories    31K  42,1G    31K  /var/share/pkg/repositories
rpool/VARSHARE/zones               31K  42,1G    31K  /system/zones
rpool/dump                       1,03G  42,2G  1,00G  -
rpool/export                     49,4M  42,1G    32K  /export
rpool/export/home                49,4M  42,1G    32K  /export/home
rpool/export/home/user           49,3M  42,1G  49,3M  /export/home/user
rpool/swap                       1,03G  42,2G  1,00G  -

So what is the right way to determine the actual filesystem?

Solution

mount -p will show you the file system type used for each mounted file system, eg:

$ mount -p
rpool/ROOT/solaris - / zfs - no 
/devices - /devices devfs - no 
/dev - /dev dev - no 
ctfs - /system/contract ctfs - no 
proc - /proc proc - no 
mnttab - /etc/mnttab mntfs - no 
...

Unless you are currently using a bootable DVD or USB thumbdrive (i.e. you are in the process of installing Solaris from a live media), the root filesystem cannot be but ZFS with Solaris 11. You can't install Solaris 11 and newer on UFS but of course, you can later create and mount UFS file systems.

The /etc/default/fs file doesn't tell what the root file system is but what some commands like mount and fsck will pick as default file system if not specified in the parameters. As ZFS doesn't make use of fsck and very rarely need mount, UFS has been kept here.

Comments

[Matej Vrzala M4]

Do you have diskutil program?

[jlliagre]

Can you post the mount output that confuses you ?

[Bratchley]

Agreed. If you're going to make reference to something, it's best practice to actually let us see what you're talking about.

[BowPark]

@ryekayo No, I don't have that program installed.

[BowPark]

Sorry, I made a mistake: the output of mount is just a list of each mount point. It is the output of cat /etc/default/fs that is confusing. I will edit my question.

[Warwick]

Also could use zfs list to show all ZFS file systems and their mount points. I like the output from mount -p though. That is pretty clear.

[BowPark]

Sorry, can you rewrite your statement? I installed Solaris from a bootable DVD: in this case the filesystem can be only zfs of could also be ufs?

[jlliagre]

Answer edited to clarify.