Pre Staging snapshots for replication

[byroncollege]

Hello,
Is there an easy way to prestage snapshots for replication. When you have huge datasets it is easier to zfs send receiv to a local disk, transfer it the the other machine and do the same to pre stage the snapshots.
It seems the GUI replication forces the receiving side to use -F which deletes all snapshots on first sync even if you have prestaged. It would be great if there was an option to turn this off or tick a box so it starts with an incremental sync instead of full sync?

Zrep has an option to do this but I would rather use the built in system.

Cheers

 

[DrKK]

So I don't think we've ever been asked this before. You might put it in as a feature request to the redmine?

While we wait for someone who might have a more clever answer than mine to chime in, might I suggest sir, that you cobble up a script that will do what you want (everything you're saying can be accomplished with standard zfs commands), and then have the GUI execute the script at certain intervals under the "tasks" menu? Then don't use the CLI built-in zfs replication at all.

 

[Dice]

(and post the script, please)

 

[Ericloewe]

There was going to be a replication rewrite, but I think the guy working on that left or whatever. Definitely file a feature request for this so that it doesn't get lost when that does happen.

 

[PhilipS]

It seems the GUI replication forces the receiving side to use -F which deletes all snapshots on first sync even if you have prestaged

Have you tried this yet? I've done something similar in the past and it worked for me. All -F does is roll back on the destination until it reaches a snapshot that is on the source, so that they have a common starting point.