Send Receive Encrypted ZFS Dataset and All Snapshots

Moving an Encrypted Dataset is not a complicated task but can require a little work if you have snapshots which you want to move as well. A handy tip to accomplish this is to create a recursive snapshot before moving and then send this snapshot to get all moved easily.

Steps to Move Encrypted Dataset with All Snapshots

1. create a recursive snapshot (so we can transfer all snapshots): zfs snap -r tank/archive@move-dataset
2. send snapshot: zfs send -Rw tank/archive@move-dataset | zfs recv -Fuv tank2/archive
3. verify/check received snapshots: zfs list -t snapshot tank2/archive
4. verify/check keys (if keylocation is blank set it accordningly): zfs get encryption,keylocation,keyformat tank2
   • if keylocation is blank set accordingly: zfs set keylocation=file:///your/key/location tank2/archive
5. after send and checking mountpoint the mount (zfs mount tank/archive) will likely fail with 'encryption key not loaded', to fix this load the key: zfs load-key tank2/archive
6. mount new location: zfs mount tank2/archive
7. check snapshots and data

I run a non-systemd system so I also need to add the loadkey to my ZFS init script (/etc/init.d/zfs) to ensure the key is loaded at system start.