OpenZFS on OS X

I wonder a bit, why ZFS seems to require an installer for every new variation of macOS.
Paragon's NTFS and EXT file system drivers happily keep working unmodified for several macOS versions, but ZFS not only seems to break each time, but also for a given version needs separate installers for each OS version. Why's that?

That said, I felt compelled for some important reasons beyond this discussion here, to upgrade to the 10.13 developer beta, but unfortunately, the ZFS driver didn't survive the OS upgrade with function intact, and the attempt at installing the Sierra drivers fails miserably.

So: are there tricks to get the driver working under 10.13? Is there (even a hacked) version of ZFS planned, such that one can install on 10.13?
I have a bunch of important, but not vital, data on a ZFS formatted drive. More importantly, it's a drive I use as an overflow, where I move stuff that doesn't have to be on my (way too full) internal drive, so gaining access to it again, would be somewhat helpful...

Simply put ZFS uses a complex set of interfaces into the Kernel that perhaps Paragon et al may not use. Often there are some interface changes with major OS revisions. We have to compensate for that by either using an alternate, newly supplied interface, or working around whatever limitations have been forced apon us.

Indeed, in the case of 10.13, a single symbol in the kernel that we use was removed. We have an experimental branch that works on 10.13. The changes will be incorporated into the next release no doubt, and certainly in time to support 10.13.

As we have said over a number of years, one should wait for the go ahead from us before trying to run against pre-release OSX versions, as we need some time to ensure that it still works correctly. Of course you are free to do test installations of your own, but best to ensure you have a path back to your previous stable configuration.

Cheers
Brendon

Thanks, will the experimental branch be made available for testing somewhere?
I'm well aware of the risks of beta software, being a developer myself. Unfortunately there were some pressing reasons to move the system in question to macOS 10.13...

Obviously, there's no data lost, just access to data is delayed until I either boot into an other os just to copy individual files out and over, or until I can run some (experimental driver).

Thanks!

Its in master branch already, just compile it and put it in place, if you have a cert, sign it yourself, if not, you will have to disable the kext part of SIP (or just disable SIP entirely).

We are moving toward another release of course, but it'll be a while..

Was trying to build spl, but already to configure, there seem to be additional tools besides Xcode required.
What exactly do I need to have installed, besides the basic OS and Xcode, to build these?

Thanks!

https://openzfsonosx.org/wiki/Install

Instructions are there.

Cheers
Brendon

Any chance, for those of us who are unable to get a kext signing key (ADC denied me one for some reason), of building a version that runs on High Sierra and making it available somewhere before the next full release (with appropriate "this may blow up your system, use at your own risk" caveats)? I'd happily build it myself, but I'm not thrilled with the idea of disabling the SIP kext protection systemwide...

SIP is a bit of waste of time We could look at a signed kext for those who are already running High Sierra, or even an extra kext that defines just the missing variable. We'll look into it.

lundman wrote:SIP is a bit of waste of time We could look at a signed kext for those who are already running High Sierra, or even an extra kext that defines just the missing variable. We'll look into it.

That would be great!

Just wondering when we would see 1.6.2 RC2 or final version?

Since High Sierra is out now I guess more people would like to move to it now.
My client machine already is up and running with HS - now I would like to migrate the server too.

Thanks!