Install zrepl with Homebrew, apk, Nix

Project links

• Homepage
• Repository
• Upstream docs
• Package manager page

Commands and aliases

• zrepl

Project history

The public `zrepl/zrepl` repository was created in April 2017, and the documentation copyright identifies Christian Schwarz as the project author. The README and official site describe zrepl as a one-stop ZFS backup and replication solution, with user documentation published through Sphinx at zrepl.github.io.

zrepl developed around the hard parts of reliable ZFS replication rather than around a generic backup format. The documentation lists push and pull replication, TCP, TLS, and SSH transports, retries, resumable send/receive, ZFS holds, bookmarks, raw encrypted sends, properties/compressed/large-block sends, bandwidth limiting, periodic snapshots, pruning rules, structured logging, Prometheus metrics, and `zrepl status` progress reporting.

The changelog shows the project maturing through operational features: Prometheus metrics and receiver-side pruning behavior in early releases, automatic bookmark and hold management, configurable send/receive flags, bandwidth limiting, encrypted-send fixes, and later 0.6 and 0.7 maintenance releases.

Adoption history

zrepl's audience is narrower than general backup tools because it requires ZFS, but it is significant inside that ecosystem. The official package documentation lists installation paths through GitHub release binaries, FreeBSD packages, Homebrew on macOS, Arch AUR, Fedora/RHEL/openSUSE RPM repositories, Debian/Ubuntu APT repositories, OmniOS, Void Linux, and source builds.

GitHub metadata showed more than 1,100 stars by mid-2026, consistent with an infrastructure tool used by ZFS administrators rather than casual desktop users. Its adoption is also reflected in docs that address distro maintainers, service files, platform tests that exercise ZFS, and package repository operations.

How it is used

Typical use is to write a YAML configuration at `/etc/zrepl/zrepl.yml`, validate it with `zrepl configcheck`, run zrepl as a daemon, and use `zrepl status` or `zrepl signal wakeup JOBNAME` to monitor or trigger work. The quick-start docs cover continuous server backup, local snapshots with offline external-disk backup, and fan-out replication.

zrepl is most useful when native ZFS snapshots and `zfs send` are already the desired backup primitive, but the operator wants automated policy, pruning, transport, monitoring, and safety checks around them.

Why package nerds care

zrepl is package-nerd significant because it is not another tar-like backup archive; it is packaging the operational discipline around ZFS itself. It turns a powerful but manual storage primitive into a service with config files, system packages, status UI, metrics, and reproducible deployment patterns.

It is also a good example of a small infrastructure package whose real value is coordination: snapshots, bookmarks, holds, pruning, send/receive flags, daemon supervision, and distro defaults all have to line up or backups quietly become unsafe.

Timeline

• 2017-04-13: The public `zrepl/zrepl` repository is created.
• 2020-08-21: zrepl 0.3.0 is published on GitHub.
• 2021-04-18: zrepl 0.4.0 is published.
• 2022-01-09: zrepl 0.5.0 is published, with changelog entries including bandwidth limiting and send/receive-related fixes.
• 2022-11-01: zrepl 0.6.0 is published.
• 2026-02-15: zrepl 0.7.0 is published.

Related projects

• OpenZFS is the underlying filesystem and send/receive substrate.
• syncoid and sanoid are adjacent ZFS snapshot and replication tools in the same administrator niche.
• Prometheus is relevant because zrepl exposes metrics for monitoring replication health.

Sources

• https://api.github.com/repos/zrepl/zrepl
• https://github.com/zrepl/zrepl
• https://zrepl.github.io/
• https://zrepl.github.io/changelog.html
• https://zrepl.github.io/installation/packages.html
• https://zrepl.github.io/quickstart.html