Configuring MySQL on the source filesystem is a case of creating the data on the filesystem that you will be replicating. The configuration file in the example below has been updated to use /opt/mysql-data as the data directory, and now I can initialize the tables:

root-shell> mysql_install_db --defaults-file=/etc/mysql/5.0/my.cnf --user=mysql

To synchronize the initial information, perform a new snapshot and then send an incremental snapshot to the slave using zfs send:

root-shell> zfs snapshot opt@snap2
root-shell> zfs send -i opt@snap1 opt@snap2|ssh mc@192.168.0.93 pfexec zfs recv slavepool

Double check that the slave has the data by looking at the MySQL data directory on the slavepool:

root-shell> ls -al /slavepool/mysql-data/

Now we can start up MySQL, create some data, and then replicate the changes using zfs send/ zfs recv to the slave to synchronize the changes.

The rate at which you perform the synchronization is dependent on your application and environment. The limitation is the speed required to perform the snapshot and then to send the changes over the network.

To automate the process, you should create a script that performs the snapshot, send, and receive operation, and then use cron to synchronize the changes at set times or intervals. For automated operations, see Tim Foster's zfs replication tool.