I wanted to try the 0.7.0-rc3 from git. So I cloned from git and changed to the zfs and spl version 0.7.0-rc3 tag.

Since ubuntu ships with a prebuilt zfs and spl my custom packages didn’t work.
It always loaded the prebuilt zfs and spl from the kernel modules directory but not the one I built.
I figured out a way to make it work nonetheless.

– check your currently running zfs module:

# modinfo zfs
filename:       /lib/modules/4.8.0-41-generic/kernel/zfs/zfs/zfs.ko
version:        0.6.5.8-0ubuntu4.1

– remove kernel mods (make sure to have all zfs pools unmounted, otherwise it will fail):

rmmod zfs zunicode zcommon znvpair spl zavl

– remove kernel module from your current running kernel:

rm -r /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/kernel/zfs

– build deb packages for your currently running ubuntu (see their wiki):

cd $where_your_spl_from_git_resides
make clean; ./autogen.sh
cd $where_your_zfs_from_git_resides
make clean; ./autogen.sh
cd $where_your_spl_from_git_resides
./configure; make deb
for file in *.deb; do gdebi -q --non-interactive $file; done
cd $where_your_zfs_from_git_resides
./configure; make deb
for file in *.deb; do gdebi -q --non-interactive $file; done

– do a modprobe:

modprobe zfs

– check again the running zfs module:

# modinfo zfs | head -2
filename:       /lib/modules/4.8.0-41-generic/extra/zfs/zfs/zfs.ko
version:        0.7.0-rc3

After that it worked just well. I guess it has to be done for every new kernel release. If there is another better way instead of deleting modules from the kernel modules directory to make it work, please share.