How should I go about testing a backported kernel when I am running ZFS on root?

Question

I have been having problems with KVM crashing, and the kernel crash dumps seem to point to a NIC problem, possibly a driver issue. However, before reporting, it has been recommended that I try using the latest mainline kernel as described here How to update kernel to the latest mainline version without any Distro-upgrade? :

I tried this, but of course it broke ZFS, so I had to reboot back into my old kernel. I can think of a few ways I might do this, but I don't know what the recommended way would be.

1. Install zfs-dkms, reboot, then install the new kernel. I'm worried that switching to DKMS in my main kernel might leave me in an even more inconvenient postion.
2. Use a testing version of zfsutils that works with the most recent kernel possible. I'm not sure who to ask. Trial and error seems like a lot of work.
3. Make an alternative install that is as similar to my current install as possible: Install Ubuntu onto a bootable USB, build zfsutils from source in that environment, then install libvirt, NFS, and other packages I need to reproduce the crash. This seems like a fair amount of work for something that isn't an exact replication of my problem situation.

Answer 1

Using zfs-dkms should be fine. As the maintainer of ZFS I can't see why this should be a problem. Ensure zfs-dkms is removed if you revert back to an official Ubuntu supported kernel just so that you don't need to rebuild ZFS on kernel updates.