Installing OpenAFS on Debian

OpenAFS is included in Debian and new packages are uploaded to Debian unstable regularly. If you are using Debian unstable or testing, the best way to get the most current OpenAFS packages is to install them directly from Debian. Clients will generally want the openafs-client, openafs-krb5, and either the openafs-modules-dkms or openafs-modules-source packages. Servers will want openafs-fileserver, plus openafs-dbserver for database servers.

For additional Debian-specific instructions, install openafs-client and read /usr/share/doc/openafs-client/README.Debian.gz and /usr/share/doc/openafs-client/README.modules.gz. The latter explains how to install the required kernel modules. The simplest way for individual systems is generally to install the openafs-modules-dkms package, which will automatically build and install the OpenAFS module for your current kernel using DKMS.

OpenAFS is also included in Debian stable, but as with all packages in Debian stable, the version is frozen at the time of release and is only updated for serious bugs. If that version works for you, excellent; if you run into any problems, the first thing to try is to update to the current version, which is maintained in the backports.org repository. If you have not used backports.org before, it contains versions of Debian packages backported from the current testing distribution to the current stable distribution. The backports of the OpenAFS packages are kept up-to-date with the version currently in testing, which will generally be close to the most recent OpenAFS release.

To install OpenAFS from backports.org, take the following steps (a specific version of the general instructions):

  1. Add this line:

        deb http://www.backports.org/debian lenny-backports main

    to your /etc/apt/sources.list file.

  2. Add the following to /etc/apt/preferences, which will also ensure that any backports you install are updated via apt-get upgrade or the equivalent when newer versions are available:

        Package: *
        Pin: release a=lenny-backports
        Pin-Priority: 200
    
        Package: openafs-client
        Pin: release a=lenny-backports
        Pin-Priority: 991
    
        Package: openafs-krb5
        Pin: release a=lenny-backports
        Pin-Priority: 991
    
        Package: openafs-modules-dkms
        Pin: release a=lenny-backports
        Pin-Priority: 991
    
        Package: openafs-modules-source
        Pin: release a=lenny-backports
        Pin-Priority: 991
    
        Package: openafs-fileserver
        Pin: release a=lenny-backports
        Pin-Priority: 991
    
        Package: openafs-dbserver
        Pin: release a=lenny-backports
        Pin-Priority: 991
    
        Package: openafs-dbg
        Pin: release a=lenny-backports
        Pin-Priority: 991
    

    Unfortunately, wildcards are not supported, so you have to list all the packages of interest independently. If you need other OpenAFS packages, add them as well.

  3. Run apt-get update (or aptitude update or your other tool of choice) and then install the debian-backports-keyring package so that you have a key to verify packages in the backports.org repository. You will have to either allow that initial install to be unchecked or use the other instructions on backports.org.

  4. Using whatever package management tool you prefer, install the OpenAFS packages as normal. Your system should now prefer the versions in backports.org.