AFS is a distributed filesystem that enables co-operating hosts (clients and servers) to efficiently share filesystem resources across both local area and wide area networks.
-The commercial version of AFS is marketed, maintained, and extended by Transarc Corporation.
-
AFS is based on a distributed file system originally developed at the Information Technology Center at Carnegie-Mellon University that was called the "Andrew File System".
-"Andrew" was the name of the research project at CMU - honouring th founders of the University. Once Transarc was formed and AFS became a product, the "Andrew" was dropped to indicate that AFS had gone beyond the Andrew research project and had become a supported, product quality filesystem. However, there were a number of existing cells that rooted their filesystem as /afs. At the time, changing the root of the filesystem was a non-trivial undertaking. So, to save the early AFS sites from having to rename their filesystem, AFS remained as the name and filesystem root.
+"Andrew" was the name of the research project at CMU - honouring the founders of the University. A spin-off company, Transarc Corporation (now part of IBM), started producing and marketing a commercial version of AFS in 1989.
+
+In November, 2000, IBM Open-Sourced AFS, creating [[OpenAFS]]. Development continues to this day.
### <a name="1.02 Who supplies AFS?"></a> 1.02 Who supplies AFS?
-There are currently three sources for AFS: Commercial Transarc (now part of IBM), the open sourced version of former Transarc AFS called [[OpenAFS]] and the independent open source project [[Arla]].
+[[OpenAFS]] is available from the [[OpenAFS]] website. Additionally, an independant open source project, Arla, supports some clients that [[OpenAFS]] does not. Arla clients are completely compatible with [[OpenAFS]].
+
+IBM no longer markets AFS and has declared an end-of-life for support.
<table border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
<tr>
- <td> 1. </td>
- <td> IBM Pittsburgh Lab </td>
- <td> phone: +1 (412) 667-4400 </td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td> </td>
- <td> 11 Stanwix Street </td>
- <td> fax: +1 (412) 667-6977 </td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
<td> </td>
- <td> Pittsburgh </td>
- <td> email: <a href="mailto:information@transarc.com">information@transarc.com</a></td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td> </td>
- <td> PA 15222 </td>
- <td><a href="mailto:afs-sales@transarc.com">afs-sales@transarc.com</a></td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td> </td>
- <td> United States of America </td>
- <td> WWW: <a href="http://www.transarc.com" target="_top">http://www.transarc.com</a></td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td> 2. </td>
<td>[[Main/OpenAFS]]</td>
<td> WWW: <a href="http://www.openafs.org/" target="_top">http://www.openafs.org/</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
- <td> 3. </td>
- <td>[[Main/Arla]]</td>
+ <td> </td>
+ <td> Arla </td>
<td> WWW: <a href="http://www.stacken.kth.se/projekt/arla/" target="_top">http://www.stacken.kth.se/projekt/arla/</a></td>
</tr>
</table>
#### <a name="1.05.c Scalability"></a> 1.05.c Scalability
-With location independence comes scalability. An architectural goal of the AFS designers was client/server ratios of 200:1 which has been successfully exceeded at some sites. Transarc do not recommend customers use the 200:1 ratio. A more cautious value of 50:1 is expected to be practical in most cases. It is certainly possible to work with a ratio somewhere between these two values. Exactly what value depends on many factors including: number of AFS files, size of AFS files, rate at which changes are made, rate at which file are being accessed, speed of servers processor, I/O rates, and network bandwidth.
+With location independence comes scalability. An architectural goal of the AFS designers was client/server ratios of 200:1 which has been successfully exceeded at some sites. Some sites are exceeding this ratio. Exactly what ratio your cell can use depends on many factors including: number of AFS files, size of AFS files, rate at which changes are made, rate at which file are being accessed, speed of servers processor, I/O rates, and network bandwidth.
AFS cells can range from the small (1 server/client) to the massive (with tens of servers and thousands of clients). Cells can be dynamic: it is simple to add new fileservers or clients and grow the computing resources to meet new user requirements.
- encrypted passwords no longer need to be visible
- You don't have to use NIS, aka yellow pages, to distribute /etc/passwd - thus "ypcat passwd" can be eliminated.
- - If you do choose to use NIS, you can replace the password field with "X" so the encrypted password is not visible. (These issues are discussed in detail in [25]).
+ - If you do choose to use NIS, you can replace the password field with "X" so the encrypted password is not visible. (These issues are discussed in detail in [[[AdminGuide|Main/FurtherReading#AdminGuide]]]).
- AFS uses mutual authentication - both the service provider and service requester prove their identities
#### <a name="1.05.i Communications protocol"></a> 1.05.i Communications protocol
-AFS communications protocol is optimized for Wide Area Networks. Retransmitting only the single bad packet in a batch of packets and allowing the number of unacknowledged packets to be higher (than in other protocols, see [4]).
+AFS communications protocol is optimized for Wide Area Networks. Retransmitting only the single bad packet in a batch of packets and allowing the number of unacknowledged packets to be higher (than in other protocols, see [[[Johnson90|Main/FurtherReading#Johnson90]]]).
#### <a name="1.05.j Improved system manageme"></a> 1.05.j Improved system management capability
### <a name="1.06 Which systems is AFS avail"></a> 1.06 Which systems is AFS available for?
-AFS runs on systems from: HP, Compaq, IBM, SUN, SGI, Apple ([[MacOSX]]) and PCs with flavours of Unix.
-
-AFS has been available for Next and DEC (Ultrix).
-
-Transarc customers have done ports to Crays, and the 3090, but all are based on some flavour of unix. Some customers have done work to make AFS data available to PCs and Macs, although they are using something similar to the AFS/NFS translator (a system that enables "NFS only" clients to NFS mount the AFS filetree /afs).
-
-There is a client only implementation "AFS Client for Windows/NT".
-
-A page describing the current systems for which AFS is supported may be found at:
-
-- <http://www.transarc.com/Support/afs/relversions/platforms.html>
-
-There are also ports of AFS done by customers available from Transarc on an "as is" unsupported basis.
-
-More information on this can be found at:
+[[OpenAFS]] (as of the 1.4.2 release) is currently available in binary releases for: IBM AIX 5.1, 5.2, 5.3 Fedora Core 3, 4, 5 (Intel) [[FreeBSD]] 6.1 (Intel) HP/UX 11i (PA-RISC) SGI Irix 6.5 [[MacOS]] X 10.4 Tiger (Universal) [[OpenBSD]] 3.9 (Intel) RHEL 3, 4 (Intel) RHEL 4 (AMD64) Solaris 7, 8, 9, 10 (Sparc) Solaris 8, 9, 10 (Intel) Windows 2000/XP/2003
-- <file:///afs/transarc.com/public/afs-contrib/bin/README>
-- <ftp://ftp.transarc.com/pub/afs-contrib/bin/README>
+The sources are also known to create working binaries for [[NetBSD]] 2.\* and 3.0 (server only).
-These ports of AFS client code include:
+Additional platforms may be available in the beta (1.5) tree.
-- HP (Apollo) Domain OS - by Jim Rees at the University of Michigan.
-- sun386i - by Derek Atkins and Chris Provenzano at MIT.
-- Linux - by Derek Atkins, mailing list: <linux-afs-request@mit.edu> <http://www.mit.edu:8008/menelaus/linux-afs/>
-- [[NetBSD]] - by John Kohl, mailing list: <netbsd-afs@mit.edu>
+Arla (as of the 0.43 release) is currently supporting: [[FreeBSD]] 5.1-5.5 [[NetBSD]] 2.\*, 3.0 Linux 2.4.x and 2.6.x [[MacOSX]] 10.4
-There is some information about AFS on OS/2 at:
-
-- <http://www.club.cc.cmu.edu/~jgrande/afsos2.html>
-
-The AFS on Linux FAQ may be found at:
-
-- <http://www.umlug.umd.edu/linuxafs/>
-
-Check out the [[OpenAFS]] and [[Arla]] pages for port avilablity.
+Please see the Arla web pages for more details, and remember that Arla is client only.
### <a name="1.07 What does "ls /afs" displa"></a> 1.07 What does "ls /afs" display in the Internet AFS filetree?
The definitive source for this information is:
-- <file:///afs/transarc.com/service/etc/CellServDB.export>
-
-I've included the list of cell names included in it below:
-
- asu.edu #ASU
- uni-freiburg.de #Albert-Ludwigs-Universitat Freiburg
- anl.gov #Argonne National Laboratory
- fl.mcs.anl.gov # Argonne National Laboratory MCS Division FL
- dapnia.saclay.cea.fr #Axlan-CEA
- bcc.ac.uk #Bloomsbury Computing Consortium
- bu.edu #Boston University
- cs.brown.edu #Brown University Department of Computer Science
- caspur.it #CASPUR Inter-University Computing Consortium,Rome
- ciesin.org #CIESIN
- mathematik-cip.uni-stuttgart.de #CIP-Pool of Math. Dept, Univ. Stuttgart
- gg.caltech.edu #Caltech Computer Graphics Group
- cards.com #Cards - Electronic Warfare Associates
- cheme.cmu.edu #Carnegie Mellon Univ. Chemical Engineering Dept.
- cmu.edu #Carnegie Mellon University
- andrew.cmu.edu #Carnegie Mellon University - Campus
- ce.cmu.edu #Carnegie Mellon University - Civil Eng. Dept.
- ece.cmu.edu #Carnegie Mellon University - Elec. Comp. Eng. Dept.
- me.cmu.edu #Carnegie Mellon University - Mechanical Engineering
- cs.cmu.edu #Carnegie Mellon University - School of Comp. Sci.
- club.cc.cmu.edu #Carnegie Mellon University Computer Club
- cert.org #CERT/Coordination Center
- others.chalmers.se #Chalmers University of Technology - General users
- cipool.uni-stuttgart.de #CIP Pool, Rechenzentrum University of Stuttgart
- clarkson.edu #Clarkson University, Potsdam, USA
- msc.cornell.edu #Cornell University Materials Science Center
- graphics.cornell.edu #Cornell University Program of Computer Graphics
- theory.cornell.edu #Cornell University Theory Center
- ifh.de #DESY-IfH Zeuthen
- northstar.dartmouth.edu #Dartmouth College, Project Northstar
- desy.de #Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron
- dkrz.de #Deutsches Klimarechenzentrum Hamburg
- dis.uniroma1.it #DIS, Univ. "La Sapienza", Rome, area Buonarotti
- msrc.pnl.gov #EMSL's AFS Cell
- zdvpool.uni-tuebingen.de#Eberhard-Karls-Universitaet Tuebingen, WS-Pools
- enea.it #enea.it
- es.net #Energy Sciences Net
- research.ec.org #Esprit Research Network of Excellence
- dce.emsl.pnl.gov #EMSL's DCE Cell
- cern.ch #European Laboratory for Particle Physics, Geneva
- fnal.gov #Fermi National Acclerator Laboratory
- fh-heilbronn.de #Fachhochschule Heilbronn
- hephy.at #hephy-vienna
- sleeper.nsa.hp.com #HP Cupertino
- palo_alto.hpl.hp.com #HP Palo Alto
- afs.hursley.ibm.com #IBM Hursley Laboratories (UK), external cell
- ibm.uk #IBM UK, AIX Systems Support Centre
- zurich.ibm.ch #IBM Zurich Internet Cell
- ctp.se.ibm.com #IBM/4C, Chalmers, Sweden
- ipp-hgw.mpg.de #IPP site at Greifswald
- in2p3.fr #IN2P3 production cell
- lngs.infn.it #INFN Laboratori Nazionali di Gran Sasso, Italia
- le.infn.it #INFN Sezione di Lecce, Italia
- pi.infn.it #INFN Sezione di Pisa
- ike.uni-stuttgart.de #Institut fuer Kernenergetik, Universitaet Stuttgart
- ipp-garching.mpg.de #Institut fuer Plasmaphysik
- csv.ica.uni-stuttgart.de #Institut fuer Computeranwendungen, Uni. Stuttgart
- iastate.edu #Iowa State University
- infn.it #Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Italia
- jpl.nasa.gov #Jet Propulsion Laboratory
- zdv.uni-mainz.de #Johannes-Gutenberg-Universitaet Mainz
- isk.kth.se #KTH College of Engineering
- cc.keio.ac.jp #Keio University, Fac. of Sci. & Tech. Computing Ctr
- sfc.keio.ac.jp #Keio University, Japan
- afs-math.zib-berlin.de #Konrad-Zuse-Zentrum fuer Informationstechnik Berlin
- thermo-a.mw.tu-muenchen.de #Lehrstuhl A fuer Thermodynamik,TUM
- lrz-muenchen.de #Leibniz-Rechenzentrum Muenchen Germany
- athena.mit.edu #MIT/Athena cell
- net.mit.edu #MIT/Network Group cell
- sipb.mit.edu #MIT/SIPB cell
- msu.edu #Michigan State University home cell
- mpa-garching.mpg.de #Max-Planck-Institut fuer Astrophysik
- federation.atd.net #Multi Resident AFS at Naval Research Lab - CCS
- isl.ntt.jp #NTT Information and Communication
- nersc.gov #National Energy Research Supercomputer Center
- alw.nih.gov #National Institutes of Health
- nrel.gov #National Renewable Energy Laboratory
- cmf.nrl.navy.mil #Naval Research Lab
- lcp.nrl.navy.mil #Naval Research Lab - Lab for Computational Physics
- nrlfs1.nrl.navy.mil #Naval Research Laboratory
- eos.ncsu.edu #NCSU - College of Engineering
- unity.ncsu.edu #NCSU Campus
- ncat.edu #North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State U.
- bp.ncsu.edu #North Carolina State University - Backbone Prototype
- ri.osf.org #OSF Research Institute
- gr.osf.org #OSF Research Institute, Grenoble
- urz.uni-magdeburg.de #Otto-von-Guericke-Universitaet, Magdeburg
- N ovpit.indiana.edu #OVPIT at Indiana University
- psc.edu #PSC (Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center)
- psu.edu #Penn State
- phy.bnl.gov #Physics Deptpartment, Brookhaven National Lab
- postech.ac.kr #Pohang University of Science
- pppl.gov #Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory
- rwcp.or.jp #Real World Computer Partnership(rwcp)
- rz.uni-jena.de #Rechenzentrum University of Jena, Germany
- rhrk.uni-kl.de #Rechenzentrum University of Kaiserslautern
- rus.uni-stuttgart.de #Rechenzentrum University of Stuttgart
- rhic #Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider
- rpi.edu #Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
- uni-bonn.de #Rheinische Friedrich Wilhelm Univesitaet Bonn
- rose-hulman.edu #Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology
- cs.rose-hulman.edu # Rose-Hulman Inst. of Tech., CS Department
- nada.kth.se #Royal Institute of Technology, NADA
- rl.ac.uk #Rutherford Appleton Lab, England
- slac.stanford.edu #Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
- dsg.stanford.edu #Stanford Univ. - Comp. Sci. - Distributed Systems
- ir.stanford.edu #Stanford University
- afs1.scri.fsu.edu #Supercomputer Computations Research Instit
- ethz.ch #Swiss Federal Inst. of Tech. - Zurich, Switzerland
- hrzone.th-darmstadt.de #TH-Darmstadt
- tu-bs.de #Technical University of Braunschweig, Germany
- tu-chemnitz.de #Technische Universitaet Chemnitz-Zwickau, Germany
- telos.com #Telos Systems Group - Chantilly, Va.
- transarc.com #Transarc Corporation
- cats.ucsc.edu #UC Santa Cruz, Comp and Tech Services, California
- umr.edu #UMR - Missouri's Technological University
- hep.net #US High Energy Physics Information cell
- uni-mannheim.de #Uni Mannheim (Rechenzentrum)
- ece.ucdavis.edu #Univ California - Davis campus
- geo.uni-koeln.de #Univ. of Cologne Inst. for Geophysics & Meteorology
- meteo.uni-koeln.de #Univ. of Cologne Inst. for Geophysics & Meteorology
- N dsi.uniroma1.it #Univ. Rome-1, Dept. of Computer Science
- U spv.uniroma1.it #Univ. Rome-1, Area San Pietro in Vincoli
- N vn.uniroma3.it #Univ. Rome-3, Area Vasca Navale
- urz.uni-heidelberg.de #Universitaet Heidelberg
- spc.uchicago.edu #University of Chicago - Social Sciences
- rrz.uni-koeln.de #University of Cologne - Reg Comp Center
- wu-wien.ac.at #University of Economics, Vienna, Austria
- uni-hohenheim.de #University of Hohenheim
- ncsa.uiuc.edu #University of Illinois
- wam.umd.edu #University of Maryland Network WAM Project
- glue.umd.edu #University of Maryland - Project Glue
- engin.umich.edu #University of Michigan - CAEN
- umich.edu #University of Michigan - Campus
- dmsv.med.umich.edu #University of Michigan - DMSV
- citi.umich.edu #University of Michigan - IFS Development
- lsa.umich.edu #University of Michigan - LSA College
- math.lsa.umich.edu #University of Michigan - Math Cell
- sph.umich.edu #University of Michigan -- School of Public
- cs.unc.edu #University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
- nd.edu #University of Notre Dame
- pitt.edu #University of Pittsburgh
- vn.uniroma3.it #University of Rome 3, Area Vasca Navale, Italy
- isi.edu #University of Southern California/ISI
- dce.uni-stuttgart.de #University of Stuttgart - DCE/DFS Cell
- ihf.uni-stuttgart.de #University of Stuttgart, Ins. fuer Hochfrequenz-Tec
- mathematik.uni-stuttgart.de #University of Stuttgart, Math Dept.
- cs.utah.edu #University of Utah Computer Science Dept
- utah.edu #University of Utah Information Tech. Service
- cs.washington.edu #University of Washington Comp Sci Department
- wisc.edu #University of Wisconsin-Madison, Campus
- cs.wisc.edu #University of Wisconsin-Madison, Comp Sci Dept
- belwue.uni-tuebingen.de #ZDV Universitaet Tuebingen
-
-This shows different and widespread organizations making use of the Internet AFS filetree.
+- <file:///afs/grand.central.org/service/CellServDB>
Note that it is also possible to use AFS "behind the firewall" within the confines of your organization's network - you don't have to participate in the Internet AFS filetree.
Kerberos uses the idea of a trusted third party to prove identification. This is a bit like using a letter of introduction or quoting a referee who will vouch for you.
-When a user authenticates using the klog command (s)he is prompted for a password. If the password is accepted the Kerberos Authentication Server (KAS) provides the user with an encrypted token (containing a "ticket granting ticket").
+When a user authenticates using the klog command (s)he is prompted for a password. If the password is accepted the Kerberos server provides the user with an encrypted token (containing a "ticket granting ticket").
From that point on, it is the encrypted token that is used to prove the user's identity. These tokens have a limited lifetime (typically a day) and are useless when expired.
AFS uses Kerberos to do complex mutual authentication which means that both the service requester and the service provider have to prove their identities before a service is granted.
-Transarc's implementation of Kerberos is slightly different from MIT Kerberos V4 but AFS can work with either version. Joe Jackson wrote about this in: <http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/andrew.cmu.edu/usr/shadow/www/afs/afs-with-kerberos.html>
+Originally AFS shipped with it's own version of a Kerberos, called "KAS." KAS still ships at this time (1.4.2 release) but is depricated in favor of using a true Kerberos 5 implimentation. [[OpenAFS]] does not currently ship with a K5 install; it is up to the administrator(s) to choose a version (either MIT's or KTH's "Heimdal") and install it. [[OpenAFS]] will happily work with either.
-For more detail on this and other Kerberos issues see the faq for Kerberos (posted to news.answers and comp.protocols.kerberos) [28]. (Also, see [15], [16], [26], [27])
+For more detail on this and other Kerberos issues see the faq for Kerberos (posted to news.answers and comp.protocols.kerberos) [[[Jaspan|Main/FurtherReading#Jaspan]]]. (Also, see [[[Miller87|Main/FurtherReading#Miller87]]], [[[Bryant88|Main/FurtherReading#Bryant88]]], [[[Bellovin90|Main/FurtherReading#Bellovin90]]], [[[Steiner88|Main/FurtherReading#Steiner88]]])
### <a name="1.09 Does AFS work over protoco"></a> 1.09 Does AFS work over protocols other than TCP/IP?
### <a name="1.10 How can I access AFS from"></a><a name="1.10 How can I access AFS from "></a> 1.10 How can I access AFS from my PC?
-You can use PC-Interface which is available from Transarc and Locus Computing Corporations.
-
-For more information on PC-Interface see the PC-Interface Frequently Asked Questions file in:
-
-- <file:///afs/transarc.com/public/afs-contrib/doc/faq/pci.faq>
-- <ftp://ftp.transarc.com/pub/afs-contrib/doc/faq/pci.faq>
-
-There is also SAMBA (an SMB/netbios server for UNIX). The current version will authenticate the connecting process with AFS as well.
-
-- <http://samba.anu.edu.au/samba/>
+You can use [[OpenAFS]] for Windows client. In the past year it has become very stable and robust. [[OAfW]] works with Kerberos for Windows in much the same way the Unix clients work with Kerberos.
-The SAMBA FAQ is in:
+There is also SAMBA (a SMB server for UNIX).
-- <http://samba.anu.edu.au/samba/docs/faq/sambafaq-1.html#ss1.1>
+- <http://www.samba.org>
-The SAMBA mailing list can be joined via: <samba-request@anu.edu.au>
+There are several ways to integrate AFS with SAMBA. See [[SMBtoAFS]].
### <a name="1.11 How does AFS compare with"></a><a name="1.11 How does AFS compare with "></a> 1.11 How does AFS compare with NFS?
- The AFS Cache Manager can be configured to work with a RAM (memory) based cache. This offers signifigant performance benefits over a disk based cache. NFS has no such feature. Imagine how much faster it is to access files cached into RAM!
- The Andrew benchmark demonstrates that AFS has better performance than NFS as the number of clients increases. A graph of this (taken from Andrew benchmark report) is available in:
- - 
+ - 
git://git.openafs.org / openafs-wiki.git / blobdiff