OpenAFS 1.5.28 released. Production Version for Windows. Please test Demand Attach File Server.

1.5.28 is the recommended production ready release of OpenAFS for
Microsoft Windows users.  It supports all Microsoft Windows operating
systems from Windows 2000 through Windows Vista including both 32-bit
and 64-bit architectures.  The 1.5.28 release continues the recent
efforts at optimizing the performance of the Windows client and
improving its scalability.

For UNIX, Linux, and MacOS X the recommend production ready release of
OpenAFS is 1.4.5.  The 1.5.28 Windows client is fully compatible with
all AFS server versions.

Please visit http://www.openafs.org/windows.html for up to date
information on the status of the OpenAFS for Windows client.

For Microsoft Windows:

This release fixes reported bugs:

 * In 1.5.21 the Windows client began notifying the file server
   during suspend and shutdown operations by calling the
   GiveUpAllCallBacks RPC.  It was discovered that all file server
   releases prior to 1.4.6 (not yet released) and 1.5.28 do not
   safely implement the RPC and can crash as a result.  Therefore,
   in 1.5.28 calling the GiveUpAllCallBacks has been disabled by
   default.  This call will be re-enabled in a future release in
   approximately six months.  Organizations should prepare to upgrade
   their file servers to 1.4.6 when it is released.

 * Optimizations in the handling of .readonly volume callback
   expirations were added. (a) The most recent callback expiration
   is applied to all objects from the same .readonly volume.
   (b) An optional automatic renewal can be activated by setting
   the 'daemonCheckVolCBInterval' to a non-zero number of seconds.

 * Previous versions of the Windows client only supported
   32-bit data version values.  As of 1.5.28 64-bit data versions
   are supported.

 * aklog and asetkey no longer generate an exception if Kerberos
   for Windows is not installed.

 * If the Microsoft LSA authentication function calls report a
   temporary out of memory condition, fail the current authentication
   attempt and do not panic.

 * When the AFS client service is shutting down, prevent the
   daemon check thread from executing which may access discarded
   lock objects or unmapped memory.

 * NEW FEATURE: New service parameter registry value "FollowBackupPath"
   This provides equivalent functionality to the UNIX afsd -backuptree
   option.  When set to a non-zero value, normal mount points
   originating in a .backup volume will prefer a .backup volume.

 * MSI installer now installs afslogon.dll and afscpcc.exe within
   ...\OpenAFS\Client\Program\.  This avoids confusion when installing
   on 64-bit Windows.

MIT Kerberos for Windows 3.2.2
 The recommended version of Kerberos for Windows to use with
 OpenAFS is version 3.2.2.  KFW can be downloaded from MIT or
 Secure Endpoints.  64-bit Windows installers for KFW are only
 available from Secure Endpoints.
    http://www.secure-endpoints.com/index.html#kfw

Known issues in the Windows client:
  . Beta versions of the Network Identity Manager AFS plug-in must
    be uninstalled prior to the installation of OpenAFS 1.5.26
  . Windows Vista does not support the WinHelp file format used
    by afscreds.exe and afs_control.exe.  A download is available
    from Microsoft.
  . On Windows Vista, afscreds.exe is not User Account Control (UAC)
    compatible and must be "Run as Administrator" in order to
    start/stop the AFS client service.

Significant changes since 1.5.27 for all platforms:

 * An issue which could cause erroneous data to be written to the
   CacheItems file on disk on multi-CPU systems has been corrected.

 * Several fileserver bugs fixed.

AIX:

 * aklog no longer triggers a terminal hangup on AIX 5 (aklog NAS module
   is similarly updated).

 * Kernel AFSDB support corrected.

Linux:

 * NFS translator authenticated write bug fixed.

 * Hash inodes to avoid mmap hangs.

 * Updates for newer kernels.

The Demand Attach File Server is a compile time option that produces a
file server that supports several new and important features:

  * an enhanced volume management library that supports:
    . lock-less I/O
    . on-demand attachment of volumes
    . parallel shutdown of the file server
    . on-line salvaging of volumes
    . automatic detachment of inactive volumes

 * a new salvageserver daemon which can salvage volumes on-demand

 * a modified bos and bosserver
    . fileserver state saving and restoration
      - host state
      - callback state

With the DAFS, shutdown and startup of the file server is significantly
faster.  Instead of salvaging a partition at a time, individual volumes
are salvaged in the background while volumes that do not need salvaging
are served by the fileserver to clients.  Volumes are attached on-demand
and detached when no longer required.  This reduces the number of
volumes that may require salvaging upon a restart.

The DAFS requires significant testing before it can be put into a
production release.  If your organization is willing to assist the
gatekeepers with testing this functionality, please contact us at
[email protected].


Please send reports of successful deployments to
[email protected] and report problems to [email protected].

Jeffrey Altman
for the OpenAFS Gatekeepers