OpenAFS 1.5.31 released. Production Version for Windows. Test Version for other platforms.

1.5.31 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 and Windows Server 2008 
including both 32-bit and 64-bit architectures.  The 1.5.31 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 1.4.6.  The 1.5.31 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 All Platforms:

   * cmdebug -cellservdb option added.  Permits the in-memory
     volume location server data to be obtained from the
     cache manager in a form that can be used as a CellServDB
     file.

   * pts now supports -localauth mode.

   * Properly handle VOVERQUOTA if a disk quota system error is
     available.

   * Updates to vos syncvldb and syncserv to allow a dryrun mode.

   * Allow the krb5 dotted principal check to be disabled.

   * Fix volserver incremental restore issue.


For Microsoft Windows:

This release fixes the following bugs present in 1.5.30:

   * CRITICAL: If a file server is unable to attach a volume, it will
     return VNOVOL to the client.  Windows AFS clients prior to 1.5.31
     misinterpreted the error as being synonymous with VMOVED instead
     of VOFFLINE.  As a result, fail over of .readonly volumes was
     adversely affected.

   * The Explorer Shell option Symlinks->Add would crash the
     Explorer Shell if the target path was incorrectly determined
     to not exist within AFS.

   * An error evaluating symlinks containing embedded "." or ".."
     references.

   * Deadlocks involving server probes initiated by IP address
     change events have been removed.

   * Prevent "fs newcell" from crashing the client service.

   * Permit Path Ioctl queries to work with ANSI file names.

Other changes resulting in performance enhancements include:

   * Volume objects that do not have up to date volume location
     data can now be accessed without contacting the VLDB if
     the file servers for the object are not required.  One
     example is when executing "cmdebug" against the cache
     manager to determine the state of the cache entries.
     Another example is when setting or getting tokens.  These
     operations can now be performed faster.

   * Implement Multi_RX operations for server probes.
     "fs checkservers" is now a constant time operation
     and server status recovery after a network configuration
     change or power management event is much faster.

   * Improved performance of \\afs\<cell><mount-type><volume>\
     access.

New features include:

   * Path Ioctl operations from fs.exe and the Explorer Shell
     default to following mount points and symlinks.  A new
     "-literal" option is available for fs examine, fs flush,
     fs whereis, and fs whichcell.   This new option permits
     evaluation of mount point and symlink objects.

   * Modify the search order for determining the location of
     CellServDB and other client configuration files.

     1. AFSCONF environment variable
     2. registry setting
     3. NEW - use All Users\AppData\OpenAFS\Client only if
        CellServDB exists
     4. use Program Files\OpenAFS\Client

   * Return Out of Quota errors to the user.

   * Add Explorer Shell Symlinks->Show option

   * 32-bit tools running in the WOW64 environment can now
     access the 64-bit registry keys.

   * Cache manager support for "cmdebug -cellservdb" queries.

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.


For All UNIX platforms:

   * Avoid a crash in afsdb handling.

   * Demand attach fileserver has fixes to the volume package to avert a
     possible deadlock. This includes improvements to concurrency in the
     vnode package.

   * Fix poll() support in the volserver/fileserver interface.

For Linux x86_64:

   * libafsrpc.so now exports all needed symbols.

For all Linux:

   * Rx changes to attempt to be compatible with Xen kernels.

   * Kernel changes to deal with currently-exported symbols in 2.6.24.

   * Updated RPM packaging.

   * Add port for ARM linux.

For Solaris 10:

   * Avoid exiting with processes marked as system processes.

   * Kill kernel background task before exiting.

   * Fix issue which could make AFS root vnode drop to zero reference
     count.

For MacOS X:

   * Updated client configuration.


New functionality in UNIX cache managers

The OpenAFS 1.5 series already offers a special directory ".:mount", 
which can be found directly below the AFS root directory.  This 
directory always appears to be empty, but any name of the form 
"cell:volume" will resolve to a mount point for the specified volume. 
The resulting mount points are always RW-path mount points, and so will 
resolve to an RW volume even if the specified name refers to a 
replicated volume.  However, the ".readonly" and ".backup" suffixes can 
be used to refer to volumes of those types, and a numeric volume ID will 
always be used as-is.

Beginning in 1.5.31, looking up names of the form 
cell:volumeid:vnodeid:uniq" in this directory will open the referred-to 
object; the volume, vnode and uniquifier ids must be specified numerically.


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

Jeffrey Altman
for the OpenAFS Gatekeepers