Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 11:13:50 -0500 From: Jerry McAllister <jerrymc@msu.edu> To: "Marc G. Fournier" <freebsd@hub.org> Cc: freebsd-fs@freebsd.org, freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: AFS ... or equivalent ... Message-ID: <20080114161350.GA77355@gizmo.acns.msu.edu> In-Reply-To: <18CC5A4A2AC36D7FF57615EE@ganymede.hub.org> References: <18CC5A4A2AC36D7FF57615EE@ganymede.hub.org>
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On Mon, Jan 14, 2008 at 12:34:24AM -0400, Marc G. Fournier wrote: > > Hi ... > I recently started working for a company that is using AFS to mirror their > data between various data centers, in the US, Asia and the EU ... the idea is > that the several thousand servers that are being run have access to identical > information .. > > Now, depressingly enough, it looks like OpenAFS works on everything *but* > BSD ... :( > > IBM AFS for AIX, Version 3.6 > IBM AFS for Digital Unix, Version 3.6 > IBM AFS for HP-UX, Version 3.6 > IBM AFS for Linux, Version 3.6 > IBM AFS for SGI IRIX, Version 3.6 > IBM AFS for Solaris, Version 3.6 > > Does anyone know if there is any serious work being done to get AFS working > under FreeBSD? I have a large project that I'm working on that AFS (or > something equivalent) would be *very* useful for, but we're trying to keep it > as FreeBSD-pure as possible ... Well, there is a client-only AFS project called Arla. I have been using it for about 1 1/2 years with no problem. But, it tends to be some versions behind in the FreeBSD it supports. Whoever supports it apparently doesn't have the time or other resources to keep up to the most recent FreeBSD versions. I have been told by persons who have done an AFS port here to a proprietary BSD based UNIX (but not any of the current free ones), that the difficuly part is the client and that the server is relatively easy to port. The reason being that the client has to reach deep in to the kernel, but the server does not - is pretty much sufficient unto itself. I know that one of the impediments in the past was the politics with the AFS group that was spun out of CMU, vs IBM vs some other interests and whose pocketbook was going to get gored all confounded with some claims for a newer, more wonderful thing called DFS which was supposed to obsolete AFS and also be integrated with a distrubuted queueing system, but which now seems like will never become real. But those issues are fairly ancient and mostly settled. OpenAFS seems to be the result and it runs well on the systems listed in the OP. So it would seem like folks could just ignore all that and move on to getting a good working OpenAFS port -- if only enough people could spare the resources for doing the necessary work. I would sure like to see both a good AFS client and an AFS server become well supported. OpenAFS has some new big technical issues to solve. Maybe having the smarts of FreeBSD contributing to the thinking, it would help those issues come to reasonable solutions too. ////jerry > > Thoughts? Pointers? > > - ---- > Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org) > Email . scrappy@hub.org MSN . scrappy@hub.org > Yahoo . yscrappy Skype: hub.org ICQ . 7615664 > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- > Version: GnuPG v2.0.4 (FreeBSD) > > iD8DBQFHiuZQ4QvfyHIvDvMRAlRMAJ9mcK6kOCdkudVlTFzzoPuAqgMOWQCfTY9k > QRN/4A2GvUni6jNsDX8Du/U= > =Mtrv > -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- > > _______________________________________________ > freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions > To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscribe@freebsd.org"
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