Software update: OpenAFS 1.5.72 / 1.4.12pre4

AFS is a file system that originated at Carnegie Mellon University. It was subsequently further developed and published by Transarc Corporation, which in turn was acquired by IBM in the mid-1990s. In 2000, IBM released an open source version of AFS released with OpenAFS as the catchy name of the product. For more information, please refer to this page. The developers of OpenAFS have version 1.5.72 released and approved for production on the Windows platform. In addition, version 1.4.12pre4 appeared. The corresponding announcements look like this:

OpenAFS 1.5.72 released (Production Version for Windows; Test Version for other platforms)

Version 1.5.72 is the recommended production-ready release of OpenAFS for Microsoft Windows users. It supports all Microsoft Windows operating systems from Windows 2000 through Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 including both 32-bit and 64-bit architectures. The 1.5.72 release restores AFSDB support for kaserver users. The 1.5.72 Windows client is fully compatible with all AFS server versions.

For UNIX, Linux, and MacOS X (including Snow Leopard) the recommended production-ready release of OpenAFS is 1.4.11.

Please visit for up to date information on the status of the OpenAFS for Windows client.

This production release is a minor release. Important changes since 1.5.71 are:

Microsoft Windows:

• Restore use of DNS AFSDB and SRV records by kaserver clients.

All platforms:

• Provide internationalization support in com_err.
• Fix array length checking to avoid crashes when checking for a volume type based on name in vos.

All server platforms:

• Provide backward compatible “-f” flag to salvager for force mode.

All Unix client platforms:

• Fix client cache file truncation to not lose chunks when truncating a large file.
• Ensure a cache writeback hook is installed in the client (bug from 1.5.71)
• Avoid spurious free memory warnings during clean shutdown.
• Fakestat mode avoids AFSDB lookups.
• “fs storebehind” now correctly reports errors on readonly volumes.
• Additional documentation for “fs getcacheparms”
• Forced new uuid generation with “fs uuid -generate” now works enforced permission correctly.

macOS:

• Add optimized Rx event handler in kernel.
• Installer now allows installing an older version.
• Panic decoder can now deal with MacOS 10.5 again.
• MacOS ._ files are now correctly not looked up as cellnames.

Linux:

• To deal with SELinux file labeling, try cache accesses with current credentials in event of failure.
• Rx XDR encoding bug on i386 Linux is fixed (bug introduced in 1.5.71)

iris:

• Code compilation fixes.

OpenBSD:

• Update for OpenBSD 4.6.

This release is the recommended production release for all Microsoft Windows environments.

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

OpenAFS 1.4.12 release candidate 4 available

The OpenAFS Gatekeepers announce the availability of the fourth release candidate for OpenAFS version 1.4.12.

A large number of bugfixes, including in the Linux cache manager and the fileserver, are included, as well as a Preferences Pane for MacOS.

Since 1.4.12pre3, an issue which could trigger a MacOS bug and hang Finder, an issue with Linux file locking, an issue with Linux 2.6.33 kernel module builds, an erroneous crash in the fileserver when checking for corruption in the host list, a race on detecting deleted hosts in the fileserver host list, and a client retry issue for idle Rx connections have been addressed.

Please assist the gatekeepers by deploying this release and providing positive or negative feedback. Bug reports should be filed to [email protected] . Reports of success should be sent to [email protected].

Derrick Brashear
for the OpenAFS Gatekeepers