[OpenAFS-announce] OpenAFS 1.5.27 released. Production Version for Windows. Please test Demand Attach File Server.

[Jeffrey Altman]

1.5.27 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 1.5.26 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 1.5.27 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:

Since 1.5.26 there have been no new features.  This release only
fixes reported bugs one of which is considered critical.  Please
upgrade to this release.

 * FIXED: A race condition in the BPlus Tree directory lookups
   can result in either an incorrect FID lookup or a crash
   when a single directory has multiple lookup requests in
   process simultaneously.

 * Debug stack printing added to 64-bit AMD systems.

 * FIXED: A race condition in directory update synchronization.

 * Sequential ordering of requests has been added to request
   synchronization.  This will significantly reduce the problem
   of CIFS/SMB client timeouts due to multiple simultaneous
   asynchronous I/O requests being issued by Microsoft Office
   applications (and others.)

 * Updated CellServDB file

 * 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 1.5.26 for all platforms:

 * a fileserver locking issue has been fixed

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
gatekeepers@openafs.org.


Please send reports of successful deployments to
openafs-info@openafs.org and report problems to openafs-bugs@openafs.org.

Jeffrey Altman
for the OpenAFS Gatekeepers