[OpenAFS] Removing file server preferences...

[Rodney M Dyer]

At 05:32 PM 9/19/2006, Jeffrey Altman wrote:
>Ken Hornstein wrote:
> >> At 02:08 PM 9/19/2006, Ken Hornstein wrote:
> >>> Stupid question #2: is it just a matter of tidying things up that you 
> want
> >>> those prefs removed?
> >> In our case yes, and to prevent time out failover lag.
> >
> > Okay ... but I thought that you said that all of the volumes had been
> > removed from these servers.  If that's the case, the client shouldn't
> > try talking to these nonexistant fileservers at all (the vlserver would
> > tell the client that they're not there anymore).  If they're still
> > listed as replicas, why haven't you vos remsite'd those replica
> > locations?
> >
> > The reason I'm asking this is that I don't think removing the server prefs
> > will help with failover lag.  Stopping the client from pinging the
> > non-existant server, yes, but that doesn't sound like that's your issue.


Sorry, I never expected this thread to go this far...

1.  We had a list of "file" servers:

      Example  fs1, fs2, fs3, fs4, fs5

2.  For a particular machines we set the preferences using "fs 
setserverprefs" for a building:

      Building A gets:  fs2, fs5, fs3, fs1, fs4
      Building C gets:  fs1, fs5, fs2, fs3, fs4
      Building D gets:  fs4, fs2, fs1, fs3, fs5

3.  Recently we consolidated some volumes so we no longer need fs3 and 
fs4.  Our AFS systems guru removes them and turns them off (they are no 
longer pingable).  I assume there's no longer any volume information for 
these servers hanging around in the vldb if our systems guy did his job 
right; so I should never worry about the client trying to hit the removed 
servers.

4.  But, our Windows clients still show the fs1 through fs5 servers listed 
if I do a "fs getserverprefs" on a particular machine.

5.  I'm trying to get rid of fs3 and fs4 without stopping the AFS client 
service so I perform a new "fs setserverprefs" without listing fs3 and fs4 
in my command line.  This doesn't work.  It certainly sets the new 
preferences for the remaining file servers, but fs3 and fs4 are still 
listed.  In fact fs3 and fs4 are intermingled in with the rest of the prefs 
as if they will be contacted.

6.  The "fs newcell" isn't doing a thing.  Seems to be a "vldb only" command.

So, at this point I'm stuck with stopping and restarting the client 
service.  I thought the client would try to hit any server in its 
preferences list when searching for a volume, but when I scribbled the 
original email I didn't put 2 & 2 together and I completely glossed over 
the fact that if the volume is not on fs3 or fs4, then the client won't try 
those servers for anything.  No problem, I got that now.

However, I would still prefer a way to "tidy up" the preferences list 
without stopping the client service.  There's just no command to do 
so.  Guess I'll have to wait on that.  No problem.

Thanks for the conversation.  I thought the mailing list was getting lonely 
without me.  ;-)

Rodney