[OpenAFS-announce] OpenAFS 1.6.8 release available

[Stephan Wiesand]

Subject: OpenAFS 1.6.8 release available

The OpenAFS Release Team is pleased to announce the availability of
OpenAFS version 1.6.8 for UNIX/Linux. Source files and available
binaries can be accessed via the web at:

  http://www.openafs.org/dl/openafs/1.6.8/

or via AFS at:

  /afs/grand.central.org/software/openafs/1.6.8/
 \\afs\grand.central.org\software\openafs\1.6.8\

OpenAFS 1.6.8 is the next in the current series of stable releases
of OpenAFS for all platforms except Microsoft Windows. Important
changes include:

  * The default fileserver sync behavior changes from "delayed" to
    "onclose". This means that explicit syncing only happens when a
    volume is detached. This was the recommended option in previous
    stable releases, and it's believed to improve data integrity.
  * When a client is shut down, it will give up its callbacks. The Windows
    client has been doing this since 2007. Note that older fileservers
    (1.3.50 to 1.4.5 and 1.5.0 to 1.5.27) had a bug in the implementation
    of the relevant RPC that could cause crashes or other undefined behavior
    when this happens.
  * Improved documentation, diagnostics and error messages
  * Dozens of bug fixes and other improvements of both client and server

Bug reports should be filed to openafs-bugs@openafs.org .

There are two known issues that were discovered during 1.6.8 prerelase
testing but turned out not to be regressions introduced in this release.
These are planned to be addressed in 1.6.9:

  * Linux client cache consistency issues affecting the root directories
    of volumes where fakestat is in effect.
  * Crashes in libkrb5 of UNIX (not Linux) servers built against Heimdal.


Thanks are due as usual to our dedicated team of binary builders
(Andrew Deason, Ben Kaduk, Christof Hanke, and Stephen Quinney),
without whom the broad range of released binaries would not be
possible.


Stephan Wiesand, 1.6 Branch Release Manager
for the OpenAFS Release Team