[OpenAFS-devel] Soft mounts for /afs root

[David Thompson]

Jeff Riegel wrote:
>We have been looking into modifying the AFS client to support "soft mounts"
>for the AFS root directory.  Currently, /afs is mounted from your home
>cell's root.afs volume and provides mount points to each cell's root.cell
>volume.  The modification would allow the client to see a virtual /afs
>with cell mount points determined from a client-specific database or
>configuration file.  A mechanism could be provided to allow the user to
>add a particular cell to his AFS root, similar to a Web bookmark.

The semantics sound alot more like the automounter than like soft mounts.  I 
think the arla concept of "dynamic root.afs" is better still, as it doesn't 
borrow from other file systems at all.

>This approach should allow a client to have access to the AFS space without
>needing to be a member of a home cell.  We are therefore considering calling
>this project the "Freelance AFS client".

Not needing to be a member of a cell is only one of the benefits, and doesn't 
describe the functionality fully.  Allowing a user to access a new cell, for 
instance, without getting their local sysadmin into the picture will probably 
be more widely used than individual hosts who don't want to declare themselves 
part of a home cell.

My real feedback on this is to coordinate this with the AFSDB people to both 
keep the interface clean and to avoid overlap.  If you choose the dymanic 
/afs, you start with a list of cells and aliases somewhere.  The DB server ip 
addresses may or may not be known, but that's the AFSDB people's thing.  Then, 
_if_ the local admin has chosen to allow people to access so-far-unknown 
cells, use the AFSDB mechanism to get the server addresses.

>We'd like to get feedback from the AFS user community regarding this
>project.  Does it seem like a useful function?  Any specific features
>that people feel we should include?  Also, we would like to know if work
>is already underway on such a project.  Thanks for any input.

--
Dave Thompson  <thomas@cs.wisc.edu>

Associate Researcher                    Department of Computer Science
University of Wisconsin-Madison         http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~thomas
1210 West Dayton Street                 Phone:    (608)-262-1017
Madison, WI 53706-1685                  Fax:      (608)-262-6626
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