[OpenAFS-devel] NAT Patch and bugfix for vlserver

[Tommie Gannert]

> Unfortunately, you can't get 'vos listvldb' to directly show you server
> UUID's or more than one address per server.  However, any given address can
> only be assigned to one server, so you can take the server names or
> addresses reported by 'vos listvldb' and feed them to 'vos listaddrs' to
> find out the UUID and/or other addresses assigned to that server.
>

Makes sense.

Is an extension of listvldb a possibility? (For
consistency, deprecating the old RPCs.)


> > If I remember correctly, buserver sends an address. One address. It
> > seems like a small performance gain, though. butc could be doing the
> > VLDB lookups in all passes.
>
> I suspect that's not so much an attempt at improving performance as an
> indication of how old the bu subsystem is and how little attention it got.
>

Oh... Well I live on the hopes my new employer is willing to give me
some OpenAFS-time...

So, now my question is... Is buserver in use? Do people use tapes or
can it be safely converted to file based storage?


> > I'm not sure if the clients are better off making the decision,
> > though. If they are behind NAT with the same subnet as the server,
> > things will get messy. The idea of using common address bits means
> > it will resort to global address space pretty easily. However, it's
> > a hack, yes.
>
> Well, it's got to resort to a global address if it's not on the same
> private network as the server.  However, since the vlserver never gets to
> see the client's private address, it's not really in a position to make the
> right decision.
>

The Thesis:

  The address which the server sees, is in the same subnet the server
  is on, as seen from the client.


Tommie Gannert