[OpenAFS-devel] Interest in GSoC 2025 Project: GNOME Shell Extension for OpenAFS

[Michael Meffie]

On Fri, 7 Mar 2025 11:42:14 +0530
Maninder Singh <ms1920af1@gmail.com> wrote:

> Dear OpenAFS Team,
> 
> I’m Maninder Singh, a freelance full-stack engineer excited to contribute
> to the "Develop a GNOME Shell Extension for OpenAFS" project for GSoC 2025.
> With experience in JavaScript and system integration, I’m eager to create a
> user-friendly tool for managing OpenAFS within GNOME Shell.

Hello Maninder,

Thank you for your interest in OpenAFS!
 
> To ensure a strong proposal, I have a few key questions:
> 
>    1. Beyond starting/stopping the client and acquiring tokens, are there
>    high-priority features (e.g., cache management

In addition to acquirying tokens, you may want to consider renewing tokens.
Kerberos tokens have a lifetime and require some action to be renewed.

See the "fs" command suite for user commands used on the command line
on the client for ideas on features that could be useful.

Note that stopping the client can be diffucult since the user could be
referenence files in the AFS filesystem, which means we cannot just stop
the serviu It can be unclear to users why the service cannot be 
stopped in that situation.

>    2. What’s the best way to manage the OpenAFS client’s lifecycle (e.g.,
>    via systemctl) from the extension?

On linux we use systemd to start and stop the cache manager. The unit file
is responsible for loading the openafs.ko kernel module and running the
OpenAFS afsd userspace program to initialize the cache manager running
in kernel mode.

>    3. Are there specific security practices for handling tokens?

Generally you do not want to expose security keys and passwords
in the clear. Including exposing passwords as command line arguments.
Acquiring a kerberos ticket requires the user to provide a password.


>    4. Will the extension have a dedicated repository, and are there coding
>    standards to follow?

That is to be determined.

>    5. Are there platforms beyond email for discussions?

In the past years the mentors and students used a combination of emails,
zoom, and slack.  We may also use IRC this year if needed.  

> Your input will help me refine my proposal. I’m thrilled at the prospect of
> working with your team!
> 
> Best regards,
> Maninder Singh

Thank you

-- 
Michael Meffie <mmeffie@sinenomine.net>