[OpenAFS] Re: Cell/Realm Name and DNS

[Dr A V Le Blanc]

On Tue 08 Jul 2003 at 01:07:54, Stefan Nobis <stefan-ml@snobis.de> wrote:
> How important is it to choose a domain name as realm and cell name
> for Kerberos/OpenAFS? What are the drawbacks if something other
> than domain names are choosen?

On 07 Jul 2003 at 20:46:32, Derek Atkins <warlord@MIT.EDU> wrote:
> It depends -- do you plan to play in the global world?  If you do, then
> you must use a real domain name.

I'm sorry, but this isn't a real-world answer.  Our AFS cell is 13
years old, and has always contained machines from a wide variety
of DNS domains.  Moreover, at the time we created it, we were
told that our institutional DNS registration was going to change,
so we chose the new DNS registration for the support group as
our cell name.  The DNS change never took place, the cell and
domain names do not correspond to valid DNS domains, yet we have
never had any problems 'playing in the global world'.

There is no doubt that life can be easier when your cell and
realm and DNS names coincide, but this is not always practically
possible.  It would be nice to have all the consequences spelled
out somewhere for those who need to make real decisions.

     -- Owen
     LeBlanc@mcc.ac.uk