[OpenAFS] with or without krb5 and openldap?

[Karl Bowden]

Just working on a few scripts for a customer who wants a "secure
fileserver" type of network at his business, (only linux desktops).
I have been using OpenAFS to share files between my three computers at
home successfully for a few months, so I want to use OpenAFS for my
customer. I have also started work on a RH based distro, with some extra
kernel patches for them, and OpenAFS support from first boot.
Q's:

I found using /etc/passwd distributing messy. Would Krb5 and OpenLDAP w/
SASL support, be the best configuration?

Is there any time frame for OpenAFS support for 2.6.x series kernels (I
have grown fond of alsa, and other extras in 2.6)? I would like to be
have testing branches for 2.6 as soon as OpenAFS is ready, to allow good
testing of 2.6 for migration when ready.

Is there any options (compile or run-time) to create no-expire tokens?
(I do a LOT of compiling, and having to klog every day gets messy ;-).

Is it possible to build the OpenAFS module directly into the linux
kernel (I compile a few kernel patches in already now, what's another
one :-)?

-Karl