[OpenAFS] Deploying OpenAFS on a working server ?

[Madhusudan Singh]

Hello folks,

 I have been an intermittent member of this list. I have a question.

 Skipping over the turn of events that led to the current state of a server 
that I am responsible for, I wish to describe the latter and wish to receive 
some advice regarding implementing an OpenAFS server.

 The server in question is a Dell Poweredge beast running Slackware 10.1 
(kernel 2.4.29). It already has been partitioned as follows :

Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda2              28G  2.4G   24G  10% /
/dev/sda6              28G   88M   26G   1% /var
/dev/sda7              28G  430M   28G   2% /usr/local
/dev/sda1              61M  3.3M   55M   6% /boot
/dev/sda8             9.4G   33M  9.3G   1% /tmp
/dev/sda9             118G  7.7G  110G   7% /home1
/dev/sda10            118G  3.3G  115G   3% /home2
/dev/sda11            118G   33M  118G   1% /home3

/dev/sda2 on / type ext2 (rw)
proc on /proc type proc (rw)
/dev/sda6 on /var type ext3 (rw)
/dev/sda7 on /usr/local type reiserfs (rw)
/dev/sda1 on /boot type ext2 (rw)
/dev/sda8 on /tmp type reiserfs (rw)
/dev/sda9 on /home1 type reiserfs (rw)
/dev/sda10 on /home2 type reiserfs (rw)
/dev/sda11 on /home3 type reiserfs (rw)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,gid=x,mode=yyy)
usbfs on /proc/bus/usb type usbfs (rw)

 It has a bunch of users who have been distributed into /home1, /home2 
and /home3 (all symlinked from /home/<username>). As you can see, they have 
all been issued passwords, and some have stored a fair bit of stuff in their 
directories.

 Now, after beating back the demand for Samba (which is insecure - this server 
is visible on the Internet with its own FQDN), I have convinced the users 
(almost all of them windows users) to give OpenAFS a try (with secure 
kerberos based authentication). Part of what had weakened my arguments 
earlier was a realization that openafs had, for a period of time (which I 
assume has ended), become incompatible with linux kernels 2.6.x.

 Now, I know that OpenAFS server instructions recommend that a separate 
partitions (named /afs and /usr/vice/cache) be created. But as you can see 
above, I do not wish to disrupt the workings of the server above (currently 
accessible only through ssh/sftp). Partition / above is of type ext2 (which I 
know OpenAFS does support). Is it possible for me to work with a tree such 
as /afs/servername.domain.edu/u/m/s/msingh -> /home/msingh (arrow indicates 
symlink) and make OpenAFS pick up its passwords from /etc/passwd ? I am a 
little rusty with OpenAFS as I have not used it for a while, so I might need 
some help here.

Thanks.

MS