[OpenAFS] server configuration error

[Jeffrey Altman]

Isaac:

You may be under the assumption that AFS is similar to SMB or CIFS where
the file system that is exported to the world is locally
readable/writable to applications on the file server.   This is not the
case.  In AFS, volumes containing directories, files, mount points and
symlinks are stored in a format that is only readable to the AFS server
processes.  All access to that data is performed via the AFS client (or
AFS cache manager.)

This model provides many of AFS' strengths:

 * location independence - the applications do not care where the data
   is located and volumes can be moved from one file server to another
   while it is being used.  This is important for load balancing or
   hardware maintenance without downtime.

 * readonly replication - a readonly snapshot of a volume can be taken
   and replicated to multiple file servers to improve access to clients
   and provide failover.

 * online backup - for each read/write volume a single backup volume
   can be maintained that permits users to recover the file they
   accidentally deleted.  Backup volumes are created using copy-on-write
   semantics so they do not take up additional space on the disk until
   the user begins to make changes to the read-write volume.

 * heterogeneous server deployments - an AFS cell can use a mixture
   of operating system and hardware platforms for its servers and
   clients.

 * authentication - all access goes through the file server process
   and is therefore authenticated in a consistent manner.  Kerberos
   is always used.

The performance benefit that you will receive by using AFS is avoidance
of the VPN for access and data caching on the client.  Instead of
reading data from the file server each time the file is opened, the
client can access it out of the local disk cache if the data version of
the file has not changed.

Although Microsoft has made great strides in improving CIFS performance
over the WAN with SMB 2.0 as found in Vista and 2008, it requires that
both parties be either Vista or 2008.  Old Windows operating systems can
not take advantage of the benefits.

If you want to run the AFS Services on a Windows Server, I can certainly
make that happen but there is a month or two of work that needs to be
done to make it production quality.  Given that it doesn't matter what
OS the services run on because the data on disk cannot be locally
accessed in any case, every organization that has asked for AFS services
on Windows Server always ends up deciding to just use Linux, MacOS X,
Solaris, etc. because it is cheaper in the short term to use what is
already available.

If on the other hand you do want to use Windows builds of the services
please contact me off-list.

Jeffrey Altman



Isaac Perez wrote:
> 
> Hi Jeffrey,
> 
> Our problem is the lack of performance and reliability of CIFS/SMB across VPN, I found openAFS and I thought that it would be worth to giving it a chance.
> As some windows applications must run in the server, moving it to linux is not an option. Installing a virtualized linux machine in the server could be an option. But it will add levels of complexity to the system, and I would not lilke that.
>                                                
> As some people suggested, going to payed support could help the project. But I doubt my directors will approve budget for something doesn't works in windows from the start.
> 
> I tried windows NFS, but it seems that windows clients with windows server doesn't work as well as Windows-Linux.
> 
> Any idea of how could improve the communications with a reliable service/protocol?
> 
> Thanks,
> Isaac