[OpenAFS] Re: Trying to use OpenAFS-1.5.xx with Linux

[Dale Pontius]

Andrew Deason wrote:
> On Tue, 23 Feb 2010 10:47:36 -0500
> Dale Pontius <pontius@btv.ibm.com> wrote:
>
>   
>> To be truthful, I'm not even THAT interested in disconnected mode.
>> I'm more interested in the ability to "hold things over" while
>> disconnected, so I can reconnect.  Today I'd have to take down the afs
>> 1.4.x client if I were about to lose my network connection, and that
>> would mean taking down my desktop session and all applications - just
>> to suspend.
>>
>> I want to be able to suspend and restore without loading my session -
>> including my afs home directory.  This likely means moving from wired
>> to wireless, wired to another wired, etc.  I'm willing to "just worked
>> connected" - the disconnected operation really isn't that important to
>> me.  I just want my afs-homed session to survive "network limbo" while
>> the laptop is in transit between point a and point b.
>>     
>
> What happens when you try to do this with a 1.4 client?
>   
As things are, the Gentoo runtime system might probably thwart me, even
with the 1.5 client.  I'm playing with suspend on a system at home, and
suspending means dropping network services, and before dropping the
network services, the Gentoo runtime system will shut down everything
that depends on those network services.  On my home system, that's
good.  With the 1.4 client that's probably good, too.  I'll have to
modify the startup scripts to make sure the the OpenAFS client doesn't
get shut down before the network connection is shut down.  I may as well
make sure my data is well-saved, and try this with the 1.4 client, and
let you know how it goes. 

(Heck, the first test can simply be unplugging the network cable for
varying times.  That's even faster to try.  Several of us frequently
take a walk after lunch - medium-sized disconnect, coming up.)

I would expect something to time out, and go into a non-communicative
snit.  The question becomes how long the timeout is, and how deep the
snit is, once the laptop is reconnected.  Who knows... 5 or 10 minutes
could be long enough to get to the conference room and reconnect, as
long as nobody buttonholes me for an impromptu hallway meeting.
>   
>> Again, I hope to help with testing and debug, not distract.  I
>> recognize that there is some learning curve.
>>     
>
> You may get more useful information on disconnected operations from
> Simon Wilkinson. He probably knows the most about disconnected mode, but
> I believe he himself is disconnected from net access for the moment;
> just wait a little bit.
>
>   
I'll keep an eye out.

-- 
Dale Pontius
Senior Engineer
IBM Corporation
Phone: (802) 769-6850
Tie-Line: 446-6850
email: pontius@us.ibm.com

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