[OpenAFS] Access an OpenAFS cell in LAN and WAN with dynamic DNS (DDNS) address

[Benjamin Kaduk]

Hi Kalle,

On Fri, 24 Jun 2016, Karl-Philipp Richter wrote:

> Hi,
> I'm running a server with an OpenAFS volume which updates its IP which
> is dynamically changed every 24 hours by the ISP using a dynamic DNS
> (DDNS) service and `ddclient`. The server is a gateway for a LAN subnet
> 192.168.179.0/24. I access this server inside my LAN by adding the
> 192.168.179.0/24 address to `CellServDB` which works fine on client
> inside 192.168.179.0/24. When I add the dynamic WAN IP of the server
> when I'm outside LAN (e.g. in eduroam) to `CellServDB` on the client
> side and reboot (and make sure that the IP didn't change after reboot)
> I'm experiencing `ls: cannot access '/afs/richtercloud.de': Connection
> timed out` when I invoke `ls /afs/` and see
>
>     [  130.010338] afs: Lost contact with file server 192.168.178.20 in
> cell richtercloud.de (code -1) (multi-homed address; other same-host
> interfaces maybe up)
>     [  130.010343] RXAFS_GetCapabilities failed with code -1
>     [  186.461024] afs: Lost contact with file server 192.168.179.1 in
> cell richtercloud.de (code -1) (all multi-homed ip addresses down for
> the server)
>
> in `dmesg`.
>
> I tried adding all LAN IPs of the server and the WAN IP to `CellServDB`
> in `[]` and not in all possible combinations. I configured my WiFi
> router to forward UDP for port 7000 to 7008 (inclusively) and 88 and 750
> (following https://wiki.openafs.org/AFSServicePorts/) to the server's
> interface and setup the same forwarding on the server.

I'm not entirely sure I understand the setup you have, but it sounds like
the server NetInfo file would be helpful, as one of its uses is when the
server is behind a NAT or multihomed.

-Ben