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When Will IBM Release OpenAFS? 54

Posted by Cliff from the will-IBM-make-good-on-that-promise dept.
sighup asks: "My company is in the need of a distributed file system for WAN use. I've looked around. CODA and InterMezzo aren't there yet. NFS is not going to work well in our instance. So, I went looking at AFS (having used it in college). I found that IBM had announced that they were opensourcing AFS. We were willing to pay for it, but this is soooo much better. The original announcement said that IBM would be releasing the source code in September. September has come and gone and October is almost gone. They've posted the docs, but nothing else. I've even mailed DeveloperWorks and got no response. So, when's OpenAFS -actually- going to be out?"
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When Will IBM Release OpenAFS? More

When Will IBM Release OpenAFS?

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  • It was released several days ago... Oct 30th I believe.
  • 1. Have you tried calling them and getting someone on the phone (don't forget to take their name and their manager's name!) and asking them the same questions?

    2. Why do you need a distributed file system for WAN use? A windows network isn't good enough? FTPing to some linux file server isn't good enough? Using thin clients doesn't work for you? PC Anywhere? Starcraft? (ok, that last one was silly, but really, I'm curious...)
    --
    Peace,
    Lord Omlette
    ICQ# 77863057

  • editorial comment (Score:3)

    by jbridge21 ( 90597 ) <jeffrey+slashdot@@@firehead...org> on Saturday November 04, 2000 @07:53AM (#649201) Journal
    This is somewhat off topic, but this seems like the best place for a discussion...

    Notice how the story submitter says "October is almost over"... meaning they submitted the story before November. It is now the 4th. Is the slashdot story backlog really 5 days, or is this an isolated incident? If it is, this seems like a good argument for K5-style story modding..... (I make no claims as to how that would change this site.)
    -----

  • Reading down the info page a bit on IBM's website turned this [ibm.com] up. Enjoy

  • Looks like the source code has been posted at: http:// oss .software.ibm.com/developerworks/opensource/afs/do wnloads.html [ibm.com] "The OpenAFS source code is currently available on the following platforms: AIX 4.2, Digital/Compaq UNIX 4.0, Red Hat Linux 6.2, Solaris 2.6 and 2.7, and Windows NT 4.0. " So what's the problem?
  • I would like to see this tried. It seems like the moderation and meta-moderation infrastructure is already largely here.

    At the very least, a much-rejected story should be referred to the editors for review.
  • The backlog for Ask Slashdot seems to be around a week or so. It's worse than the main page.

    --

  • Re:Jeez, check your info first... (Score:4)

    by jimmy927 ( 93142 ) on Saturday November 04, 2000 @08:05AM (#649207)
    OpenAFS is released, yes.
    But it does not compile on ANY plattform yet ...

    the following FREE AFS-implementation does compile: http://www.stacken.kth.se/projekt/arla/

    It contains an well working AFS-client, and an experimental/alpha AFS-server.

  • Cliff the procrastinator (Score:4)

    by IvyMike ( 178408 ) on Saturday November 04, 2000 @08:15AM (#649208)

    Cliff, you gotta stop letting these things sit on your desk for a week before posting, or this sort of embarassing stuff happens.

  • Right. It is not the fault of the person asking, but a fault in the editing.
  • Or maybe as other people pointed out, it's already been released.

    Dosen't seem much like vapor to me.

  • Someone has to say it (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    OPEN SOURCE != FREE

    In other words, just because a product is open source does not necessarily make it free any more than a product that is free is necessarily open source.

    IBM announced that they will give out the source code for AFS. They didn't say that they will give AFS away for free IIRC. The definition of open source is, if you get the software by license (be it GPL or proprietary), you are entitled to the source code.

    Maybe it IS free, I don't know. Just don't mention "they sait it will be open source which is great, because I didn't want to pay for it". One does not equal the other. Sorry about the
  • It is safe to assume the latest this story could have been submitted was actually the 31st of October, since on the 1st of November Slashdot actually carried the story that IBM has actually released the source code. Howver, given the time-sensitivity of the comment, I'd suspect they would be checking the OpenAFS site on a relatively frequent basis, and hence the submission is from the 30th of October or earlier. I would estimate the 27th, since "almost over" usually means a few more days... But hey, what do I know?

  • OpenAFS is out! (Score:3)

    by Doodhwala ( 13342 ) on Saturday November 04, 2000 @08:20AM (#649213) Homepage
    Okay... Linux only distributions are already out. I just picked one up and compiled it yesterday night. Let me know if you need to get your hands on it (plus it has a simplified make file).

  • It's out! (Score:4)

    by strredwolf ( 532 ) on Saturday November 04, 2000 @08:23AM (#649214) Homepage Journal
    This was sent out to the Linux-AFS list on Nov 1st:

    http://oss.software.ibm.com/developerworks/opensou rce/afs/downloads.html [ibm.com]

    To get the latest scoop, subscribe to the list! Send a request to linux-afs-request (at) mit.edu and a human will subscribe you.



    --
    WolfSkunks for a better Linux Kernel
    $Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.keenspace.com";

  • oh my... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    reading this slashdot article [slashdot.org] from 3 days ago, one finds that IBM posted not only the documentation [ibm.com], but the 11MB of source code [ibm.com]. please, look a little closer before posting an Ask Slashdot topic.

  • Stop bagging on this guy (Score:5)

    by fliplap ( 113705 ) on Saturday November 04, 2000 @08:37AM (#649216) Homepage Journal
    Ok look, slashdot obviously has quite a big submission bin, it isn't this guys fault that Cliff hasn't read slashdot for a few days. Notice he says "October is almost over" When OpenAFS was released on November 1st. I propose that everyone that has made any sort of stupid comment about this guy not looking hard enough just shut up and look at a calender, then at this question, then at that OpenAFS release on November 1st. Then slap yourself and say sorry.
  • Jeez, check your info first...

    Go easy on him, it sounds like he submitted this a week or so ago since he said "October is almost over" when in my neck of the woods it is already November 4th.

  • This is pretty sad (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I've got a question for Ask Slashdot: When will Cliff get a clue? sighup obviously sent this in before the OpenAFS release was announced on Slashdot a few days ago. So why was this question posted when it has already been answered? Does Cliff even read Slashdot?

  • I think this guy is owed an apology. (Score:4)

    by be-fan ( 61476 ) on Saturday November 04, 2000 @09:00AM (#649219)
    I think the guys running /. owe this guy an apology. I'm assuming that after a /. guy OKs a story, it doesn't take 3 days for that story to appear on the main page. Thus, AFS must have already been released when this story was OK'ed. Thus, the guys running Slashdot were out to lunch on this case. That caused the /. crowd to think this guy was an idiot, hence the need for an apology from the guys running /.
  • Check out The Global File System [globalfilesystem.org], it's the heat! GFS is *the* open source filesystem that has the backing of the big storage manufacturers, like EMC Corporation. [emc.com] It blows away AFS, try it for yourself and you will see.

  • How is this offtopic? Cliff obviously let the article sit on his desk for a week, and when he finally got around to posting it, it was a little late. Just giving him a little friendly advice, as well as pointing the events to people who didn't pick them up on their own. BTW, as a lifelong procrastinator myself, I understand how this stuff happens.

    I mean, I've posted some offtopic stuff, but considering that the lead article itself is wrong at this point, this seemed pretty on the money to me.

  • If you follow the link [ibm.com] provided in the article... it takes you to a page that says "The source code is available in the downloa d section" [ibm.com]

    -rt-
  • So IBM open sources AFS, and suddenly noone buys it anymore. Thoughts? Rants?

    - Steeltoe

  • Re:GFS *is* what you really want (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    No, it's not. A 2-second skim reveals that: 1) it's Linux-specific; and 2) it's for direct-attach storage.

    AFS is platform independent (note that the source builds on Solaris, DU/OSF/Compaq Tru64, AIX, NT and Linux, to a large extent. AFS is for networked distributed filesystems, not distributed filesystems for direct-attach storage. How are you supposed to direct-attach a single storage device for sharing between servers in NYC and San Jose via GFS? You can't. That's what NFS, DFS and AFS are for.

  • Comment removed (Score:4)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Saturday November 04, 2000 @09:59AM (#649225)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • There is a command line scp client for Windows available from the same source as PuTTY, at http://www.chiark.gre ene nd.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/download.html [greenend.org.uk]

    As for the parent post, ftp, if you use Kerberized ftp clients and servers, uses secure authentication, and can optionally encrypt the data. UNIX and Mac ftp clients are available, as well as UNIX ftp daemons. Recent RedHat distributions even come with MIT Kerberos V.

    Check out http://web.mit.edu/kerberos/www [mit.edu]

    We use all these programs at my company (i'm the sysadmin), and they work very well.

    -Ryan

  • Um. How do you transfer files to and from a Windows machine using SCP?

    sshd and scp running under cygwin is the easiest way to do this. Works fine. See their web site [cygwin.com] for more details. Cygwin is GPL software.

  • Will IBM make OpenAFS available for Linux?
    Currently they have only made it available for Red Hat Linux 6.2

    This kind of things make me sick.
  • I hate fuctional software. ;)

  • It built and runs just fine for me on several linux kernels, and on both solaris 2.6 and solaris 2.7.
  • I've mentioned this before, on a story that was essentially reposted two days in a row on Slashdot..but this clinches it.

    I'm now certain that the majority of the people editing Slashdot don't even read the site.

  • I, like others, was very keen to get my hands on AFS and was getting frustrated with the delay. So I emailed the sales contact address with a query. This was just before it actually was released (a couple of days or so).

    I get into work one morning and the sales guy has left an email telling me its just come out and giving the URL etc.

    A little later I notice the "you have voicemail waiting" light on my phone is flashing. I check it and it's the same guy who has, from the US, called me in *New Zealand* to tell me the same thing! Above and beyond...
  • Depends on what you mean by "well working"...

    I tried to use it on a small 6 node Beowulf cluster, but it kept falling over and killing my job...I moved to NFS for its stability (believe it or not).

    I don't mean to slam the Arla guys at all, but I would have to believe that once the IBM-AFS makefile gets set up for later kernels that it would be *much* better. I was running 2.2.16, and the makefile was set up for kernels up to 2.2.14 (maybe 15, I have a bad case of CRS).
  • Well, I've been working on a beowulf cluster for my university (UT Dallas) and I have a bunch of Sparc 5 nodes. The problem being - they have no hard drives. Even the kernel is loaded over the network, ie tftp. The root filesystem is mounted via NFS (NFSv2, the v3 support in 2.4 might work, but the version of mount in the latest util-linux does not (at least in sparc architecture)). I need another network filesystem with support for mounting the root filesystem. Is OpenAFS going to be my answer? Or are there any other network filesystems I can use? NFSv2 dies after a day or two of uptime, nodes start dropping off like flies. I suspect it is due to NFSv2's usage of UDP, a vital file doesn't get transfered properly, then the kernel panics. Becayse it can't write to the filesystem, there are no logs. Next step-serial port debugging. But let me know if there are any network filesystems with the ability to mount root filesystem on boot.

    David
  • Fast OpenGL? I'd like to see how those benchmarks were done :) Also...what about the ETA on OpenGL support released to the masses? What about BONE? BeOS is dead because of Be, Inc's focus shift to BeIA. I hope they make some money off it, don't go bankrupt, and then resume BeOS support. It is an awesome OS, with soo much potential. It's just bastardized at this point in time. Good luck to Be, and good luck to BeOS. But don't quote benchmarks that are performed in ways to benefit a particular OS.

    David
  • AFS's motto is one world, one file system. AFS literally allows you to export your file system securely across the net. TO as many people or anonymous users as you want. AFS has a great caching mechanism. Which means unlike NFS, it works great over WANS. It uses Kerberos for security. So the security model is proven. Microsoft sunk 20 million into MIT to enhance kerberos, and develop the implementation for Win 2000. We have MS's endorsement of a Unix compatible authentication mechanism. Along with Sun, Red Hat, and others are making noise about Kerberos support. This AFS thing could be huge. Imagine a potential for sharing information potential ten times what Napsters is. Imagine this, you cd to /afs and their are hundreds of file systems and with information at your finger tips. Like having a copy of various ftp distribution sites mounted as file systems on your machine.
    Other features include: Mount read only snap shots for redundancy, universal name space, and enhanced ACL's.
    Nothing else out their touch's it. Not Coda, or Arla. Both of which are not stable enough for production use.
    With AFS finally open source, we should see lots of enhancements. And use by GPL-pro, and pro-bsd entities alike.

    One world one file system.

    Cheers,
    Tomas
    ===========
  • Software/university reasons. I am limited to linux, and these junk/trash machines. Did I mention we run 24 nodes over a 10baseT *hub* network? Yea..talk about collisions, no wonder NFSv2 (udp) has issues. Any ideas on a network filesystem which can be mounted as the root filesystem?

    David
  • Try SFS the self-certifying filesystem. Here's a link [fs.net]. Its definately better than AFS.
  • Since there will be two different code bases (open-source, and non-open source) for AFS, is there any guarantee that say, an OpenAFS client will work with IBM's commercially supported server (or vice versa). Or might we see the possiblity of forking into two similar, but different enough to be mutually incompatible standards?

    This particular question wasn't specifically addressed in IBM's FAQ, although it answered some related questions.

  • A) I'd like to see how Linux3D's benchmarks were done. The truth is that these benchmarks are just those of a news site given permission to release tests on their beta copy. I don't ask you to give them any more weight than I do the benchmarks published by Linux websites.

    B) The ETA is when it's done. As a Linux user, you have no right to comment on anything being late. As I remember, kernel 2.4 was supposed to be out months ago. Wasn't it declared "perfect" in July?

    C) BeOS is far from dead. I don't see Compaq using Linux in any of their IAs!
  • I wasn't comparing BeOS to linux, was I? I certainly didn't mention linux3d's benchmarks either, I don't agree with them. I have every right to complain about things being late. Just because an OS i choose to use comes out late too, does not mean I cannot comment on latency of delivery. But your example is a bad one...2.4.0-testX exists. BeOS R5.0.X does, but there are no significate changes. 2.4.0-testX impliments a ton. Research/contemplate your comments before you make them, ignorant comments waste both your time and mine. What I say I do not say to insult, and I expect the same respect out of others. Oh, FYI, I run BeOS R5 Pro, bought 5 copies actually, in order to help the company. I also promote it around my campus (UT Dallas). So don't feed me the "anti-beos" crap.

    Respectfully,
    David

  • Uh, AFS has compiled and run well (under load) for me on Linux 2.2, Solaris 2.6 & 7, and AIX 4.2 and 4.3. Follow the instructions in the readme closely and it'll work. (Except for Linux. There's a typo in the README where LINUX_VERSION should be replaced with LINUX_VERS)

  • Yes, it does compile.

    Yes, it does work.

    Next?

    (Hint - I have it working on my Sol 7 system right next to me.)
  • Ha ha ha. Ftp? Why the hell hasn't ftp been relegated to the dustbins of history? Anon ftp, okay, that I can see a use for. But user ftp is just sooooooo bloody dangerous. And if one more person suggests scp as a replacement for user level ftp I'm going to ... well ... I don't know exactly but it ain't gonna be pretty. I can just see trying to train 5000 employees how to use scp to move a file to another server. Might as well suggest smbclient as a replacement for Windoze explorer in a samba environment.

    Why isn't there a good, secure, easy to use, general purpose replacement for ftp? So much has been dealt with in the last decade but there remains that damn ftp monster.

  • This post and others have readers asking you what the heck is going on there. Please give us some kind of thoughtful response, even if it's a "we goofed" or "there is a five day backlog" or whatever. Your loyal readers and commentators, want to know why this is happening and I think they deserve a response. -Don
  • Jeez, check your info first...

    It was released several days ago... Oct 30th I believe.

    If you'll take a look at the original post you'll see this:

    ... October is almost gone.


    Looks to me like the the post was submitted a few days before the release, worked it's way through the Slashdot queue, and hit the board a couple days after.

    "Crossed in the mail" as they say.

    I don't fault anybody here: The poster did check his info, the post-approvers have too much to do already to dig on the net when they're publishing a question (and the question serves as an informative conversation starter even if it IS slightly outdated) and it's easy for the responder to miss the verbal cueue and the mechanism "behind the curtain" at slashdot.
  • How is this offtopic?

    Probably somebody with moderator points hit the wrong menu item by mistake. It also got two "informative"s and two "interesting"s, so I wouldn't complain.

    Who knows? The original moderator might have given you some of his remaining points to make an appology. B-)
  • I'm not saying that "just because an OS [you] choose to use comes out late to, does not mean [you] cannot comment on latency of delivery." I'm saying that you use Linux, and most likely agree with Linus's idea that "it's done when it's done." The same thing with BeOS. It will be released when it is finished. (If, however, you don't agree with that concept, then I can understand you being angry at Be.)

    PS> Linux 2.4.0-testX exists as does BeOS beta OpenGL and beta BONE. Betips.net is running BONE, LCI runs BONE, and somebody at BeNews has a beta copy of OpenGL. Just because one is a open beta and the other is a closed beta doesn't mean that one has any more chance of release than the other.

    PS2> Sorry if I sound inflamatory, but I get so many random "BeOS SUCKZ, GL will never come out, the IA thing killed Be!" comments without any justification that it is kind of hard to filter things. For my defense, all of your comments WERE said without justification. Its not my job to read your real feelings about topics. Make sure your posts accurately reflect what you want to come of as. In this case you came of as one of the 10 zillion BeOS-hating Slashdot trolls.
  • Read the first post I made...NFSv3 is not supported in the newest mount from util-linux....and if it is, it doesn't work on the Sparc hardware. I've tried all the patches out as well.

    David
  • First off, folks...Ask Slashdot articles tend to get posted in BATCHES. That means that when I do get around to posting something, it WILL sit in the queue for a few days, especially when I post ahead unlike most authors do. Ask Slashdot is only a portion of the work I do for this site (and others) under the OSDN banner. I try to do the best I can when I validate submissions, so when this one was apporoved (I think it was approved either the 29th or the 30th) I was willing to give the poster the benefit of the doubt since it looked like he HAD checked his info. I was running behind due to travel and trying to have a life outside of work, so it got approved and in the lag time...AFS was released.

    Oh well. I don't profess to be perfect, and these things happen. I post Ask Slashdot articles to help people get their questions answered, and if an answer occurs during the interim between submission approval and "publishing" time, then all I can do is appologize and keep on doing what I do.

    So I appologize on this matter of mis-timing, but it's not something that I can exactly control. I will try to be a bit more careful to what gets posted, but this question was valid and I try to make it a point that questions like this get posted even if the possibility of an answer is forthcoming.

  • Here's a link to download IBM's AFS for linux. http://oss.software.ibm.com/developerworks/opensou rce/afs/downloads.html

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