> >> Adding -dynroot to the afsd options should avoid hangs as well, at least
> >> as long as no cell is actually accessed.
> >> And it should not cause any problems - unless a cell has anything in its
> >> root.afs volume that's not a mount point for a cell. But then, if the
> >> clients depend on it, they probably need AFS to work correctly at all.
> [...]
>
> > p.s. Jean, when I get the binaries built, did you want to give them a
> > test to
> > make sure they work for you.  They should have this change, as well as the
> > newer CellServDB in them.
>
> Thanks to Troy and Stephan,
>
> Yes, I understand that adding -dynroot option in /etc/sysconfig/afs
> will prevent the network test to be done. I don't know if this option
> was designed for this usage or something else but it will do.

This was actually designed to collect AFS cell information
from DNS rather than from /usr/vice/etc/CellServDB

For that to work DNS servers for given cell (= DNS domain
in most cases) must show records of type AFSDB:

For example:

dig AFSDB openafs.org

[...]
openafs.org.            3600    IN      AFSDB   1 andrew.e.kth.se.
openafs.org.            3600    IN      AFSDB   1 virtue.openafs.org.
openafs.org.            3600    IN      AFSDB   1 onyx.su.se.
[...]

BUT:

dig AFSDB fnal.gov (from outside FNAL) shows no AFSDB records ...

dig AFSDB cern.ch (from inside CERN) shows single (invalid/obsolete
record ..)

dig @dxmon.cern.ch AFSDB cern.ch (from outside CERN) shows the actual
valid records:
[...]
cern.ch.                10800   IN      AFSDB   1 afsdb3.cern.ch.
cern.ch.                10800   IN      AFSDB   1 afsdb1.cern.ch.
cern.ch.                10800   IN      AFSDB   1 afsdb2.cern.ch.
[...]


So apparently not all cells (or their DNS) are setup to use dynroot
AFS client capability (desy.de for example is, caspur.it, in2p3.fr aren't ....)

That's one point, another side-effect is:

If you happen to have a symbolic link in your root afs volume
(which is the case for CERN: - /afs/{etc,usr,opt}
ls -l /afs/
[..]
etc -> cern.ch/system/@sys/etc
[..]
)
this link will not be visible while client uses -dynroot
...

I think that if the '-dynroot' option is to be enabled
by default this should be pre announced in advance and
ideally sites should be asked to complete their DNS
entries ....


Talking about options to AFS client another one is
kind of 'nice': '-fakestat':

(from LISA 2002 AFS workshop notes)

"with this feature enabled, the AFS client will provide stat information
for volume mountpoints not yet traversed without contacting remote
fileservers. This allows the use of graphical file managers to browse
/afs without causing excessive hangs and timeouts. This feature is
present in OpenAFS 1.2.7; OpenAFS 1.2.8 will include a further
refinement to only present this behavior for mountpoints to volumes in
foreign cells."


... I think that this one would be a candidate
for inclusion in future builds ..

Jarek

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