It sounds like you're running AFS 3.4 Beta or so. You can use "what
/usr/vice/etc/afsd | grep Base" to get a better idea. I usually look at
the afs libraries at the same time, just to make sure they're in sync.
Versions of AFS older than 3.2B didn't have these strings, but yours is
certainly newer than that.
In AFS 3.3, space is cleared in the cache when it's needed. That can
make for a serious performance hit because you're usually clearing the
cache at the same time as "useful" work is being done.
In 3.4, there's a new background daemon that watches the cache and
attempts to keep some part of it cleared out. Hopefully, it will run
while AFS doesn't have anything better to do. Sometimes, it can fall
behind a little and leave your cache over-allocated. In 3.4 Beta, the
"fs setcachesize" command would return before the cache size change was
actually performed. It all works a lot better in the final version of
3.4, though.
An interesting thing happens if you upgrade to the 3.4 kernel extensions
but leave your 3.3 afsd in place. The 3.4 kernel extensions expect the
background daemon to be cleaning up the cache, but the 3.3 afsd never
started that daemon. Your cache overfills very easily in this scenario.
I'd suggest upgrading or talking to AFS Product Support if these ideas
don't help.
Joe Jackson,
Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center.
