Most of the HPs that we have are running in a dataless configuration,
where the client workstations use a central server as their local file
system (i.e. they boot from this server, and share it's file system
with all the other clients).
Of course, this is incompatible with AFS, where we are counting on having
/usr/vice/cache as private data. Using dataless, every afsd would write
into this directory, and then afs clients die with cache consistency
errors. So, we can set things up so that every node in the cluster
writes into a different directory (via context dependent files).
My question is (and Transarc didn't have an answer, and their manuals
don't cover it) what do we have to do when installing AFS clients on
dataless workstations under HP-UX 8.0?
Obviously the afsd cache must be unique per node, but what other files
have this requirement? The down side of this is that our AFS caches
end up back on a server, and take up a huge amount of file space when
you add it all up. Of course, under HP-UX 8.0 we can allocate part of
the paging disc as an AFS cache.
Could something be done similar to the NFS-AFS translator, but instead
of using NFS as the front end to AFS, we use HP's dataless protocol
instead? This would have the advantage of installing AFS clients on
the dataless server, and the whole dataless cluster would then have
access to AFS.
Of the 250 sites running AFS, I'm hoping someone has already struggled
with this problem.
I'd continue to experiment, but the users of this system get a little
irritated when it crashes during the day, and they have been irritated
twice already today.
Thanks,
Joel Avery <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Manager, Distributed File Systems Evolution
Bell-Northern Research,
P.O. Box 3511 Station C,
Ottawa, Ontario, CANADA K1Y 4H7
Phone (613) 765-4638 ESN 395-4638
Fax (613) 765-2854 ESN 395-2854
