[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Randolph J. Herber, CD/DCD/SPG, x2966) writes:
> Another thing I do not understand is why AFS did not implement full Unix file
> semantics and instead implemented ``ACL''s.
I'm not sure why the original AFS design didn't include full Unix mode
bit semantics, but ACLs were included so that more access control
options could be made available. Perhaps the change in mode bit
interpretation was made to better compliment ACLs. Or perhaps the
added complexity of combining ACLs and bits was too great.
In any case, the DCE DFS design includes much closer adherance to Unix
mode bit semantics through the use of POSIX ACLs. Changing the mode
bits changes the relevant part of the file ACL and vice-versa.
> This makes AFS very unusable in
> an UNIX environment.
This is an interesting comment! AFS runs almost exclusively in the
Unix environment -- certainly, the platforms supported by Transarc are
all Unix-based. Yet, our list of AFS customers indicates that a large
number of sites find AFS usable in those environments! It's true that
some amount of code changes and quite a bit of user retraining are
involved, but it would seem that many people still find AFS usable.
Joe Jackson,
AFS Product Support,
Transarc Corp.
