In our transition to AFS over the last two years we have hacked pcnfsd,
xdm, xlock, aufs and popper to authenticate with AFS kerberos and have run
across a number of difficulties programming with the AFS
libraries. Currently everything is working (knock knock) but I would like
to share our experiences for your information and comment.
The initial and recurring problem has been documentation. The AFS 3
Programmer's Reference lives in
/afs/grand.central.org/doc/afs/specs/progint. But its documents
sparsely cover the actual library calls, and most have not been updated
since March 1992. The AFS Authentication Specs are dated May 1 1993, but
were not even available before that time.
Our other problems with the libraries have been more bizarre and
OS-specific.
AFS 3.2, 3.3 under SunOS 4.1.1, compiled with CAP libraries:
ka_UserAuthenticateGeneral() bombs the program with a Bus Error unless
we first include the following type of nonsensical reference to an AFS
global variable:
{
extern int rx_socket;
if(rx_socket)
;
}
This has been previously reported to Transarc with no response.
AFS 3.2b under AIX 3.2.4:
ka_UserAuthenticateGeneral() called with null password produces error
"illegal key: bad parity or weak" and will then fail to authenticate when
called again until called with another null password.
This has not been previously reported by us to Transarc.
Transition from AFS 3.2b to AFS 3.3 under SunOS 4.1.1.
Programs calling ka_UserAuthenticateGeneral() stopped authenticating
until recompiled. Recompiling required new library libaudit.a.
Are we needlessly stumbling in the dark here - is there real
documentation available for programmers with each release? Or does Transarc
truly deserve low marks in the programmer support department?
Thanks for listening,
Dan
Daniel E. Svitavsky [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Materials Science Center (607) 255-2067
Cornell University Ithaca, NY
