Transarc has begun an official alpha test of AFS 3.4. Those who
receive this message are invited to help us perform early testing of
the product in exchange for early access to the binaries.
These ports have not been tested to the degree that we test our beta
or final production releases, so you may find that these versions are
relatively unstable. While it is sufficient for early experimentation
and testing, Transarc strongly recommends that you not run this code
in a production environment. If you require greater stability, we
recommend that you wait for the beta release planned for late March.
At this time, only the client portion of the product is available for
testing. The server binaries will not be found in the distributions.
Once the beta test of AFS 3.4 begins, both the server and client will
be available.
Support for this alpha test is limited and will be handled differently
than the current beta and product releases. We are eager to hear of
any and all problems you might find with this release, but we can't
promise to deliver any fixes until the beta release is sent out. For
problems related to the alpha test, you will need to send mail
directly to me instead of using the <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> address or
the Transarc Hotline. My address is:
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
All deliveries will be made through the transarc.com AFS cell. Due to
resource constraints, no tapes or FTP arrangements can be made. The
distribution directories can be found under:
/afs/transarc.com/product/afs/alpha_port/
The directory "alpha_port/doc/" has been created to store notes and
announcements concerning the AFS 3.4 alpha test. If you encounter a
problem, you might want to check the directory to see if it has
already been reported and to find out if there's a known work-around.
At this time, we are only offering a handful of the system types that
will be included with AFS 3.4. A selection of those system types which
were *not* supported in AFS 3.3 are available. They are:
sgi_53 SGI Irix 5.3
alpha_osf30 DEC Alpha OSF/1 V3.0
sun4m_54 Sun4m with Solaris 2.4/SunOS 5.4
rs_aix41 IBM RS/6000 AIX 4.1.2
After authenticating to the transarc.com cell, you should be able to
access one or more of the system types listed above. The initial ACLs
have been set based on the requests received by Product Support over
the past several months. If you don't have access to a system type
that you would like to test, send a request to me.
>From time to time, the alpha_port directory may contain system types
that are not on the above list. These distributions are for specific
customer situations and will not be made available to the general pool
of alpha testers. Unless the system type is one of the four listed
above, we will not be able to grant you access.
If you're interested in a port for a new operating system not listed
above and not included in the recent "AFS 3.4 Beta" announcement,
please contact your AFS Sales Representative to get more information
and to register your interest. If you have questions about the ports
which won't be part of the 3.4 beta release, such as Irix 6.0 and
HP-UX 10.0, please talk to your Sales Rep.
Joe Jackson,
AFS Product Engineer,
Transarc Corp.
