Hello Edward,
We have been running a cell with 3 AFS db servers
on RedHat Linux 6.2 for almost a year. We started
with Transarc AFS 3.5 and upgraded to 3.6.
The hardware is "rescued" old PC kit: IBM P90 PCs.
(Saved from the fate of obsolete hardware:
the crushing machine.)
We upgraded the kernels to 2.2.17 a few weeks ago.
These boxes have been very stable.
The main advantage of using Linux is the low cost
of hardware and reliability.
The only issue we have not addressed is system backup.
AIX has a very useful "mksysb" command which takes
a snapshot of your system to tape: IBM RISC System/6000
can boot from tape. So, you can re-install your RS6K from
a mksysb tape very easily.
We have not found a suitable equivalent for Linux yet.
However: if you are using multiple low cost "cloned" Linux
db servers then perhaps a tape backup is not needed.
In case of db server failure: just install a new db server
and throw the old one away.
Our Linux AFS cell's main function is to distribute
Linux distros and open source software internally.
So, we do not have many users and we do not
make heavy use of kaserver.
My experience with using AFS on Linux is that
we have a very stable and reliable cell.
We have had _no_ unexpected system downtime.
I hope this helps.
--
cheers
paul http://acm.org/~mpb
"Don't throw your PC out of the window,
throw Windows out of your PC and run Linux!"
-- Gernot Kerschbaumer
"Nicolescu, Edward L" wrote:
> We are about to start investigating the possibility of switching our afs db
> servers
> from aix to linux. Some input regarding the pro's and con's of such a move
> would be
> highly appreciated. Are there any known problems running afs db servers on
> Linux ?
> Has anybody performed any testing or is anybody running db afs servers in a
> production
> environment with satisfactory results ? Many thanks to all of you who will
> respond .
>
> Edward Nicolescu
> Brookhaven National Labs
> RHIC Computing Facility
