Andree's Debian & General Musings

Bug #385790 prompted me to set up an AFS client on my sid installation. This is something I hadn't done since I left uni almost nine years ago. Back then it was a bit fiddly to get the Transarc AFS client for Linux to work if I remember correctly.

Things have quite obviously improved since then. The following is all that was required (with some helpful information provided by the submitter - thanks, Kevin!):

• install packages openafs-modules-source and module-assistant
  
• follow the instructions in /usr/share/doc/openafs-modules-source/README.modules, i.e:
• module-assistant prepare openafs-modules
• module-assistant auto-build openafs-modules
• dpkg -i /usr/src/openafs-modules-.deb
  
• install package openafs-client and configure like this:
• leave AFS cell of workstation at default, i.e. local domain
  
• leave cache at 50000 kb
• leave DB server host for home cell blank
• answer 'Yes' to 'Run Openafs client now and at boot?'
• if this doesn't work, run dpkg-reconfigure openafs-client like this:
• leave AFS cell of workstation at default, i.e. local domain
• leave cache at 50000 kb
• answer 'Yes' to 'Run Openafs client now and at boot?'
• answer 'Yes' to 'Look up AFS cells in DNS?'
• answer 'Yes' to 'Encrypt authenticated traffic with AFS fileserver?'
• answer 'Yes' to 'Dynamically generate the contents of /afs?'
• answer 'Yes' to 'Use fakestat to avoid hangs when listing /afs?'
• leave DB server host for home cell blank
• answer 'Yes' to 'Run Openafs client now and at boot?' (again)
  
• ...and restart openafs-client afterwards

(The need to reconfigure may be a bug, not sure.)

In summary, OpenAFS and Sam Hartman's packaging effort make AFS a breeze to install on Debian!

Now all I have to do is find the time to fix the bug. ;-)

[Update] Important detail I forgot to mention: Open port 7001 on your firewall for UDP.
[Update] Added what to answer, i.e. 'Yes'. Doh.