OpenAFS for Windows
OpenAFS is the world's foremost location independent file system.
With OpenAFS for Windows, users of Microsoft Windows 2000, XP, 2003, XP64, Vista
(32-bit and 64-bit editions) and Server 2008 (32-bit and 64-bit editions) can make the most of this proven data sharing
solution. The OpenAFS Project provides binary installation packages
appropriate for both individual users and organizations with thousands
of members.
Contents:
- All versions of OpenAFS for Windows prior to 1.5.62 can experience data loss
when storing data to the file server.
The following guidelines should be used for choosing an installer type. If you are upgrading
from a previous installation, select the same type of installer, EXE or MSI, as was
previously installed on the system. If you are installing for the first time, choose the
EXE if you are installing manually and the MSI if you either need to customize the
installation package (via a transform) or wish to deploy via Active Directory Group Policy.
Each installer is provided in debug and non-debug versions. The debug versions should
be installed only when you are experiencing a problem and you need to assist
the OpenAFS developers in debugging the problem. The non-debug version is optimized for
performance, does not generate logging information by default, and does not install
symbol files.
All of the installers are produced and signed by
Secure Endpoints Inc.. If the signature is missing do not complete the installation
process and send e-mail to
openafs-security@openafs.org
Secure Endpoints Inc. periodically publishes a report on the current status of OpenAFS for Windows development. The
most recent report
was published in July 2008.
Read it today!
(updated 1 October 2009) 
Features:
- Starting with the 1.5.50 release of OpenAFS for Windows,
each of the AFS Client Service, the AFS Explorer Shell Extension, and the
command-line tools are Unicode enabled. No longer is OpenAFS restricted to
accessing file system objects whose names can be represented in the locale
specific OEM code page. This has significant benefits for end users. Most
importantly it permits non-Western languages to now be used for file system
object names in AFS from Microsoft Windows operating systems. Now that
Unicode names are supported,
Roaming User Profiles and
Folder
Redirection will no longer fail when a user attempts
to store an object with a name that cannot be represented in the OEM code
page.
- Compatible with all OpenAFS and IBM/Transarc AFS Server versions
- Support for all editions of Windows Vista including SP1 and Windows
Server 2008
- 2007 Daylight Savings Time corrected C Runtime Library DLLs
- AFS credentials module for MIT Kerberos for Windows Network Identity Manager
- Support for 64-bit File Sizes on both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of
Microsoft Windows
- Support for 64-bit Windows XP/2003/R2/Vista/2008
- Implements Windows Byte Range Locking backed by AFS File Server Locks
- Uses GetCapabilities RPCs to probe the server status
- Logs fs crypt state to the Windows Event Log
- Supports OutputDebugString debugging of the RX Library
- New commands:
- fs uuid [-generate]
- fs chown -owner <user name or id> [-path <dir/file path>+] [-literal]
- fs chgrp -group <user name or id> [-path <dir/file path>+] [-literal]
- Improved CIFS protocol compatibility
- Compatible with XP, Server 2003, Vista and Server 2008.
- As of 1.5.62, supports the SRVSVC and WKSSRV services providing an
improved \\AFS browsing experience.
- Hard Dead and Connection Timeout values restricted to the CIFS Session Timeout value.
- CIFS Extended Timeouts are automatically detected when supported by
the installed version of mrxsmb.sys. See Microsoft Hot Fixes.
- Improved handling of Windows Standby/Hibernate modes when network access
is not available
- Significant performance improvements when searching directories
containing hundreds or thousands of files and sub-directories
- Implements Inline Bulk Status RPCs which speeds up directory listings
- Local B+ tree generation
- Local directory updates do not require fetching changes from the
file server
- Reduced time required for file open operations
- Fixes critical data loss errors:
- Prior to 1.5.15, write requests queued for background
processing were not retried upon failure.
- Prior to 1.5.62, write requests whose file offset is not an
even multiple of the cache buffer block size would fail to store all of
the dirty data.
- Prior to 1.5.62, write requests to file servers that have 2GB
file limits (aka IBM file servers and OpenAFS file servers older than
1.3.70) can fail to store dirty data on the first StoreData RPC after a
InitCallBackState RPC is received.
- Increased cache hit ratio for data written to AFS by the local client
- Improved behavior when used behind Network Address Translation (NAT)
devices
- As of 1.5.18, OpenAFS for Windows no longer attempts to push Kerberos v5 tickets into the logon session.
This functionality is available in MIT Kerberos for Windows 3.1 and above.
- Fixes a bug that could result in a failure of Microsoft Windows to
boot successfully. See Security Advisory OPENAFS-SA-2007-002
- Improved Explorer Shell behavior when listing directories without "read"
permission.
- Lower CPU utilization and overall performance improvements than 1.5.20
and earlier
- The AFS Server Manager no longer terminates unexpectedly
- Infinite recursions in chains of directory objects up to 512 levels deep
are detected and prevented.
- Data that is known to be valid will continue to be served by the cache
manager when all servers are down.
- Partial chunks are written to the file server whenever possible
improving write performance.
- Default chunk size increased to 1MB from 128KB as of 1.5.23 improving
read and write performance.
- The 1.5.31 release fixes a bug that would prevent failover when a volume
cannot be attached by a single file server instance.
- The 1.5.32 more than doubles the throughput of both reads and writes
when compared to previous releases. One 1Gbit/second networks peak
transfer rates of up to 32MB/second have been recorded between the cache
manager and the file server.
- The 1.5.39 release fixes several memory leaks.
- The 1.5.53 release fixeda
significant memory leak (rx packets) in the rx rpc protocol library.
- The 1.5.56 and 1.5.57 releases fixes race conditions in the rx rpc protocol
library that can result in the AFS Client Service terminating prematurely.
- The 1.5.60 release converts all documentation to Windows HTML Help and
adds registry support for CellServDB information.
Documentation:
Supported Platforms:
- Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 (X86 and AMD64) are not yet officially
supported.
- Windows Server 2008 (X86 and AMD64) including SP1
- Windows Vista (X86 and AMD64) including SP1 and SP2
- Windows 2003 64 (AMD64) including SP1 and SP2
- Windows XP 64 (AMD64) including SP1 and SP2
- Windows 2003 R2 including SP1
- Windows 2003 including SP1 and SP2
- Windows XP including SP2 and SP3
- Windows 2000 Workstation and Server at SP4
* Installers for Itanium systems are unavailable. Organizations interested in support for Itanium should consider donating a development/test system to OpenAFS.
Known Issues:
- If a *beta* AFS plug-in for Network Identity Manager is installed, it must
be uninstalled before OpenAFS 1.5.65 is installed. Otherwise, an error indicating that the plug-in cannot be installed because the appropriate version of
OpenAFS is not installed will be generated.
- The AFS plug-in for Network Identity Manager provided as part of OpenAFS
1.5.65 requires MIT Kerberos for Windows 3.1 or above.
- Directory and File Change Notifications are ignored when accessing AFS via
UNC paths
- Windows Vista Specific Issues
- The help files provided with OpenAFS are in .HLP format.
WinHlp32.exe must be
downloaded separately from Microsoft. Secure Endpoints Inc. is funding the
development of compatible HtmlHelp (.CHM) files.
- The AFS Systray Tool (afscreds.exe) and AFS Control Panel (afs_config.exe)
are not User Account Control (UAC) compatible. In order to start/stop the
AFS service or to modify the configuration of the AFS client service they must
be "Run as Administrator".
- Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 Specific Issues
- There is a bug in Windows that will prevent access to
\\AFS after an IP address has been removed or
assigned after boot. When the bug is triggered, all attempts to
connect to \\AFS will result in a "Bad Network
Name" error. Please reproduce this issue locally and submit bug
reports to Microsoft.
- All Vista issues apply as well.
Downloads for 32-bit Windows operating systems: Vista/R2/2003/XP/2000:
Downloads for 64-bit Windows operating systems: Vista/R2/2003/XP:
Support for 32-bit Windows Applications on 64-bit Windows operating systems
This installer is required for any 32-bit applications that require use of
AFS libraries. This includes 32-bit versions of MIT Kerberos for
Windows.
Note: In 64-bit versions of Microsoft Windows there are 64-bit and 32-bit versions
of the command prompt and the Explorer Shell. It is very important that
when installing applications that the installers be started from a 64-bit
process. It is strongly recommended that the Add/Remove Programs Control
Panel be used to initiate installations on 64-bit Microsoft Windows operating
systems.
OpenAFS for Windows depends on
MIT
Kerberos for Windows (KFW) to provide Kerberos 5 functionality.
The recommended version of KFW for
OpenAFS for Windows 1.5.65 is version 3.2.2.
64-bit releases of KFW are available from
Secure Endpoints Inc.
Microsoft Hotfixes
Just as OpenAFS releases fixes on a continuous basis, so does Microsoft for their Windows products.
If they are security related or deemed to be critical to the entire user base these hot fixes are
pushed out via Microsoft's Windows Update service. However, if the fix is considered to be relevant
only to a small user community, the hot fix is made available via a posting to
Microsoft KnowledgeBase. When a new service pack is
issued all of the outstanding hot fixes are rolled up and regression tested together.
OpenAFS for Windows is highly dependent on the correct operation of Microsoft's SMB redirector
network file system driver and the Netbios communication stack. Over the years there have been
a large number of bugs found and fixed within these two subsystems. At the present time there
a hot fixes that have been issued by Microsoft which have yet to be bundled into a service pack
for XP 32-bit, XP 64-bit and Server 2003. Hot Fixes that are considered
critical for OpenAFS users are marked as such below.
Microsoft Windows Server 2003 and XP64
The current service pack level is 2.
Microsoft Windows XP
The current service pack level is 3.