OpenAFS Workshop

1 December 2006

The OpenAFS Elders are pleased to announce that with the release of OpenAFS for Windows version 1.5.12 that Microsoft Windows Vista becomes an officially supported platform. All versions of Vista including "Home Basic", "Home Premium", "Business", and "Ultimate" are supported on both X86 and X86_64 CPU architectures.

The OpenAFS for Windows 1.5.12 release is the result of more than a year of close cooperation between the OpenAFS Gatekeepers and the Microsoft Windows Vista team. It is not a stretch to say that OpenAFS on Vista could not have been completed without the assistance of Microsoft's development staff and that Windows Vista would not be as solid and backward compatible an operating system without the regression reports filed by the OpenAFS community. The OpenAFS community filed reports that improved the quality not only of OpenAFS but also the Windows Explorer Shell, the Windows Networking stack, and the Windows File System.

Microsoft has granted OpenAFS for Windows 1.5.12 use of the "Works with Windows Vista" logo which indicates that OpenAFS for Windows 1.5.12 and its future derivatives are compatible with the Microsoft Windows Vista family of operating systems.

OpenAFS for Windows 1.5.12 provides all of the functionality users have learned to expect from OpenAFS on Windows XP SP2 and Windows Server 2003 SP1. In many respects, the performance of OpenAFS for Windows when run on Windows Vista surpasses that found on Windows XP SP2 or Windows Server 2003 SP1 due to performance optimizations within the Windows Vista CIFS client.

Other improvements in OpenAFS for Windows 1.5.12 include the incorporation of a new Network Identity Manager AFS credential module for use with MIT's Kerberos for Windows 3.1. This module provides end users with a powerful mechanism by which the acquisition and renewal of AFS tokens for multiple AFS cells from a single Kerberos 5 principal can be automated.

Future plans for OpenAFS for Windows include:

• Improved support for the Windows Vista User Account Control security feature
• A new OpenAFS Control Panel for managing the user's AFS experience including AFS Protection Service Groups
• A new OpenAFS Microsoft Management Console (MMC) for configuring the AFS Client Service
• Support for Unicode file and directory names
• An integrated off-line folder functionality that does not rely on the Windows CIFS client
• Replacement of the AFS SMB gateway implementation with a native Windows file system driver.
• Support for multiple data streams that are used for the storage of meta data that can be used to improve search and security functions in Windows Vista.
• Implementation of AFS Servers (File, Protection, Volume Database) on Windows Vista.

OpenAFS is an open source project whose future is bright. End user and grant organizations that wish to contribute to the future development of OpenAFS on Windows Vista or other platforms are encouraged to:

• contact the OpenAFS Elders
• contribute to the USENIX OpenAFS Fund
  USENIX OpenAFS Fund
  USENIX Association
  2560 Ninth St., Suite 215
  Berkeley, CA 94710

Commercial Support for OpenAFS for Windows is available from third party vendors including Secure Endpoints Inc. and Sine Nomine Associates.

For more information on OpenAFS point your browser at http://www.openafs.org