AuriStor File System

UBIK Protocol The Location Service, Protection Service and Backup Service are replicated database services backed by the Ubik Protocol. The members of a Ubik quorum periodically elect a coordinator which processes write transactions and ensures that a majority of the peers are up to date. Location Service Use this category to discuss the installation, configuration and use of the Location Service (also known as the vlserver). The AuriStorFS Location Service provides manages location and policy information for fileservers and volumes; it also provides RXGK key distribution services. Authentication Use this category to discuss issues related to end user or host authentication including discussion of fs command line tool The commands in the fs command suite constitute the main administrative interface to the Auristor Cache Manager on a client machine. The Cache Manager is responsible for fetching data from file server when applications traverse the /afs file namespace. vos command line tool The commands in the vos command suite are the administrative interface to the Volume Server and Location Service. Cell administrators use vos commands to create, move, delete, replicate, back up and examine volumes, among other operations. The Location Service automatically records changes in volume status and location that result from vos commands. PAM Module The AuriStorFS session service module for PAM (pam_afs_session) obtains AuriStorFS tokens when a new session is opened for a user. It is a shared object that is dynamically loaded by the PAM subsystem as necessary, based on the system PAM configuration. Network Configuration Backup Service Migration From OpenAFS AFS cells deploying IBM AFS or OpenAFS clients and servers can migrate to AuriStorFS without a flag day. Use this category to discuss any subject related to interoperability and migration. Protection Service Use this category to discuss the installation, configuration and usage of the AuriStorFS Protection Service. The Protection Service maintains user name-to-id mappings, group name-to-id mappings, and group membership information. When processing a cache manager request the fileserver queries the Protection Service to fetch the Current Protection Set (requestor id and group memberships) for the requesting identity and that of the requesting host’s IPv4 address. The AuriStorFS Protection Service manages both cell administrator managed groups and per-user self-service groups. Volume Management Service Use the category to discuss the installation, configuration and use of the Volume Management Service (aka volserver). The Volume Management Service offers administrators the ability to manage the lifecycle of Volume object stores. Administrators can create, clone, copy, move, replicate, split, dump, restore and remove Volume object stores. Administrators can set Volume policies including maximum ACLs, root directory ACLs, mandatory security levels, ownership, and root directory ACLs. BOS Overseer Service Use this category to discuss the installation, configuration, and usage of the Basic Overseer Service (BOS) installed on each of the AuriStorFS servers. The BOS Service reduces the demands on system administrators by constantly monitoring its managed child processes. It can restart failed processes automatically and provides a convenient interface for administrative tasks. pts command line tool The pts command suite is the administrative interface to the Protection Servers. The Protection Servers store identity and group information used for evaluating access control lists (ACLs) by services such as the File Servers. bos command line tool The commands in the bos command suite are the administrative interface to the Basic OverSeer (BOS) Server, which runs on every file server machine to monitor the other server processes on it. If a process fails, the BOS Server can restart it automatically, taking into account interdependencies between it and other processes. The BOS Server frees system administrators from constantly monitoring the status of server machines and processes. Authorization | Access Control Use this category to discuss all things related to access control from file system access control lists to service specific metadata access rights. RxRPC The AuriStor File System and its related services communicate via a remote procedure call protocol known as Rx RPC. Although Rx RPC is implemented on top of the udp/ip transport, it is a stateful connected protocol. Rx RPC is designed to support hundreds of thousands of simultaneous connections. Each Rx RPC endpoint offers one or more Rx services. Each Rx service can be secured using one or more security classes. Rx RPC security classes such as RXGK provide mutual authentication, protection against man-in-the-middle attacks via channel bindings, combined identity authentication, perfect forward security, and encryption algorithm agility. The AuriStor Rx RPC implementation supports IPv6, large window sizes, and advanced TCP/IP congestion management strategies. Cache Managers Discussion of AuriStorFS cache managers on Linux, macOS, Windows, Solaris, AIX, or other platforms. Use this category to discuss installation, configuration, usage, and related topics specific to the clients. File Storage Service Use this category to discuss the installation, configuration and operation of the AuriStorFS file storage service (aka fileserver). The use of the name “file” service is a misnomer left over from the days of AFS 1.0 when the AFS fileserver re-exported local filesystems similar to NFS or CIFS. The AuriStorFS file storage service offers clients the ability to access or manipulate the contents of the Volume object stores. The /afs file namespace is constructed by the cache managers by parsing the contents of unique objects which are accessed by Object ID (aka File ID) not by path or directory entry name.