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Hi all,
I am looking into implementing OpenAFS over a
network comprised mainly of Windows clients. Having installed v1.3.84 on a
Linux server, the system is working fine so far. The ability to manipulate
volumes (such as moving between servers) to such an extent is particularly
useful!
I was wondering what the progress was as regards
byte-range locking. Having searched a lot on the subject of file locking
(and having had to learn a few things!), I have determined that OpenAFS utilises
advisory whole-file locking but not byte-range locking. Thus Windows
applications such as Microsoft Office which utilise byte-range locking are very
dangerous on an AFS network due to the fact that two applications can
read/write to a file. As an aside, why do Office apps use byte-range
locking when they effectively lock the whole file?
Having looked at archived mailing list messages
referring to Stage 1/2 locking in AFS, I was curious as to the status of any
work so far? Ideally (and assuming I'm vaguely right!) a mechanism whereby
a file is locked on the server to prevent writes (and either reads as well or
notifying the user the file is read-only as per Office) whilst enabling
byte-range locks in the cache would suit our purposes, since we use shared
drives where multiple users will access documents but must not be allowed to
change them at the same time. This I believe is referred to as Stage
1?
I get the impression that work on this would be at
a tangent to the way AFS works, however that Stage 1 is feasible?
Any corrections to my technical knowledge are
most welcome, and any thoughts on a timescale in which this might be done if it
can be done would be nice (though I do realise that's a hard thing to
answer!).
Without implementation of this feature I don't
think we will be able to use OpenAFS which is a shame because it does it's
job well! I don't think we can risk the possible loss of information it
could cause, even if it is a somewhat unlikely prospect.
Thanks for your time,
Dan
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