[518] in Moira
Re: Moira with AFS
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Richard Basch)
Mon Jan 4 06:42:16 1993
Date: Mon, 04 Jan 93 06:41:46
From: probe@MIT.EDU (Richard Basch)
To: Adrian Collins <Adrian.Collins@nessie.mcc.ac.uk>
Cc: moiradev@MIT.EDU
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> Subject: Moira with AFS
> To: probe@MIT.EDU
> Date: Mon, 4 Jan 93 9:34:40 GMT
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> From: Adrian Collins <Adrian.Collins@nessie.mcc.ac.uk>
> Sender: Adrian.Collins@nessie.mcc.ac.uk
>
> Hello,
>
> I have been given the task of evaluating moira on a cluster of HPs using
> AFS as part of a registration system project that is taking place here at
> Manchester University. I was told that you have managed to interface moira
> to AFS. I've also been having problems getting moira to compile on the HP's
> SVRish UNIX.
>
> What platform is your version of moira running on? Also, what flavour
> of UNIX (BSD or SVR)?
>
> Any help you could give me would be greatly appreciated.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Adrian
>
> --
> Adrian Collins, MCC Network Unit, The University, Manchester M13 9PL, UK
> (061)-275-6009 or for those of the computer age: ade@mcc.ac.uk
>
> "How long a minute is depends on which side of the bathroom door you're on"
Our version of Moira was built on BSD-style platforms; the server runs on VAX/BSD and DEC/Ultrix
(the DEC/Ultrix version that we have was only recently completed, and is probably very different
from the one available through DEC/Athena). The clients were all built on various platforms
(eg. IBM RISC/6000) using the BSD compatibility libraries. I know that HP has a libBSD.a, so I
would suggest linking your programs with that (and defining whatever symbol is necessary to use
BSD-style structures in the system include files).
As for the actual interfaces between Moira and AFS, I will have to check on their availability.
I know the code that actually interfaces Moira with AFS, doing the "incremental" updates to AFS
is only subject to the standard MIT copyright distribution restrictions, but I have to see
whether we have the code readily accessible. You only need to be an AFS-binary licensee to be
able to use this code (as it does require linking against AFS libraries and include files). A
lot of the incremental operations are actually done in Perl scripts, so that they can easily be
modified when new filesystem types are added to the Moira database. All of the prdb updates are
done in the "afs.incr" module which gets called for all AFS-related operations (better error
checking/correction could be done by avoiding the use of calling "pts"). We still have a couple
outstanding bugs with the prdb updates (apparently, I managed to introduce a case where we might
get a Moira query being generated within a Moira callback, and that is not allowed).
However, we sometimes find the need to bulk-load the protection database from the Moira
database. This is not an automated operation and requires extracting all the personal group
information and special entries from the prdb, dumping the Moira database into a new prdb, and
merging in the personal/special entries, and then replacing the prdb with the newly created
version. The program that does the bulk dump from Moira to the AFS prdb uses many AFS internal
routines (and has modules that were based on Transarc source code); we used and modified their
proprietary code so that we could create a new prdb in about 1 hour as opposed to several weeks
(the code bypasses about seven layers of code in most cases, and avoids all Ubik activity).
This bulk-update code is not available unless Transarc sends us the "ok" to give it to you.
-Richard
