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Install Guide

To increase security and reduce risk, Stanford is sunsetting its WebAFS service that is used to upload and download files to AFS.

To optimize AFS and make sure it is serving its intended functions, UIT has also taken these actions:

  • UIT no longer automatically provisions new faculty and staff members with AFS user volumes. New faculty or staff who need a personal user volume must submit a Help request.
    • This change does not impact existing AFS directories or the process for adding permissions for new individuals to those existing directories. Your existing space and everything in it remains intact.
    • This change does not impact the auto-provisioning of new AFS user volumes for students and postdocs.

​Class volumes do not expire and are kept indefinitely. This is an official academic policy, and any change to this policy must be considered by the Faculty Senate.

Pre-Installation Tasks

Architecture Support

AFS is available for a broad range of heterogeneous systems including UNIX, Linux, MacOS X, and Microsoft Windows. If you are using a PC or a Mac and want to access AFS directly, you should install the Stanford Desktop Tools provided for Windows or Macs and use the native AFS clients that are included.

Firewall Ports

If you are using a firewall, make sure that it allows UDP packets to ports 7000 through 7010. The AFS protocol uses UDP for communication with the server and the server has to be able to respond to client requests. (All of the ports in that range are not used by tools that we use at Stanford, but the above range will avoid any problems.)

Current AFS Version

To check the version of AFS you are currently running (assuming you already have AFS installed), use this command:

/usr/afsws/etc/rxdebug <hostname> 7001 -version
Getting AFS Software

As mentioned above Mac OS X and Windows clients are available with Stanford Desktop Tools. Most Linux distributions include OpenAFS package as part of the standard repository. For other systems the best source of the software is the OpenAFS web site.

AFS Cache Setup

Every AFS client must have a cache in which to store local copies of files brought over from the AFS server machines. The AFS daemon (afsd) consults /usr/vice/etc/cacheinfo at startup to learn the defaults for cache size and location and where to mount AFS locally. To set up your AFS cache:

Decide the size of your local AFS cache

Although AFS caches can be as large as 1 Gigabyte, a local cache of between 50 Megabytes and 200 Megabytes should be sufficient for most systems' needs.

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