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AFS User 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.

We have a small collection of documentation about AFS and its uses at Stanford, aimed at expert users and campus sysadmins. This documentation aims to give practical information about working with AFS, including answers to common questions and problems, while providing some of the background concepts behind the file system.

User Documentation

Tokens: Your Identity to the File System

Since AFS is a networked file system, you must establish your identity not only on your local machine, but also to all the machines in the AFS cell.

File Permissions and AFS ACLs

One of the biggest differences between Unix and AFS file space is the way file permissions are handled.

Your Volume: The Home for your Home Directory

Information about your user volume, as well as a description of what an AFS volume is.

Quota: How Much? How to tell?

Your user volume has a limited quota associated with it. Information about how much this quota is, and how to tell how much of it you've used in any volume.

Backup Images: Recovering Your Own Files

Almost all AFS volumes have a backup image from the night before available. Here's how to find it and use it.

Advanced Topics

Serving Web Pages from AFS

Getting your webserver to serve content out of AFS requires some specialized knowledge about how AFS works if your content is not world visible.

Automated Authentication to AFS

How to run other applications besides web servers with authenticated access to AFS. Includes how to request a srvtab and how to use the srvtab to authenticate a particular application to AFS once you have one.

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