Provided by: openafs-client_1.6.15-1ubuntu1.1_amd64 
NAME
afsd, afsd.fuse - Initializes the Cache Manager and starts related daemons
SYNOPSIS
afsd [-afsdb] [-backuptree]
[-biods <number of bkg I/O daemons (aix vm)>]
[-blocks <1024 byte blocks in cache>]
[-cachedir <cache directory>]
[-chunksize <log(2) of chunk size>]
[-confdir <configuration directory>]
[-daemons <number of daemons to use>]
[-dcache <number of dcache entries>] [-debug]
[-dynroot] [-dynroot-sparse] [-enable_peer_stats]
[-enable_process_stats] [-fakestat] [-fakestat-all]
[-files <files in cache>]
[-files_per_subdir <log(2) of files per dir> ]
[-help] [-logfile <Place to keep the CM log>]
[-mem_alloc_sleep] [-memcache]
[-mountdir <mount location>] [-nomount]
[-nosettime]
[-prealloc <number of 'small' preallocated blocks>]
[-rmtsys] [-rootvol <name of AFS root volume>]
[-rxbind] [-rxmaxmtu value for maximum MTU ]
[-rxpck value for rx_extraPackets ]
[-settime] [-shutdown]
[-splitcache <RW/RO ratio>]
[-stat <number of stat entries>] [-verbose]
[-disable-dynamic-vcaches]
[-volumes <number of volume entries>]
[-waitclose] [-rxmaxfrags <max # of fragments>]
DESCRIPTION
The afsd command initializes the Cache Manager on an AFS client machine by transferring AFS-related
configuration information into kernel memory and starting several daemons. afsd.fuse is an experimental
variant that initializes a FUSE-based Cache Manager instead of one based on a kernel module.
The afsd command performs the following actions:
• Sets a field in kernel memory that defines the machine's cell membership. Some Cache Manager-internal
operations and system calls consult this field to learn which cell to execute in. (The AFS command
interpreters refer to the /etc/openafs/ThisCell file instead.) This information is transferred into
the kernel from the /etc/openafs/ThisCell file and cannot be changed until the afsd program runs
again.
• Places in kernel memory the names and Internet addresses of the database server machines in the local
cell and (optionally) foreign cells. The appearance of a cell's database server machines in this list
enables the Cache Manager to contact them and to access files in the cell. Omission of a cell from
this list, or incorrect information about its database server machines, prevents the Cache Manager
from accessing files in it.
By default, the list of database server machines is transferred into the kernel from the
/etc/openafs/CellServDB file. Alternatively, when the -afsdb option is used, the list of database
server machines is taken from the DNS SRV or AFSDB records for each cell. After initialization, use
the fs newcell command to change the kernel-resident list without having to reboot.
• Mounts the root of the AFS filespace on a directory on the machine's local disk, according to either
the first field in the /etc/openafs/cacheinfo file (the default) or the afsd command's -mountdir
argument. The conventional value is /afs.
• Determines which volume to mount at the root of the AFS file tree. The default is the volume
"root.afs"; use the -rootvol argument to override it. Although the base (read/write) form of the
volume name is the appropriate value, the Cache Manager has a bias for accessing the read-only
version of the volume (by convention, "root.afs.readonly") if it is available.
• Configures the cache on disk (the default) or in machine memory if the -memcache argument is
provided. In the latter case, the afsd program allocates space in machine memory for caching, and the
Cache Manager uses no disk space for caching even if the machine has a disk.
• Defines the name of the local disk directory devoted to caching, when the -memcache argument is not
used. If necessary, the afsd program creates the directory (its parent directory must already exist).
It does not remove the directory that formerly served this function, if one exists.
The second field in the /etc/openafs/cacheinfo file is the source for this name. The standard value
is /usr/vice/cache. Use the -cachedir argument to override the value in the cacheinfo file.
• Sets the size of the cache. The default source for the value is the third field in the
/etc/openafs/cacheinfo file, which specifies a number of kilobytes.
For a memory cache, the following arguments to the afsd command override the value in the cacheinfo
file:
• The -blocks argument, to specify a different number of kilobyte blocks.
• The -dcache and -chunksize arguments together, to set both the number of dcache entries and the
chunk size (see below for definition of these parameters). In this case, the afsd program derives
cache size by multiplying the two values. Using this combination is not recommended, as it
requires the issuer to perform the calculation beforehand to determine the resulting cache size.
• The -dcache argument by itself. In this case, the afsd program derives cache size by multiplying
the value specified by the -dcache argument by the default memory cache chunk size of eight
kilobytes. Using this argument is not recommended, as it requires the issuer to perform the
calculation beforehand to determine the resulting cache size.
For satisfactory memory cache performance, the specified value must leave enough memory free to
accommodate all other processes and commands that can run on the machine. If the value exceeds the
amount of memory available, the afsd program exits without initializing the Cache Manager and
produces the following message on the standard output stream:
afsd: memCache allocation failure at <number> KB
where <number> is how many kilobytes were allocated just before the failure.
For a disk cache, use the -blocks argument to the afsd command to override the value in the cacheinfo
file. The value specified in either way sets an absolute upper limit on cache size; values provided
for other arguments (such as -dcache and -chunksize) never result in a larger cache. The afsd program
rejects any setting larger than 95% of the partition size, and exits after generating an error
message on the standard output stream, because the cache implementation itself requires a small
amount of disk space and overfilling the partition can cause the client machine to panic.
To change the size of a disk cache after initialization without rebooting, use the fs setcachesize
command; the setting persists until the afsd command runs again or the fs setcachesize command is
reissued. The fs setcachesize command does not work for memory caches.
• Sets the size of each cache chunk, and by implication the amount of data that the Cache Manager
requests at a time from the File Server (how much data per fetch RPC, since AFS uses partial file
transfer).
For a disk cache, a chunk is a Vn file and this parameter sets the maximum size to which each one can
expand. For a memory cache, each chunk is a collection of contiguous memory blocks. The default for
a disk cache is between 256 KB and 1 MB depending on the size of the cache. The default for a memory
cache is 8 KB.
To override the default chunk size for either type of cache, use the -chunksize argument to provide
an integer to be used as an exponent of two; see OPTIONS for details. For a memory cache, if total
cache size divided by chunk size leaves a remainder, the afsd program rounds down the number of
dcache entries, resulting in a slightly smaller cache.
• Sets the number of chunks in the cache. For a memory cache, the number of chunks is equal to the
cache size divided by the chunk size. For a disk cache, the number of chunks (Vn files) is set to
the largest of the following unless the -files argument is used to set the value explicitly:
• 100
• 1.5 times the result of dividing cache size by chunk size (cachesize/chunksize * 1.5)
• The result of dividing cachesize by 10 KB (cachesize/10240)
• Sets the number of dcache entries allocated in machine memory for storing information about the
chunks in the cache.
For a disk cache, the /usr/vice/cache/CacheItems file contains one entry for each Vn file. By
default, one half the number of these entries (but not more that 2,000) are duplicated as dcache
entries in machine memory for quicker access.
For a memory cache, there is no CacheItems file so all information about cache chunks must be in
memory as dcache entries. Thus, there is no default number of dcache entries for a memory cache;
instead, the afsd program derives it by dividing the cache size by the chunk size.
To set the number of dcache entries, use the -dcache argument; the specified value can exceed the
default limit of 2,000. Using this argument is not recommended for either type of cache. Increasing
the number of dcache entries for a disk cache sometimes improves performance (because more entries
are retrieved from memory rather than from disk), but only marginally. Using this argument for a
memory cache requires the issuer to calculate the cache size by multiplying this value by the chunk
size.
• Sets the number of stat entries available in machine memory for caching status information about
cached AFS files. The default is based on the size of the cache. Use the -stat argument to override
the default.
• If the -settime option is specified, then it randomly selects a file server machine in the local cell
as the source for the correct time. Every five minutes thereafter, the local clock is adjusted (if
necessary) to match the file server machine's clock. This is not enabled by default. It is
recommended, instead, that the Network Time Protocol Daemon be used to synchronize the time.
In addition to setting cache configuration parameters, the afsd program starts the following daemons. (On
most system types, these daemons appear as nameless entries in the output of the UNIX ps command.)
• One callback daemon, which handles callbacks. It also responds to the File Server's periodic probes,
which check that the client machine is still alive.
• One maintenance daemon, which performs the following tasks:
• Garbage collects obsolete data (for example, expired tokens) from kernel memory.
• Synchronizes files.
• Refreshes information from read-only volumes once per hour.
• Does delayed writes for NFS clients if the machine is running the NFS/AFS Translator.
• One cache-truncation daemon, which flushes the cache when free space is required, by writing cached
data and status information to the File Server.
• One server connection daemon, which sends a probe to the File Server every few minutes to check that
it is still accessible. If the -settime option is set, it also synchronizes the machine's clock with
the clock on a randomly-chosen file server machine. There is always one server connection daemon.
• One or more background daemons that improve performance by pre-fetching files and performing
background (delayed) writes of saved data into AFS.
The default number of background daemons is two, enough to service at least five simultaneous users
of the machine. To increase the number, use the -daemons argument. A value greater than six is not
generally necessary.
• On some system types, one Rx listener daemon, which listens for incoming RPCs.
• On some system types, one Rx event daemon, which reviews the Rx system's queue of tasks and performs
them as appropriate. Most items in the queue are retransmissions of failed packets.
• On machines that run AIX with virtual memory (VM) integration, one or more VM daemons (sometimes
called I/O daemons, which transfer data between disk and machine memory. The number of them depends
on the setting of the -biods and -daemons arguments:
• If the -biods argument is used, it sets the number of VM daemons.
• If only the -daemons argument is used, the number of VM daemons is twice the number of background
daemons.
• If neither argument is used, there are five VM daemons.
afsd.fuse is a variant of afsd that, instead of initializing a Cache Manager implemented as a kernel
module, initializes a FUSE-based AFS client. FUSE (Filesystem in USErspace) is a Linux-only mechanism
for providing a file system through a purely user-space daemon without a kernel module component.
afsd.fuse takes all of the same options as afsd.
This command does not use the syntax conventions of the AFS command suites. Provide the command name and
all option names in full.
CAUTIONS
Before using the -shutdown parameter, use the standard UNIX umount command to unmount the AFS root
directory (by convention, /afs). On Linux, unloading the AFS kernel module and then loading it again
before restarting AFS after -shutdown is recommended.
AFS has for years had difficulties with being stopped and restarted without an intervening reboot. While
most of these issues have been ironed out, stopping and restarting AFS is not recommended unless
necessary and rebooting before restarting AFS is still the safest course of action. This does not apply
to Linux; it should be safe to restart the AFS client on Linux without rebooting.
In contrast to many client-server applications, not all communication is initiated by the client. When
the AFS client opens a file, it registers a callback with the AFS server. If the file changes, the server
notifies the client that the file has changed and that all cached copies should be discarded. In order to
enable full functionality on the AFS client, including all command-line utilities, the following UDP
ports must be open on an firewalls between the client and the server:
fileserver 7000/udp
cachemanager 7001/udp (OpenAFS client. Arla uses 4711/udp)
ptserver 7002/udp
vlserver 7003/udp
kaserver 7004/udp (not needed with Kerberos v5)
volserver 7005/udp
reserved 7006/udp (for future use)
bosserver 7007/udp
Clients will also need to be able to contact your Kerberos KDC to authenticate. If you are using
kaserver and klog, you need to allow inbound and outbound UDP on ports >1024 (probably 1024<port<2048
would suffice depending on the number of simultaneous klogs).
Be sure to set the UDP timeouts on the firewall to be at least twenty minutes for the best callback
performance.
afsd.fuse was first introduced in OpenAFS 1.5.74. It is only available if OpenAFS was built with the
"--enable-fuse-client" configure switch. It should be considered experimental.
OPTIONS
-afsdb
Enable afsdb support. This will use DNS to lookup the SRV or AFSDB records and use that for the
database servers for each cell instead of the values in the CellServDB file. This has the advantage
of only needing to update one set of DNS records to reconfigure the AFS clients for a new database
server as opposed to touching all of the clients, and also allows one to access a cell without
preconfiguring its database servers in CellServDB. The format of SRV records is defined in RFC 5864,
and the AFSDB record format is in RFC 1183.
-backuptree
Prefer backup volumes for mountpoints in backup volumes. This option means that the AFS client will
prefer to resolve mount points to backup volumes when a parent of the current volume is a backup
volume. This is similar to the standard behaviour of preferring read-only volumes over read-write
volumes when the parent volume is a read-only volume.
-biods <number of I/O daemons>
Sets the number of VM daemons dedicated to performing I/O operations on a machine running a version
of AIX with virtual memory (VM) integration. If both this argument and the -daemons argument are
omitted, the default is five. If this argument is omitted but the -daemons argument is provided, the
number of VM daemons is set to twice the value of the -daemons argument.
-blocks <blocks in cache>
Specifies the number of kilobyte blocks to be made available for caching in the machine's cache
directory (for a disk cache) or memory (for a memory cache), overriding the default defined in the
third field of the /etc/openafs/cacheinfo file. For a disk cache, the value cannot exceed 95% of the
space available in the cache partition. If using a memory cache, do not combine this argument with
the -dcache argument, since doing so can possibly result in a chunk size that is not an exponent of
2.
-cachedir <cache directory>
Names the local disk directory to be used as the cache. This value overrides the default defined in
the second field of the /etc/openafs/cacheinfo file.
-chunksize <chunk size>
Sets the size of each cache chunk. The integer provided, which must be from the range 0 to 30, is
used as an exponent on the number 2. If not supplied, a default chunksize will be determined based on
the cache type and cache size, and will range from 13 (8KB) for memory cache and 18 to 20 (256 KB to
1MB) for disk cache. A value of 0 or less, or greater than 30, sets chunk size to the appropriate
default. Values less than 10 (which sets chunk size to a 1 KB) are not recommended. Combining this
argument with the -dcache argument is not recommended because it requires that the issuer calculate
the cache size that results.
-chunksize is an important option when tuning for performance. Setting this option to larger values
can increase performance when dealing with large files.
-confdir <configuration directory>
Names a directory other than the /etc/openafs directory from which to fetch the cacheinfo, ThisCell,
and CellServDB configuration files.
-daemons <number of daemons to use>
Specifies the number of background daemons to run on the machine. These daemons improve efficiency
by doing prefetching and background writing of saved data. This value overrides the default of 2,
which is adequate for a machine serving up to five users. Values greater than 6 are not generally
more effective than 6.
Note: On AIX machines with integrated virtual memory (VM), the number of VM daemons is set to twice
the value of this argument, if it is provided and the -biods argument is not. If both arguments are
omitted, there are five VM daemons.
-dcache <number of dcache entries>
Sets the number of dcache entries in memory, which are used to store information about cache chunks.
For a disk cache, this overrides the default, which is 50% of the number of Vn files (cache chunks).
For a memory cache, this argument effectively sets the number of cache chunks, but its use is not
recommended, because it requires the issuer to calculate the resulting total cache size (derived by
multiplying this value by the chunk size). Do not combine this argument with the -blocks argument,
since doing so can possibly result in a chunk size that is not an exponent of 2.
-debug
Generates a highly detailed trace of the afsd program's actions on the standard output stream. The
information is useful mostly for debugging purposes.
-dynroot
The standard behaviour of the AFS client without the -dynroot option is to mount the root.afs volume
from the default cell on the /afs path. The /afs folder and root.afs volume traditionally shows the
folders for ThisCell and other cells as configured by the AFS cell administrator.
The -dynroot option changes this. Using this option, the AFS client does not mount the root.afs
volume on /afs. Instead it uses the contents of the CellServDB file to populate the listing of cells
in /afs. This is known as a DYNamic ROOT. A cell is not contacted until the path /afs/cellname if
accessed. This functions similarly to an automounter. The main advantage of using -dynroot is that
the AFS client will start properly even without network access, whereas the client not using -dynroot
will freeze upon startup if cannot contact the default cell specified in ThisCell and mount the
root.afs volume. Dynamic root mode is also sometimes called travelling mode because it works well for
laptops which don't always have network connectivity.
Two advantages of not using dynroot are that listing /afs will usually be faster because the contents
of /afs are limited to what the AFS administrator decides and that symbolic links are traditionally
created by the AFS administrator to provide a short name for the cell (i.e. cellname.domain.com is
aliased to cellname). However, with dynroot, the local system administrator can limit the default
contents of /afs by installing a stripped-down CellServDB file, and if dynroot is in effect, the
CellAlias file can be used to provide shortname for common AFS cells which provides equivalent
functionality to the most commonly used symbolic links.
When the dynamic root (-dynroot, -dynroot-sparse) and the fake stat (-fakestat, -fakestat-all) modes
are in effect, the cache manager provides a special directory named /afs/.:mount which allows access
to volumes by volume name or ID. The /afs/.:mount directory appears to be empty, but any name in the
form of cell:volume will be resolved as a read-write mount point to the specified volume. This
dynamic mount feature is recommended only for temporary access to a volume. Linux-based cache
managers provide this dynamic mount feature even when dynamic root (-dynroot, -dynroot-sparse) is not
in effect.
-dynroot-sparse
In addition to operating in the manner described for dynroot above, cells other than the local cell
are not shown by default until a lookup occurs. Cell aliases as set in the CellAliases file are shown
as normal, although they may appear to be dangling links until traversed.
-enable_peer_stats
Activates the collection of Rx statistics and allocates memory for their storage. For each connection
with a specific UDP port on another machine, a separate record is kept for each type of RPC
(FetchFile, GetStatus, and so on) sent or received. To display or otherwise access the records, use
the Rx Monitoring API.
-enable_process_stats
Activates the collection of Rx statistics and allocates memory for their storage. A separate record
is kept for each type of RPC (FetchFile, GetStatus, and so on) sent or received, aggregated over all
connections to other machines. To display or otherwise access the records, use the Rx Monitoring API.
-fakestat
Return fake values for stat calls on cross-cell mounts. This option makes an "ls -l" of /afs much
faster since each cell isn't contacted, and this and the -fakestat-all options are useful on Mac OS X
so that the Finder program doesn't try to contact every AFS cell the system knows about.
Note that, for the purposes of -fakestat, local cellular mounts count as "cross-cell" mounts. That
is, if the local cell is "localcell", a mount for "localcell:root.cell" will count as a "cross-cell"
mount and so stat calls for it will be faked with -fakestat. In practice, local cellular mounts are
rare and generally discouraged, so this should not generally make a difference.
-fakestat-all
Return fake values for stat calls on all mounts, not just cross-cell mounts. This and the -fakestat
options are useful on Mac OS X so that the Finder program doesn't hang when browsing AFS directories.
-files <files in cache>
Specifies the number of Vn files to create in the cache directory for a disk cache, overriding the
default that is calculated as described in DESCRIPTION. Each Vn file accommodates a chunk of data,
and can grow to a maximum size of 64 KB by default. Do not combine this argument with the -memcache
argument.
-files_per_subdir <files per cache subdirectory>
Limits the number of cache files in each subdirectory of the cache directory. The value of the option
should be the base-two log of the number of cache files per cache subdirectory (so 10 for 1024 files,
14 for 16384 files, and so forth).
-help
Prints the online help for this command. All other valid options are ignored.
-logfile <log file location>
This option is obsolete and no longer has any effect.
-mem_alloc_sleep
This option is obsolete and no longer has any effect.
-memcache
Initializes a memory cache rather than a disk cache. Do not combine this flag with the -files
argument.
-mountdir <mount location>
Names the local disk directory on which to mount the root of the AFS filespace. This value overrides
the default defined in the first field of the /etc/openafs/cacheinfo file. If a value other than the
/afs directory is used, the machine cannot access the filespace of cells that do use that value.
-nomount
Do not mount AFS on startup. The afs global mount must be mounted via some other means. This is
useful on Mac OS X where /afs is sometimes mounted in /Network/afs like other network file systems.
-nosettime
This is enabled by default. It prevents the Cache Manager from synchronizing its clock with the clock
on a server machine selected at random by checking the time on the server machine every five minutes.
This is the recommended behavior; instead of the AFS Cache Manager, the Network Time Protocol Daemon
should be used to synchronize the system time.
-prealloc <number of preallocated blocks>
Specifies the number of pieces of memory to preallocate for the Cache Manager's internal use. The
default initial value is 400, but the Cache Manager dynamically allocates more memory as it needs it.
-rmtsys
Initializes an additional daemon to execute AFS-specific system calls on behalf of NFS client
machines. Use this flag only if the machine is an NFS/AFS translator machine serving users of NFS
client machines who execute AFS commands.
-rootvol <name of AFS root volume>
Names the read/write volume corresponding to the root directory for the AFS file tree (which is
usually the /afs directory). This value overrides the default of the "root.afs" volume. This option
is ignored if -dynroot is given.
-rxbind
Bind the Rx socket (one interface only).
-rxmaxfrags <max # of fragments>
Set a limit for the maximum number of UDP fragments Rx will send per Rx packet, and the maximum
number of fragments Rx thinks it can receive when advertising its receive size to peers. Practically
speaking, setting this option means that you will not see Rx data packets that are broken into more
than N fragments, where N is the value specified for this option. Setting this option to 1
effectively prevents fragmentation, and can be useful when dealing with networking equipment that
does not properly handle UDP fragments.
Note that this option just specifies a maximum. The actual number of fragments seen on the wire may
be less than what is specified, depending on the configuration of the peer.
-rxmaxmtu <value for maximum MTU>
Set a limit for the largest maximum transfer unit (network packet size) that the AFS client on this
machine will be willing to transmit. This switch can be used where an artificial limit on the network
precludes packets as large as the discoverable MTU from being transmitted successfully.
-rxpck <value for rx_extraPackets>
Set rx_extraPackets to this value. This sets the number of extra Rx packet structures that are
available to handle Rx connections. This value should be increased if the "rxdebug 127.0.0.1 -port
7001 -rxstats" command shows no free Rx packets. Increasing this value may improve OpenAFS client
performance in some circumstances.
-settime
Enable native AFS time synchronization. This option is the opposite of -nosettime and cannot be used
with the -nosettime option.
-shutdown
Shuts down the Cache Manager. Before calling afsd with this option, unmount the AFS file system with
umount.
-splitcache <RW/RO Ratio>
This allows the user to set a certain percentage of the AFS cache be reserved for read/write content
and the rest to be reserved for read-only content. The ratio should be written as a fraction. For
example, "-splitcache 75/25" devotes 75% of your cache space to read/write content and 25% to read-
only.
-stat <number of stat entries>
Specifies the number of entries to allocate in the machine's memory for recording status information
about the AFS files in the cache. If this value is not specified, the number of stat entires will be
autotuned based on the size of the disk cache.
-verbose
Generates a detailed trace of the afsd program's actions on the standard output stream.
-volumes <number of volume entries>
Specifies the number of memory structures to allocate for storing volume location information. The
default value is 200.
-disable-dynamic-vcaches
By default, dynamic vcache overrides the -stat option by using the value of -stat (or the default) as
the initial size of the stat (or vcache) pool and increases the pool dynamically as needed on
supported platforms. This flag will disable this new functionality and honor the '-stat' setting.
-waitclose
Has no effect on the operation of the Cache Manager. The behavior it affected in previous versions of
the Cache Manager, to perform synchronous writes to the File Server, is now the default behavior. To
perform asynchronous writes in certain cases, use the fs storebehind command.
EXAMPLES
The afsd command is normally included in the machine's AFS initialization file, rather than typed at the
command shell prompt. For most disk caches, the appropriate form is
% /etc/openafs/afsd
The following command is appropriate when enabling a machine to act as an NFS/AFS Translator machine
serving more than five users.
% /etc/openafs/afsd -daemons 4 -rmtsys
The following command initializes a memory cache and sets chunk size to 16 KB (2^14).
% /etc/openafs/afsd -memcache -chunksize 14
PRIVILEGE REQUIRED
The issuer must be logged in as the local superuser root.
SEE ALSO
fs_newcell(1), afs_cache(5), CellServDB(5), cacheinfo(5)
RFC 5864 <http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc5864.txt> RFC 1183 <http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1183.txt>
COPYRIGHT
IBM Corporation 2000. <http://www.ibm.com/> All Rights Reserved.
This documentation is covered by the IBM Public License Version 1.0. It was converted from HTML to POD
by software written by Chas Williams and Russ Allbery, based on work by Alf Wachsmann and Elizabeth
Cassell.
OpenAFS 2021-04-01 AFSD(8)