On Mon, Oct 09, 2000 at 03:36:02PM -0400, Laszlo Vecsey wrote:
> On Mon, 9 Oct 2000, Jan Harkes wrote:
> 
> > The steps for adding a new user are well described in chapter 10 of the
> > Coda File System User and System Administrators Manual.
> > 
> >     http://www.coda.cs.cmu.edu/doc/html/manual/x2572.html
> 
> Is that sequence of commands necessary for creating each and every user
> account, even when tied into kerberos?

I believe so, the servers use the pdb-databases to figure out if a given
user is referred to by an ACL, or `what can this user do'. The kerberos
authentication only replaces the authentication part, `who is this user'.

> It sounds like currently scripts need to be made to take a list of users
> from /etc/passwd or kerberos, and generate a set sized volume for each
> user.

Volumes have no set size unless quota's are used.

> The per-volume user recommendation is there because of the per-volume file
> locking that currently goes on, but will that be the case in the future?
> i.e., I'm hoping eventually there can be a /home volume and quota rules so
> space is used more effectively.

Ehh, how would that use space more effectively?

The volumes are logical containers of groups of related files, and they
are so central in the Coda/AFS design that they are here to stay. At the
moment a volume has one `per-volume' quota, that way we don't need to
deal with the complexities of per-user quotas (accounting hard-linked
files to the correct user).

A volume confines the effects of server-server and reintegration
conflicts. They are the basis on which authenticated client-server
connections are built. The volume defines which server(group) is
responsible for replicating files. They are the foundation for backups,
so that you don't have to restore the complete /coda tree from tape if
something goes wrong.

It will at some point become possible to transparently migrate volumes
to other servers or grow/shrink the replication factor to balance server
load (or disk usage).

Volumes are probably the next best thing to grilled cheese sandwiches.

Jan