General Overview of OpenAFS

 The CNF fileservers run OpenAFS (just AFS for short).

AFS (Andrew File System or A File System) is a distributed file system. The top
directory of the AFS hierarchy is the same all over the world, and is /afs.

Every institution in the world with AFS fileservers has its own unique "cell"
subdirectory under /afs. CNF's cell is named "cnf.cornell.edu" and is located at
/afs/cnf.cornell.edu

Within a cell, files are located on fileservers and are grouped within entities
named volumes. Volumes are partition of physical disks (of the data servers), in
which quotas are applied. Backups of data can also be performend on a per-volume
basis. And, data on readonly volumes can be replicated across multiple
fileservers.

 Authentication

 To have full access to AFS, you need to get a token. You will get tokens
automatically when logging into a CNF windows or linux machine with your Cornell
netid or guestid.

Your token has a limited lifetime, which is 8 hours at CNF. To check your
token's expiration date, do the following:

 Windows

         Click the lock icon in your system tray. Select the "Tokens" tab
        if it is not already selected. If there is no lock icon in your
        system tray, from the Start Menu, choose All Programs, OpenAFS, then
        Authentication.

 Linux

         From the "Applications" menu, choose "afstokens". Your tokens are
        displayed in the box labeled "My AFS Tokens".

        Or from the commandline, type "tokens" to see your tokens.