OpenAFS for Windows September 2006 Status Report is now available

The OpenAFS for Windows September 2006 Status Report is now available:

http://www.secure-endpoints.com/talks/OpenAFS-Windows-Sep-2006-Status-Report.pdf

For the complete list of changes since the 1.2 release see: http://www.openafs.org/dl/openafs/1.5.8/winnt/afs-changes-since-1.2.txt

and of course be sure to read the Release Notes:
 http://www.openafs.org/dl/openafs/1.5.8/winnt/relnotes-frames.htm

As always I encourage all organizations and individuals who wish to support the development of OpenAFS for Windows to contact me. Financial contributions as well as in kind assistance are seriously appreciated.Tax deductible donations may be made via the OpenAFS account operated by Usenix (a 501c3 not for profit corporation.)

Kerberos for Windows 3.1 Beta update

KFW 3.1 Beta 1 has been tagged and installers have been built.

An official announcement is soon to come.

OpenAFS for Windows Large File Support is now available

Several weeks ago, OpenAFS.org announced the release of OpenAFS for Windows 1.5.3.  For Windows this release contains three major changes:

• First, there are significant changes in the CIFS server compatibility with the Windows CIFS client.   The result should be a major improvement in the interaction with the Explorer Shell.
• Second, this is the first AFS client on Windows to support the Inline Bulk Status RPCs.  The reason that this is a big deal is that instead of performing one RPC per directory entry the Windows client now performs one RPC for every 50 directory entries.  In addition, directory entries that are unreadable due to access permissions are temporarily cached as expired callbacks.  This significantly reduces the time required to obtain a directory listing or create/open/delete files.
• Third, for the first time the Windows AFS client is capable of supporting 64-bit Large Files.  You can now use AFS to store DVD images.

With all of these changes I bet you can't wait to get your hands on this release. 

At long last, Kerberos for Windows 3.1 is nearing release

After more than seven months of waiting MIT Kerberos for Windows 3.1 is finally going to begin beta testing. This release will fix all of the bugs that plagued KFW 3.0 Network Identity Manager 1.0. The memory leaks, the principal name rejections, the non-en_US locale problems. They are all gone.

In addition, KFW 3.1 will not crash on Windows XP64 WOW64 simply because Microsoft failed to actually export tickets from the LSA even though the functions succeed. (This problem is fixed in Vista Beta 2.)

Along with KFW 3.1 will be a new version of the AFS plug-in installer. Now that the NetIDMgr APIs are truly stable the AFS plug-in can be integrated into an OpenAFS release. That said, the KFW 3.1 release will install on 64-bit Windows systems but there will not be 64-bit native support until KFW 3.2.

The most dramatic changes in KFW 3.1 are in the NetIDMgr.  The user interface is much more fleshed out.  In the main window tickets can be sorted in arbitrary ways by clicking the column headers.   The View->Columns menu allows the user to select which ticket properties should be displayed.   The properties include everything from principal names to lifetimes to enc-types to key version numbers.  Tool Tips are supported for the toolbar.   The font used to display tickets is user selectable.   Identities can be added without obtaining credentials via the Global Identity Settings.   The Kerberos 5 Realm configuration editor is complete.   Kerberos 5 credentials can now be obtained from FILE: ccaches.  In general, the overall look and feel of the tool is significantly improved.

I look forward to being able to announce on Tuesday July 25th that the installers are available for download.

AFS & Kerberos Best Practice Workshop 2006

AFS & Kerberos Best Practice Workshop this week

http://workshop.openafs.org/afsbpw06/

MIT Kerberos for Windows 3.1 has been delayed

MIT Kerberos for Windows 3.1 has been delayed. The original anticipated delivery date was late January. Unfortunately things have taken a bit longer than expected. On the plus side the Network Identity Manager is feature complete. The next edition will include a wide variety of new tools for viewing the acquired credentials. In addition, all of the known bugs have been fixed. KFW 3.1 will be a significant release.

OpenAFS 1.4.1 release candidate 10 is available

OpenAFS 1.4.1 release candidate 10 is available. See http://lists.openafs.org/pipermail/openafs-announce/2006/000145.html for the announcement letter.

The dates and location for the AFS & Kerberos Best Practices Workshop have been announced. The workshop will be held at the University of Michigan during the week of June 12th to 16th. The program will be similar to last year. Monday there will be a full day tutorial on AFS installation and administration. On Tuesday there will be a full day tutorial on Kerberos installation and administration. Wednesday through Friday there will be a series of talks on AFS and Kerberos given by key developers and members of the user community. Registration fees are $100 per person for the talks and $100 per person for each of the tutorials.

Jeffrey Altman of Secure Endpoints Inc. will be giving a talk at this years NIST PKI R&D Workshop which is being held April 4-6 in Washington D.C.