OpenAFS 1.8 Released, Drops Pre-2.6 Linux Support

It's been a number of years since the last major update to the OpenAFS Andrew distributed file-system but there's a Friday the 13th release today introducing the shiny new v1.8 release.

OpenAFS continues to support all major operating systems from Windows to BSDs to Linux and macOS, but the OpenAFS 1.8 release does finally drop support for pre-2.6 Linux kernels. OpenAFS 1.8 also brings RPM packaging improvements.

For those wondering what's new with this distributed file-system that was much more common in the past:

The new stable relase branch includes sweeping changes throughout the tree; please consult the release notes for full details. Very brief highlights include: a new KeyFileExt for long-term keys that supersedes rxkad.keytab, a new (logrotate-compatible) log rotation scheme, pthreaded ubik servers enabled by default along with other pthread conversions, many additional code quality fixes spotted by static analysis tools, the use of Heimdal's roken and crypto support libraries, and API and file support for many configuration knobs. This release also switches the client to use encryption by default, to match many distribution packages and the Windows client, and removes support for Linux versions prior to 2.6.

There's a lot of work all around with this being the first major OpenAFS stable release in six years.

More details on OpenAFS 1.8 are available from the release announcement or OpenAFS.org.