file corruption with arla

[Dr A V Le Blanc]

Jim Nance <jim at sailboat.acs.uncwil.edu> wrote:
> Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1998 16:18:59 -0400
> 
> What happens is that when I build software in an
> AFS directory tree I will eventually get corrupt files in the cache...
>     I initially assumed that the contents of the file were just trash, but
> I looked a little harder today.  It seems that the bad files actually
> contain good copies of other files.  Its like the mapping of cached file
> to cached file name has become corrupt.  I have seen this problem with
> several versions of arla and several versions of the 2.1.X linux kernel.

Assar has been (very kindly) looking at a number of problems which
I have had using arla on a Debian Linux 2.0.34 system.  Among those
I know of which are yet unsolved are these:

(1)  What I, like Jim Nance, thought were corrupted files, which
     turned out to be good copies of other files.
(2)  File times and dates in arla are not correct.  The timestamp
     is completely wrong, and a pattern is hard to discern.
(3)  I am having a problem with files in AFS which change, and
     which arla does not recognise as having changed even when
     I use 'fs flushv'.
(4)  Very often when there is no process using arla, it is not
     possible to unmount it without rebooting the system.

Arla is certainly a good deal more reliable (and more useful) than
when I first used it at arla-0.6!  Of the above problems, (1) and
(3) are fairly serious for me, (2) is difficult, but I can live with
it, and (4) is a relatively minor irritation.

Thanks to all who are helping, and to Assar in particular.

     -- Owen
     LeBlanc at mcc.ac.uk