Problems with arla-0.24 and Linux 2.2.9

[Dr A V Le Blanc]

I've been having increasing problems with arla hanging and
causing system hangs on linux 2.2 kernels in recent months.
I sent in a note recently about arla 0.23 and linux 2.2.7 or 2.2.8,
I forget which.  It was suggested that 0.23 had timing problems
which should be fixed in 0.24.

I'm now running arla 0.24 with linux 2.2.9 on a PII 350.  Naturally
I put in the local CellServDB and ThisCell before starting it.
I also (from paranoia) deleted the contents of the cache
directory.  I've mounted /afs, and I can do an 'ls /afs' without
a problem.  But 'ls /afs/mcc.ac.gb' (the local cell) produced no
response after 15 minutes on an idle system.  I've stopped
arla twice (kill arlad, umount /afs, and unload the module) and
restarted it.  On the third restart, the ls worked immediately.

It seems that some of the problems with 0.23 persist in 0.24.
This kind of problem is particularly hard to diagnose because it
is so erratic.  Has anyone else had problems with 0.24, particularly
with recent linux 2.2 kernels?

     -- Owen
     LeBlanc at mcc.ac.uk