[OpenAFS] Upgrading to newer OpenAFS procedure docs

[Susan Litzinger]

We are in the process of updating from an older version of OpenAFS,
1.4.14, to a more recent version, 1.6.16.

The new 1.6.16 servers have been added to our current cell and we are
moving the volumes from the older servers to the new ones. We know that we
have to move the various servers, including the VL Server, and root.cell
volume from the old servers to the new ones before being able to shut off
the old servers. I'm trying to find documentation that describes how to do
that.

Has anyone done this recently? Is there any documentation that describes
the proper sequence?

TIA!

[Benjamin Kaduk]

Post by Susan Litzinger
We are in the process of updating from an older version of OpenAFS,
1.4.14, to a more recent version, 1.6.16.
The new 1.6.16 servers have been added to our current cell and we are
moving the volumes from the older servers to the new ones. We know that we
have to move the various servers, including the VL Server, and root.cell
volume from the old servers to the new ones before being able to shut off
the old servers. I'm trying to find documentation that describes how to do
that.

The main obstacle is usually just the running database servers, including
both VL server and PT server (and also potentially a few others if in use
at your site, for the buserver, updateserver, etc.) AFAIK root.cell does
not need to be hosted on a fileserver colocated with a dbserver (but is
just conventionally done so during normal operation for maximum
resiliency).

A key question is whether the dbservers will be getting new IP addresses as
part of this upgrade -- that requires a somewhat more complicated
procedure, whereas if the same IP addresses are used it's pretty
straightforward to just cycle machines in/out of active service.
Other factors that come into play is whether all clients are known and/or
under the control of central administrators, so that whether they are using
AFSDB or SRV records or a static CellServDB to locate dbservers can be
known.

Post by Susan Litzinger
Has anyone done this recently? Is there any documentation that describes
the proper sequence?

The situation tends to be fairly customized for each site (and is not a
terribly common operation), so I don't know of any formal documentation.
The thread starting at
https://lists.openafs.org/pipermail/openafs-info/2017-January/042007.html
is probably the most recent discussion (n.b. the TLS certificate for that
site recently expired so you'll have to click through a cert warning at the
moment; other mail-archive sites may have the content as well, for the
thread subject "procedure for changing database server IP address").

-Ben

[Joyce, Stephen]

Post by Benjamin Kaduk
The situation tends to be fairly customized for each site (and is not a
terribly common operation), so I don't know of any formal documentation.
The thread starting at
https://lists.openafs.org/pipermail/openafs-info/2017-January/042007.html
is probably the most recent discussion

If it helps at all, that procedure, with Jeff Altman's reminder (quoted
below), worked exactly as needed *for me* for that situation. As Ben
mentioned, unique site conditions may mean it won't work for you without
changes.

Post by Benjamin Kaduk

You will also need to update the configuration and restart the
fileservers. The fileservers are clients of the PT and VL servers but
use the server CellServDB file for their server info.

-Ben