# Release Notes

# AFS Control Center Release Notes

## Introduction

This section contains important information about the AFS Control Center component of AFS for Windows, version 3.6. The AFS Control Center provides two powerful graphical user interface (GUI) tools to assist AFS system administrators in AFS cell administration: the AFS Server Manager and the AFS Account Manager.

## AFS Control Center Installation Requirements

Your system must meet the following hardware, software, and administrative privilege requirements to install the AFS Control Center component of AFS for Windows.

### Hardware

The hardware requirements for installing the AFS Control Center are:

- A PC using an 80486/66 MHz (or faster) microprocessor or Pentium-based microprocessor

- At least 16 MB of RAM

- A hard disk with at least 4 MB of available disk space

### Software

The software requirements for installing the AFS Control Center are:

- Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 with Service Pack 4 or Service Pack 5

### Administrative Privilege Requirement

You must be a member of the local Administrators group on your Windows system in order to install the AFS Control Center.

## Product Notes

This section highlights important general information about the AFS Control Center component of AFS for Windows, version 3.6.

### The AFS Control Center Must Be Installed in a Directory Whose Path Contains Only ANSI Characters

The AFS for Windows software can only be installed in a directory whose path contains only ANSI characters, for example the default directory C:\Program Files.

### Temporary Files

The AFS Control Center for Windows occasionally creates temporary files. To control where such files are created, set your environment variable (TMP or TEMP) to the fully qualified path of the preferred temporary directory. If you do not specify a temporary directory, then any temporary files are created in the current working directory of the process that creates the files.

### National Language Support for the AFS Control Center

AFS provides national language support for the AFS Control Center graphical user interface (GUI) tools and documentation, including support for bidirectional scripts (Hebrew, Arabic, etc.). The language strings installed are determined by your machine's system default locale, as specified in the Control Panel's Regional Settings Properties dialog box.

Note: | The system default locale for a machine can be different than the user locale (specified by a user) on the machine. However, the language strings installed with AFS for Windows are always determined by the system default locale.

If no language strings exist for the current locale, then English language strings are installed by default.

### The kpwvalid Password Strength Checker Is Not Used on Windows Systems

When an AFS user password is changed from a Windows system, the kpwvalid program is not used to check the quality of the new password. (On UNIX systems, if a kpwvalid program exists in the same directory as the kpasswd program, the kpwvalid program checks the quality of every new user password.)

### Tokens Obtained for Control Center Applications Expire after 25 Hours

In order to use either the AFS Server Manager or the AFS Account Manager, users must obtain AFS tokens. The lifetime of tokens obtained in either application is always 25 hours and 25 minutes, regardless of the Maximum Ticket Lifetime designated for the user.

### Server Manager Displays All Server Entries Referenced in the Volume Location Database (VLDB)

The AFS Server Manager displays a server icon for every server entry in the Volume Location Database (VLDB). If an AFS server has been decommissioned, but its VLDB entry has not been removed, then the Server Manager continues to display an icon for the server.

To remove an obsolete AFS File Server entry from the VLDB on a Database Server running AFS version 3.5 or later, issue the following command:

    vos changeaddr <ip_address> -remove

where ip_address is the Internet Protocol (IP) address of the server machine that has been decommissioned.

On AFS Database Servers running a version of AFS older than version 3.5, there is currently no command for removal of obsolete server entries in the VLDB. However, to prevent the AFS Server Manager from displaying decommissioned servers, you can modify the Windows NT Registry so that the AFS Server Manager disregards all machines with IP addresses of a specified pattern.

To prevent the AFS Server Manager from displaying server machines with IP addresses of a specified pattern, use the following steps to modify the Windows NT Registry:

1. From the Start menu, choose Run. In the Open box, type `regedit`, and then choose OK. The Windows NT Registry Editor opens.

2. Right-click the \\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\TransarcCorporation\AFS Control Center key. From the context menu that opens, choose New, and then choose DWORD Value. A New Value entry is added to the key.

3. Specify the name of the new value entry by typing `IgnoreBadAddrs` as the new value.

4. Double-click the new IgnoreBadAddrs entry. The Edit DWORD Value dialog box opens.

5. In the Value data box, specify in hexadecimal notation the IP address or range of IP addresses to ignore. For example, to instruct the AFS Server Manager to disregard any machines listed in the VLDB with IP addresses match the pattern 10.0.0.*, enter `0A0000FF` in the Value data box. (The hexadecimal value FF represents a wildcard.)

6. Choose OK to close the Edit DWORD value box and save the new registry entry.

7. Close the Registry Editor.

Note:

To take advantage of this feature, it is advisable to change the IP addresses of any decommissioned servers in the VLDB to easily recognizable unused IP addresses in a specific range, for example 10.0.0.1, 10.0.0.2, 10.0.0.3 etc. Then add the IgnoreBadAddrs registry entry as described in the previous steps to instruct the AFS Server Manager to ignore all IP addresses within the specified range.

## Limitations and Restrictions

There are currently no known limitations and restrictions for the AFS Control Center component of AFS for Windows, version 3.6.

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