The Design and Implementation of an AFP/AFS Protocol Translator

Abstract

This paper gives an overview of the design and implementation of the AFP/AFS protocol translator currently in use at the University of Michigan. The protocol translator is an implementation of the AppleTalk protocol suite on BSD UNIX and BSD UNIX derivatives. The translator exploits currently existing UNIX TCP/IP mechanisms (such as sockets), and provides a programming interface to the session and transport layers of AppleTalk. The translator is designed to export AFS and UNIX local file system components as AFP volumes. This ability enables users to access files in the large AFS file system using the native Macintosh interface. Additionally, the translator software on the Macintosh provides Kerberos authentication to the AFS client (AFS Kerberos), reauthentication for expired tokens (AFS Log), and the advantages of the rich access control mechanisms provided by AFS.