OpenAFS is an open-source implementation of the Andrew distributed file system (AFS). AFS was originally developed at Carnegie Mellon University, and developed as a commercial product by the Transarc Corporation, which was subsequently acquired by IBM. At LinuxWorld on 15 August 2000, IBM announced[1] their plans to release a version of their commercial AFS product under the IBM Public License. This became OpenAFS. Today, OpenAFS is actively developed for a wide range of operating system families including: AIX, MacOS, Darwin, HP-UX, Irix, Solaris, Linux, Microsoft Windows, FreeBSD, NetBSD.
OpenAFS History
Origins in the Andrew Project (1980s)
AFS originated at Carnegie Mellon University as part of the Andrew Project[2], named after Andrew Carnegie and Andrew Mellon. Development began around 1983 (with some sources citing the mid-1980s), initially under the name “Vice”[3] The project aimed to create a scalable, location-transparent distributed file system for a campus-wide computing environment, emphasizing features like client caching, scalability to many clients per server, and Kerberos-based authentication.
Early work involved collaboration with IBM. AFS version 1 (sometimes called the ITC distributed file system) was followed by a redesigned AFS version 2 (or simply AFS) in the late 1980s, which improved scalability and cache consistency. [4]
Commercialization by Transarc (Late 1980s–1990s)
In 1988 or 1989, Transarc Corporation was founded by Carnegie Mellon University employees to commercialize AFS. Transarc developed and supported server and client code for multiple operating systems, turning the research project into a commercial product.
Transarc was acquired by IBM in 1994[5] and later became part of IBM Pittsburgh Labs (around 1999). Under IBM/Transarc, AFS continued as a commercial offering with ongoing development.
Open Sourcing and Birth of OpenAFS (2000)
On 15 August 2000, at LinuxWorld, IBM announced plans to release the source code of its commercial AFS product under the IBM Public License (IPL 1.0, an OSI-approved open-source license). The code was released in November 2000 (with the open-source effort often dated to 1 November 2000), and the project was named OpenAFS. This made the codebase available for community development and maintenance. OpenAFS 1.0 followed shortly after, with its initial release on 4 November 2000. A group of volunteers and AFS enthusiasts, including those based at CMU, took on maintenance and further development.
Post-2000 Development and Community Governance
OpenAFS has been developed as a community-driven project since its open-sourcing, with contributions from volunteers, companies, and institutions. It supports a wide range of platforms, including various UNIX/Linux variants, macOS, Windows, and others. Development has focused on bug fixes, security improvements, kernel support (especially Linux), performance enhancements, and feature additions while maintaining compatibility with the AFS protocol.
Releases are tracked in series such as 1.0 (early), 1.2, 1.4, 1.6, and the current 1.8 series (with maintenance releases continuing into 2026, e.g., 1.8.16 in May 2026).
Ongoing Status
OpenAFS remains actively maintained as the open-source reference implementation of AFS with security and compatibility updates. It continues to be used in academic, research, and enterprise environments requiring a mature distributed file system.
Licensing
Copyright on many original source files is attributed to IBM and other contributors. Most of the source is covered by the IBM Public License [6], however several files in the tree are covered by university vanity licenses.
On Feb 5, 2026 Brad Topol (IBM) announced[7] [8] that IBM approved license changes of IBM Developerworks OpenAFS 1.0 from IBM Public License to GPLv2.
OpenAFS Foundation
The OpenAFS Foundation [9] was established on May 20, 2013 [10] as a non-profit organization dedicated to fostering the stability and growth of OpenAFS. It does so by attracting and increasing the community of OpenAFS users, fostering the OpenAFS community of experts and nurtures the evolution of OpenAFS [11][12].
Releases
OpenAFS releases are announced on the OpenAFS Announcements mailing list [13]. The current release is OpenAFS 1.8
| Version | Initial release | Latest release |
|---|---|---|
| 1.0 | 2000-11-04[14] | 2001-06-24[15] |
| 1.1 | 2001-07-16[16] | 2001-08-23[17] |
| 1.2 | 2001-09-12[18] | 2004-10-29[19] |
| 1.3 | 2002-02-16[20] | 2005-07-30[21] |
| 1.4 | 2005-08-21[22] | 2013-07-14[23] |
| 1.6 | 2010-12-16[24] | 2024-11-12[25] |
| 1.7 | 2011-09-16[26] | 2015-10-28[27] |
| 1.8 | 2016-12-07[28] | 2026-05-13[29] |
| 1.9 | 2020-10-02[30] | [to be determined] |
| 2.0 | [to be determined] | [to be determined] |
Unsupported Supported Latest version Preview version Future version | ||
Deployment
The existing user base includes small single server cells as well as large multinational deployments spanning academia, private research laboratories, government, and commercial entities. A small snapshot of the deployed AFS cells can be found by reviewing the contents of the file distributed with OpenAFS.
References
- ^ os-afs archived
- ^ What is Andrew Archived September 9, 2011, at the Wayback Machine – part of CMU’s official site chronicling the history of the Andrew Project.
- ^ Garfinkel, Simson L. (May–June 1989). “Ripples Across the Academic Market” (PDF). Technology Review. pp. 9–13. Archived (PDF) from the original on 9 October 2022. Retrieved 25 January 2016.
- ^ Andrew File System, Operating Systems: Three Easy Pieces
- ^ Acquisition to bolster IBM’s networking
- ^ IBM Public License 1.0
- ^ Announcement of License Changes to IBM Developerworks OpenAFS 1.0
- ^ Announcement of License Changes to IBM Developerworks OpenAFS 1.0 – PDF Full text
- ^ OpenAFS Foundation website
- ^ Articles of Incorporation of the OpenAFS Foundation, Inc. – PDF Full text
- ^ About the OpenAFS Foundation
- ^ OpenAFS Foundation presentation – EuroAFS Conference
- ^ OpenAFS Announcements mailing list
- ^ Release – OpenAFS 1.0
- ^ Release – OpenAFS 1.0.4a
- ^ Release – OpenAFS 1.1.0
- ^ Release – OpenAFS 1.1.1a
- ^ Release – OpenAFS 1.2.0
- ^ Release – OpenAFS 1.2.13
- ^ Release – OpenAFS 1.3.50
- ^ Release – OpenAFS 1.3.87
- ^ Release – OpenAFS 1.4.0
- ^ Release – OpenAFS 1.4.15
- ^ Release – OpenAFS 1.6.0
- ^ Release – OpenAFS 1.6.25
- ^ Release – OpenAFS 1.7.1
- ^ Release – OpenAFS 1.7.31
- ^ Release – OpenAFS 1.8.0
- ^ Release – OpenAFS 1.8.16
- ^ Release – OpenAFS 1.9.0
Bibliography
- Campbell, Richard (1 February 1998). Managing AFS (1st ed.). Prentice_Hall. p. 479. ISBN 978-0-13-802729-2.
- Milicchio, Franco; Gehrke, Wolfgang (7 June 2007). Distributed Services with OpenAFS (1st ed.). Springer_Science+Business_Media. p. 395. ISBN 978-3-540-36634-8.
External links
