[Adduser-devel] Bug#630340: deluser: Please add AFS to the list of excluded filesystems

[Geoffrey Thomas]

Package: adduser
Version: 3.112+nmu2

Hi,

Please add afs to EXCLUDE_FSTYPES in /etc/deluser.conf.

The AFS networked filesystem by nature is a global filesystem -- unlike 
NFS, where you mount a single export at a time, the AFS client creates 
/afs with all publicly-advertised cells, and you access files through e.g. 
/afs/athena.mit.edu/. Therefore, a recursive search of /afs for files 
owned by a certain user will effectively not terminate, since it will 
attempt to contact every listed AFS site worldwide (several of which may 
be unresponsive or slow), and due to AFS' permissions structure, 
--remove-all-files searching AFS as the local machine's root user will 
certainly not be useful.

(Personally, I'd think nfs belongs in EXCLUDE_FSTYPES too, but I can see 
arguments that it works in some environments, or that home directories 
live in NFS, and that therefore it shouldn't be a global default. But AFS 
should be excluded as a global default.)

Thanks,
-- 
Geoffrey Thomas
geofft at mit.edu