AFS(5)

✨ AFS(5) — afs 💅

okay bestie, gather round, because this is the intro to every file that has to live on the local disk of AFS server and client machines 🫶 this one's called afs, it's the "Introduction to AFS files", and it's basically the group chat roster of every file your machine is keeping around. no cap.

---

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

so like, a bunch of files have to sit on the local disk of AFS server and client machines. they're not random, they fall into these general categories, and honestly? each one is serving a whole different vibe:

• Configuration files — these define the configuration parameters for specific server and kernel processes, like the Backup System Tape Coordinator or the Cache Manager 🔧
• Administrative files — they list info used in administering server machines, like a list of privileged users or server encryption keys 👑
• Cache-related files — on client machines, these hold cached data or info about cached data 🧺
• Log files — tracing messages about the operation of a specific process. receipts, basically 💀
• Database files — they contain database records used to administer the AFS cell 🗄️
• Controller files — these control the behavior of a process 🎛️
• Volume header files — these represent AFS volumes on server partitions 📦

for the format and contents of each individual file, go read its own reference page, iykyk.

note for Windows users: some files described in this document possibly do not exist on machines running a Windows operating system. also, Windows uses a backslash (\) rather than a forward slash (/) to separate the elements in a pathname. just so you're not out here confused 🙈

---

🔥 SEE ALSO 🔥

here's the whole friend group, sorted by category, periodt:

Configuration files:

• BosConfig(5)
• CellServDB(5)
• NetInfo(5)
• NetRestrict(5)
• ThisCell(5)
• butc(5)
• cacheinfo(5)
• krb.conf(5)
• sysid(5)
• tapeconfig(5)
• uss(5)
• uss_bulk(5)

Administrative files:

• KeyFile(5)
• KeyFileExt(5)
• UserList(5)

Cache-related files:

• afs_cache(5)

Log files:

• AuthLog(5)
• BackupLog(5)
• BosLog(5)
• FileLog(5)
• SalvageLog(5)
• VLLog(5)
• VolserLog(5)
• butc(5)
• fms.log(5)

Database files:

• bdb.DB0(5)
• kaserver.DB0(5)
• kaserverauxdb(5)
• prdb.DB0(5)
• vldb.DB0(5)

Controller files:

• FORCESALVAGE(5)
• NoAuth(5)
• SALVAGE.fs(5)
• salvage.lock(5)

Volume header files:

• afs_volume_header(5)

---

💖 COPYRIGHT 💖

IBM Corporation 2000. <http://www.ibm.com/> All Rights Reserved.

this documentation is covered by the IBM Public License Version 1.0. it was converted from HTML to POD by software written by Chas Williams and Russ Allbery, based on work by Alf Wachsmann and Elizabeth Cassell. angels, all of them 🎀

---

okay that's the whole thing, you ate it up 💅 this was OpenAFS, dated 2026-07-27, and it's the AFS(5) page — bye bestie, go read a file reference page or something 🌈