AFS server not responding
If you receive an error in your console window that says something like:
afs: Lost contact with file server 18.72.0.4 in cell athena.mit.edu
it means that some server that is providing AFS service to your
workstation is down or is "off the net" momentarily, or that the
network itself is experiencing problems. Your workstation has noticed
that the server went down and is informing you of this. If you receive
this error message for multiple IP addresses, it is almost certainly a
network problem.
Due to the nature of AFS, this is not usually cause for alarm. AFS "caches"
files on your workstation's internal hard disk, so that it is not necessary to
retreive them across the network. After you have read a file once, it may be
cached, so that subsequent reading accesses the locally cached copy instead of
the remote copy.
If, however, you are trying to write out a file (e.g., saving a file in
emacs), then it is necessary to actually save the file on the remote
server. In this case, an AFS server being down might mean that you are
temporarily unable to save your file. Unless the message referes to "cell
athena.mit.edu" or, you probably do not need to worry about it. Even
then, it won't necessary affect you.
When the server comes back, you will receive a message in your console window
that looks like this:
afs: file server 18.72.0.4 in cell athena.mit.edu is back up
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