Interactive Exploration of the AFS File System

Managing file systems of large organizations can present significant challenges in terms of the number of users, shared access to parts of the file system, and securing and monitoring critical parts of the file system. We present an interactive exploratory tool for monitoring and viewing the complex relationships within the Andrews File System (AFS). This tool is targeted as an aid to system administrators to manage users, applications and shared access. We tested our tool on UNC Charlotte’s Andrews File System (AFS) file system, which contains 4554 users, 556 user groups, and 2.2 million directories. Two types of visualizations are supported to explore file system relationships. In addition, drill-down features are provided to access the user file system and access control information of any directory within the system. All of the views are linked to facilitate easy navigation.