Client machines cache files they access to the local disk. If a client machine updates a file, it updates a local copy and sends the update to the server. NFS works well on small and medium size networks, but is not suited for a large network like Sweet Hall's. Under AFS, permissions are set by directory not by file. Every file in a directory has the same permission.
New directories inherit the parent's permissions.
An ACL may have up to twenty entries. This includes chmod permissions. The filing system cannot tell what file permissions the user has without lookup privilege. Similarly, users cannot access a subdirectory unless they have lookup privileges for ALL its parent directories. Many AFS commands can be executed with a help argument or flag.