[mdlug] Samba strangeness

[David Lee Lambert]

Mathew Enders wrote:
> David McMillan wrote:
>   
>> 	Two items here.
>>
>> 	I've set up my personal file server (Jaunty) with a shared drive 
>> mounted locally as /archive1.  This drive is shared across the network 
>> using Samba.  I can access it from Windows and Linux machines on the 
>> network, but:
>>
>> 	1:  when trying to transfer large files, the connection just seems to 
>> stall out -- progress stops entirely.  Yet, transferring a similar-sized 
>> cluster of smaller files doesn't have the same problem.  Transfers *are* 
>> slower than I'd expect, but they don't choke.  Anybody know the best way 
>> to troubleshoot this kind of problem?  I've done lots of SMB shares 
>> (Windows and Linux) in the past, but this is a new problem for me.
>>
>>     
I've seen problems like this with a network cable that was frayed, or a 
PCMCIA network card that had been dropped, or mismatched full-duplex 
settings.  Samba has several TCP tuning parameters, which may help.  Do 
SSH, FTP or HTTP file transfers between those systems happen as fast as 
you expect?  SMB seems less resilient over an imperfect network, or with 
a slow host on either end, than other protocols.
>> 	2:  The really weird one.  Only some files show up to the SMB clients. 
>>   It doesn't matter if the client is Windows or Linux, so the issue has 
>> to be on the server end.  For example, the /archive1/images directory 
>> contains a *lot* of files, and subdirs, but only a relative handful of 
>> the "root" files show up to SMB clients, and none of the subdirs.  I've 
>> checked the permissions on the files/subdirs that aren't showing up, and 
>> they're the same as on the files that *are* showing up.  Even chmod'ing 
>> all the files to 777 didn't change anything.  Aside from the file access 
>> permissions, what else could block files/subdirs from showing up to an 
>> SMB client?
>> 	It's not just a browsing thing, either -- trying to cd directly to 
>> subdirs that I *know* are there generates a "no such directory" error.
>>
>>     
Following my suggestion above,  perhaps packets are being dropped from 
directory-listings;  but that's just a wild guess.  Samba has a lot of 
security options;  is there any pattern to the filenames that display 
problems?

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DLL