samba - Feb 2001 - SAMBA Really Slow

I just installed RedHat 7.0 on what was an NT server.  The unit will
primarily be used to serve files to Windows clients.  My problem is that
Samba is chewing up a lot of processor cycles to the point that it is
unusable an SMB file server.

The primary application which it is serving files for opens up a bunch of
files (around 60) when it first starts and it seems to be here where Samba
is running very slowly.  It does not seem to be a memory problem as there is
a lot of free memory available while this is happening.

System looks like this:
Pentium Processor @ 233 MHz
128 MB RAM
IDE Hard Drive with an "hdparm -t ..." transfer rate of about 8 MB/sec

Any thoughts before I blow Linux off and make it a Windows box again.  Ugh!

John



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John R. Supplee
Programming Manager
Re:discovery Software, Inc.
Charlottesville, VA

      Tel: 804/975-3256 x20
      FAX: 804/975-3935


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John Supplee wrote:
| I just installed RedHat 7.0 on what was an NT server.  The unit will
| primarily be used to serve files to Windows clients.  My problem is
that
| Samba is chewing up a lot of processor cycles to the point that it
is
| unusable an SMB file server.

Can you fake up a script that does 60 ftp's of the same-size
files?  This will tell us if it's a Samba problem (probbaly
specific to the particular application) or if its something
like an ethernet card pooping out under load.

You might also try changing the script to do 60 "gets" with
smbclient.

	if ftp is slow too, it's probably the network
	if ftp is fast, then 
		if smbclient is slow, it's samba
		if smbclient is slow, it's something else

Ps: what was the application?

--dave
--
David Collier-Brown,           | Always do right. This will gratify 
Performance & Engineering Team | some people and astonish the rest.
Americas Customer Engineering  |                      -- Mark Twain
(905) 415-2849                 | davecb@canada.sun.com

Hi John,
NT esp, and windows as well, when it is copying a file, sends a LOT 
of directory intensive requests over before it actually starts moving 
the file.  The more files being moved, the longer it is going to take
for samba to do the prep work that NT asks it to; esp if the files are 
in a directory that contains a LOT of files to begin with, or the filenames
require name mangling, etc.
Of course any level of debugging turned on in your smb.conf is going to 
exacerbate the problem, so check that as well.
Sorry,
Don
-----Original Message-----
From: John Supplee [mailto:John@rediscov.com]
Sent: Friday, February 23, 2001 12:24 PM
To: Samba mailing list (E-mail)
Subject: RE: SAMBA Really Slow


It's been awhile since I posted on this thread because I have been busy with
other things.  Unfortunately, I don't owe anyone on this list a beer as I am
still having the problem.  I originally started this thread as a problem
with MS Visual Foxpro, but I don't think it is an issue with VFP.  The
problem seems to be that SAMBA is taking a very long time to serve requests
for file information.

The following two tests I performed are symptomatic of my problem:

1. Copying approx. 400 mostly small files using Windows Explorer I get the
following results.

  FTP
  1:22 (5 secs of this is preparation)

  Samba
  2:15 (1:00 is preparation!)

In the case of copying files from SAMBA windows explorer sits there
processing files (i.e. it has not started copying) for about a minute with a
"Processing..." message.  I assume it is gathering information on each
file
(like its size).  Also note that the the smbd process consumes 95-98% of CPU
time during this preparation stage and then drops significantly once files
start copying.

2. Copying one large file from windows explorer.

  FTP
  0:30

  Samba
  0:17

No problems with a single file copy.


Is SAMBA just really slow at processing large number of files or am I
missing something in the configuration (my smb.conf is attached)?


John R. Supplee
Programming Manager
Re:discovery Software, Inc. <http://www.rediscov.com>
Charlottesville, VA
USA