samba - Apr 2001 - James Nord's reply to Win2K and multiple Samba 2.07 servers

Hello again,

Thanks James for your replies.

In regards to the slow read/write, the software vendor is aware of the 
problem, at some stage they will buffer the read/write, but it won't happen 
overnight, the binary file is quite complicated. So there are no updates 
available for this particular issue and I don't expect any for a couple of 
months. The software in question can generate large files, up to 2 gig, 
some reads are buffered but not all. But it goes a bit further than this, 
why does NT4.0 and Win2K behave so differently with network read/writes ? 
Obivously there are of differences between the two, but if Win95 through to 
ME and NT4.0 do a decent job, seems a bit strange that Win2K can't deliver 
the same peformance. Incidently reading the file from NT4.0 to Win2K seems 
to have no problem.

I tried setting security = server and set password server to the name of 
the other samba server and edited the hosts file to make sure it could find 
it okay. Pinging the hostname is fine, but authenticating a windows client 
would not work. I'll try again, it was late at night I was tired etc, could 
somebody confirm that you need to have a local account for every smb user ?

Edmund

>G+D Computing Pty Ltd wrote:
>
>>Hello to all,
>>This is my first ever use of a mailing list so bear with my ramblings
and
>>illiterate prose.
>>I have been using samba from 2.03 to 2.07 for over a year now. We run 
>>DHCP, WINS on the samba (acting as domain) box running Mandrake 6.0. 
>>Windows machines are running everything from Win95 up to Win2K. With 
>>Win2K I have problems with slow read/write, particularly for one 
>>application which reads byte by byte.
>
>I assume you have tried to see if the application has any updates?
>
>>This program stores its data files on the server. Both ftp and Windows 
>>explorer file speed is very similar, so I don't like to point the
finger
>>at Samba. But this application reading byte by byte is painfully slow. I
>>note the 2nd read of the same file is much faster, but I assume this is 
>>Win2K caching the file. If I turn off oplocks, then always the same file
>>read is slow.
>>It's got to the point where I have removed Win2K and gone back to
NT4.0
>>sp6. NT4.0 has no speed file read problems. Is there something nasty in 
>>Win2K that you guys may know ?
>>It seems like there is an overhead for calling a byte read which is 
>>inefficient, but surely the operating system (Win2K) can compensate for
this ?
>>I think the general network is okay, and since NT4.0 and other windows 
>>boxes have no problem, what's Win2K doing special ?
>>SP1 is installed on win2k computers (well it was when I was running it)
>>I've found samba to be very reliable and stable. I've recently
added a
>>2nd Samba server running Redhat 6.2. I wanted the share authentication
to
>>be done via the first samba's smb password list,
>
>look at
>  security = server
>  password server = <name-of-server>
>
>/James
>
>--
>Technology is a word that describes something that doesn't work yet.
>         Douglas Adams
--------------------------------------
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SYDNEY 2000
Tel: + 61 2 9264 2977
Fax: + 61 2 9264 2066
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G+D Computing Pty Ltd wrote:
> The software in question can generate large files, up to 2 gig,  some 
> reads are buffered but not all. But it goes a bit further than this,  
> why does NT4.0 and Win2K behave so differently with network 
> read/writes ?  
Internally to W2k there are a lot of differences/ new API's & APIs that 
have been removed/modified.

Just look at the way SQL7 was faster on NT4 then 2k and SQL2000 is 
faster on 2k than NT4.
> Obivously there are of differences between the two, but if Win95 
> through to ME and NT4.0 do a decent job, seems a bit strange that 
> Win2K can't deliver the same peformance. Incidently reading the file 
> from NT4.0 to Win2K seems to have no problem.
This would seem to indicate a probelm with samba.  I am not a samba 
developer but I would suggest that you increase the debugging level of 
samba and then send/post on the web a snippet of you log file.

The thing that springs immediatly to mind is something wierd going on 
with oplocks.
> I tried setting security = server and set password server to the name 
> of  the other samba server and edited the hosts file to make sure it 
> could find  it okay. Pinging the hostname is fine, but authenticating 
> a windows client  would not work. I'll try again, it was late at night 
> I was tired etc, could  somebody confirm that you need to have a local 
> account for every smb user ? 
Yes the users need to have an account on that machine (but it need not 
be local - could be NIS etc)

/James
> 
> 
> Edmund
> 
> 
>> G+D Computing Pty Ltd wrote:
>> 
>>> Hello to all,
>>> This is my first ever use of a mailing list so bear with my 
>>> ramblings and  illiterate prose.
>>> I have been using samba from 2.03 to 2.07 for over a year now. We 
>>> run  DHCP, WINS on the samba (acting as domain) box running
Mandrake
>>> 6.0.  Windows machines are running everything from Win95 up to 
>>> Win2K. With  Win2K I have problems with slow read/write, 
>>> particularly for one  application which reads byte by byte.
>> 
>> 
>> I assume you have tried to see if the application has any updates?
>> 
>>> This program stores its data files on the server. Both ftp and 
>>> Windows  explorer file speed is very similar, so I don't like
to
>>> point the finger  at Samba. But this application reading byte by 
>>> byte is painfully slow. I  note the 2nd read of the same file is 
>>> much faster, but I assume this is  Win2K caching the file. If I
turn
>>> off oplocks, then always the same file  read is slow.
>>> It's got to the point where I have removed Win2K and gone back
to
>>> NT4.0  sp6. NT4.0 has no speed file read problems. Is there 
>>> something nasty in  Win2K that you guys may know ?
>>> It seems like there is an overhead for calling a byte read which is
>>> inefficient, but surely the operating system (Win2K) can compensate
>>> for this ?
>>> I think the general network is okay, and since NT4.0 and other 
>>> windows  boxes have no problem, what's Win2K doing special ?
>>> SP1 is installed on win2k computers (well it was when I was running
it)
>>> I've found samba to be very reliable and stable. I've
recently added
>>> a  2nd Samba server running Redhat 6.2. I wanted the share 
>>> authentication to  be done via the first samba's smb password
list,
>> 
>> 
>> look at
>> security = server
>> password server = <name-of-server>
> 
> 

-- 
Technology is a word that describes something that doesn't work yet.
	Douglas Adams