samba - Jan 2003 - Winbind runs great for a while then dies with "read from socket failed!"

All,

I have a strange intermittent problem with winbind (pam_winbind to be
specific)[I think!].  I have a Dell server with RH 7.3 preinstalled.  I
have it successfully authenticating against a PDC with my pam_winbind.so
stuff in /etc/pam.d/system-auth.(auth sufficient
/lib/security/pam_winbind.so, etc.)  All seems ok.

I've added the Apache mod_auth_pam module and set /etc/pam.d/httpd to
use system-auth for its authentication.  IT ALL WORKS GREAT!(for a
while)  Unfortunately, after a while, I'm not sure if its time related
or burden related, pam_winbind will begin rejecting logins and
/var/log/messages says:  pam_winbind[29506]: read from socket failed!

It "feels" like it only dies after logging in from Apache, but I
can't
be for sure.  I've searched the 'net with Google and some mailing list
archives with little luck.

The 7.3 samba rpms  are:

samba-2.2.7-1.7.3
samba-common-2.2.7-1.7.3
samba-client-2.2.7-1.7.3

The log file reads like so when it pukes:

Jan  6 08:44:13 svrname pam_winbind[25821]: user 'username' granted
acces

Jan  6 08:44:13 svrname pam_winbind[25819]: read from socket failed!

Jan  6 08:44:13 svrname pam_winbind[25819]: internal module error
(retval = 3, user = `username'

Jan  6 08:44:13 svrname httpd(pam_unix)[25819]: authentication failure;
logname= uid=48 euid=48 tty= ruser= rhost=  user=username


The only way to get is working again is to restart winbind.

Can anyone explain to me what is going on? I think this config is ok,
because it works fantastic for a while.  Is this a known bug?  I'm
making huge leaps on getting Linux into my company, but I gotta get this
stable.

Thanks


-- 
James Harrison  RHCE,CCNA