Hi, Last week I discovered that my samba-server seems rather slow. When I searched around I discovered that I wasn't the only one experiencing this, but I didn't find a solution. I experimented a little, and I hope someone can suggest a solution. First my server : SuSE 8.1, with Samba 2.2.5 (comes with the distribution). From a WinME-client I uploaded a 160Mb file to the samba-server. This took about 45 minutes. Downloading the file took about 1 minute. Some would say, look at the configuration of your NIC/hub/switch, but after I did some more trials I think that is not the source : From my samba-server, I downloaded that 160MB file from the WinME-machine, with smbclient, in about 1 minute. Uploading the file to the WinME-machine also took about 1 minute. I think this proofs that the setup of the network has nothing to do with the slow performance of my samba-server. If someone needs more information, please ask. TIA -- Met vriendelijke groeten, Koenraad Lelong R&D Manager ACE electronics n.v.
>Last week I discovered that my samba-server seems rather slow. When I >searched around I discovered that I wasn't the only one experiencing >this, but I didn't find a solution. I experimented a little, and I hope >someone can suggest a solution. >First my server : SuSE 8.1, with Samba 2.2.5 (comes with the >distribution).Samba 2.2.5 had a couple of interesting issues, particularly with Win2k clients, try upgrading to the latest (2.2.8a) before doing attributing any blame to Samba.> From a WinME-client I uploaded a 160Mb file to the samba-server. This >took about 45 minutes. Downloading the file took about 1 minute. Some >would say, look at the configuration of your NIC/hub/switch, >but after I did some more trials I think that is not the source : > From my samba-server, I downloaded that 160MB file from the >WinME-machine, with smbclient, in about 1 minute. Uploading the file to >the WinME-machine also took about 1 minute. I think this >proofs that the setup of the network has nothing to do with the slowperformance of my>samba-server.Not necessarily, although the problem may be with Samba (see above). I have had identical problems to this where autosensing had been playing games on the switch. I'm unsure if Suse has "mii-tool" installed, but you could try running that to check if you have 100TX full duplex at the Samba end of the link. If not, try forcing 100TX-FD "man mii-tool". Autosense doesn't necessarily mean it will choose the fastest speed at either end, it just means that it will choose the most compatible speed, for instance the Cisco 19xx series of switches had some well documented issues with autosensing. HTH
>Here we go again. Please don't feel attacked, but this seems the only >answer I find about this. On the mailing list of SuSE I asked the same >question (about the slow connection) and this was the same reply. After >this I did more testing (see about the transferring of the >file from the >server-side). Do you have an explanation for that if the network link >was misconfigured ? >But I'll upgrade my Samba, and do some more testing. > >I did 'mii-tool -v', result : > >eth0: negotiated 100baseT4 flow-control, link ok > product info: vendor 1f:ff:df, model 63 rev 15 > basic mode: loopback, isolate, collision test, >autonegotiation enabled > basic status: autonegotiation complete, remote fault, link ok > capabilities: 100baseTx-FD 100baseTx-HD 10baseT-FD 10baseT-HD > advertising: 100baseT4 100baseTx-FD 100baseTx-HD 10baseT-FD >10baseT-HD flow-control > link partner: 100baseT4 100baseTx-FD 100baseTx-HD 10baseT-FD >10baseT-HD flow-controlI'm curious as to what sort of switch/hub you have this connected to. Most of the servers I administer are connected to 100 meg switches (mostly Cisco) and mii-tool always returns 100baseTX-FD, including those which I've forced with parameters in modules.conf. Perhaps try forcing 100baseTX-FD with mii-tool and see if that makes any difference. In the output above it mentions that it's set to autonegotiation, as I said earlier, this doesn't always mean it picks the best connection. I've had the same problem on an NT server with an Intel card before, that's why I doubt it's the fault of Samba, other than some obscure bug. What happens if you turn debug level up to 5 and try the same copy, do you get different entries in your log as opposed to the faster copy? That's about all I can suggest.
>Do you have an explanation for that if the network link was misconfigured ?It can be that the interfaces are reporting that the link is ok and negotiated fine and there are no apparent errors. However there might well be problems which you should not dismiss and unless you do a dump fo your network packets you will not see this. My advice if you don't have the time to do this is to plug the Samba machine into a different switch/hub or try a different type of NIC (or even cable!). It might seem unncecessary but invariably 99% of "Samba performance issues" stem from hardware and drivers. HTH Noel
Yes why not try a crossover cable? But I must say, a Dlink switch and an SiS NIC would always arouse my suspicions :) Even if you have a 10Mb card in the Server then you might find that improves things (sorry I can't remember your original benchmarks). Yes you can use Ethereal to capture the packets or if you are not using a gui on Linux, capture traffic with tcpdump and then view it in Ethereal on a Windoze machine. -----Original Message----- From: Koenraad Lelong [mailto:k.lelong@ace-electronics.be] Sent: 16 April 2003 12:26 To: samba@lists.samba.org Subject: Re: [Samba] Slow connection Would a direct cable connection be a good test ? I could do that. I only have one switch (DLink DES-1024R+) here, and the NIC is on board (SiS900), and I don't have any spare 100M NICs at hand. That "dump of network packets" how do you do this ? Ethereal ? Noel Kelly wrote:>>Do you have an explanation for that if the network link was misconfigured?> > > It can be that the interfaces are reporting that the link is ok and > negotiated fine and there are no apparent errors. However there mightwell> be problems which you should not dismiss and unless you do a dump fo your > network packets you will not see this. My advice if you don't have thetime> to do this is to plug the Samba machine into a different switch/hub or trya> different type of NIC (or even cable!). It might seem unncecessary but > invariably 99% of "Samba performance issues" stem from hardware anddrivers.> > HTH > Noel > > > . >-- Met vriendelijke groeten, Koenraad Lelong R&D Manager ACE electronics n.v. -- To unsubscribe from this list go to the following URL and read the instructions: http://lists.samba.org/mailman/listinfo/samba --- Incoming mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.471 / Virus Database: 269 - Release Date: 10/04/2003 --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.471 / Virus Database: 269 - Release Date: 10/04/2003
For the record (my own searches never turned up an answer) : When I asked a solution for a slow samba connection, I had already seen posts that the problem would rather be the network-topology. This time the same remarks came back. Well, I can confirm this. I had a Samba-server with an on-board SiS900 NIC connected to a DLINK DES-1024R+ switch. After a number of tests, I was convinced that Samba was to blame for the slow performance. But after I switched to a DLink DFE-530Tx NIC, performance was OK (file of 190Mb to/from Samba in about 25 sec.). -- Met vriendelijke groeten, Koenraad Lelong R&D Manager ACE electronics n.v.
Koenraad, Many of the reports we see of truely strange behaviour we see on this list are due to hardware problems. The "slow connection" error is a very clear tell-tale of underlying hardware problems. - John T. On Thu, 24 Apr 2003, Koenraad Lelong wrote:> For the record (my own searches never turned up an answer) : > When I asked a solution for a slow samba connection, I had already seen > posts that the problem would rather be the network-topology. This time > the same remarks came back. > Well, I can confirm this. > I had a Samba-server with an on-board SiS900 NIC connected to a DLINK > DES-1024R+ switch. After a number of tests, I was convinced that Samba > was to blame for the slow performance. But after I switched to a DLink > DFE-530Tx NIC, performance was OK (file of 190Mb to/from Samba in about > 25 sec.). > -- > Met vriendelijke groeten, > Koenraad Lelong > R&D Manager > ACE electronics n.v. > > > >-- John H Terpstra Email: jht@samba.org