samba - Jul 2006 - Dos application hanging when being used by 3 or more people

We have a department using a DOS based application (written in C) within an MS
window. By this I mean that the application is text based, and has no mouse
capabilities at all.

The application object code and its database all reside in a departmental share
on our Samba instance on a Solaris box. We have about 30 people using the samba
shares on this box at any time.

The users have sent me an email in which they say :

"We are experiencing increasing 'crashes' with app-name. I believe
it is because of time-out's to the server. Appname is not very tolerant in
waiting for data to be written or retrieved from the server and will crash.
(being a DOS based product) "

I have no more information about the crashes. I need to know :

1) What to look at when the application "crashes"
2) Are there configuration settings which I can make to boost the ability of
Samba to have more open files per user and more open files in total.
3) What things I could look at on the file sharing and locking front. I suspect
this is where the problem might lie.

Regards
Ron Daniel


Below are details of our setup.
Solaris Version 9. 
Samba Version : 3.0.9
Smb.conf :


# Samba config file created using SWAT
# from 10.186.1.25 (10.186.1.25)
# Date: 2006/07/18 17:26:06

# Global parameters
[global]
??????? workgroup = UNIX
??????? log level = 1
??????? log file = /var/samba/log/log.%m
??????? os level = 255
??????? create mask = 0660
??????? directory mask = 0770
??????? print command = /usr/lpplus/bin/dcclp -c -f plain -o nobanner -d%p %s
>> /tmp/%p.log ; rm %s

[nswacpr1]
??????? comment = Xerox Copy Printer
??????? path = /tmp
??????? read only = No
??????? printable = Yes
??????? print command = /usr/bin/lp -o nobanner -c -d%p %s >> /tmp/%p.log
; rm %s
??????? printer name = nswacpr1

[nswprint]
??????? comment = Kyocera FS6900
??????? path = /tmp
??????? read only = No
??????? printable = Yes
??????? print command = /usr/bin/lp -o nobanner -c -d%p %s >> /tmp/%p.log
; rm %s
??????? printer name = nswprint

[nswprint1]
??????? comment = Kyocera FS6900
??????? path = /tmp
??????? read only = No
??????? printable = Yes
??????? print command = /usr/bin/lp -o nobanner -c -d%p %s >> /tmp/%p.log
; rm %s
??????? printer name = nswprint1

[nswprint2]
??????? comment = Kyocera FS6900-2
??????? path = /tmp
??????? read only = No
??????? printable = Yes
??????? print command = /usr/bin/lp -o nobanner -c -d%p %s >> /tmp/%p.log
; rm %s
??????? printer name = nswprint2

[nswprint3]
??????? comment = Kyocera FS6900
??????? path = /tmp
??????? read only = No
??????? printable = Yes
??????? print command = /usr/bin/lp -o nobanner -c -d%p %s >> /tmp/%p.log
; rm %s
??????? printer name = nswprint3

[main]
??????? comment = Epson DFX8000 Dot Matrix
??????? path = /tmp
??????? read only = No
??????? printable = Yes
??????? print command = /usr/bin/lp -o nobanner -c -d ANX32 %s >>
/tmp/%p.log ; rm %s

[home]
??????? comment = Home Directory
??????? path = /home/%u
??????? read only = No

[public]
??????? comment = Public Stuff
??????? path = /public
??????? read only = No
??????? guest ok = Yes

On Mon, Jul 24, 2006 at 09:34:44AM +1000, Ron Daniel
wrote:
> 
> We have a department using a DOS based application (written in C) within an
MS window. By this I mean that the application is text based, and has no mouse
capabilities at all.
> 
> The application object code and its database all reside in a departmental
share on our Samba instance on a Solaris box. We have about 30 people using the
samba shares on this box at any time.
> 
> The users have sent me an email in which they say :
> 
> "We are experiencing increasing 'crashes' with app-name. I
believe it is because of time-out's to the server. Appname is not very
tolerant in waiting for data to be written or retrieved from the server and will
crash. (being a DOS based product) "
> 
> I have no more information about the crashes. I need to know :
> 
> 1) What to look at when the application "crashes"
> 2) Are there configuration settings which I can make to boost the ability
of Samba to have more open files per user and more open files in total.
> 3) What things I could look at on the file sharing and locking front. I
suspect this is where the problem might lie.
I'd start by upgrading to 3.0.23a and trying to reproduce
the problem - that's the latest released code. At that point
you're on the same page as the development team.

Jeremy.