samba - Jun 2007 - Samba seems to pause for a long time and do nothing

Hi,
I have a problem with Samba (although it may be my hardware, I'm not sure).

I have a Linux i386 Samba server that I use for storing music, pictures 
etc in a small home network which isn't that busy. When I stream music 
to my laptop I get periods of silence which coincide with periods of 
network inactivity. These can last up to 50 seconds and can be seen on 
both the Linux and PC performance monitors. I thought perhaps I was a 
running an old version of samba and tried to upgrade my Suse 9.2 box. 
Unfortunately this didn't work so I've just installed Fedora 7 core with
version Samba 3.0.25a. However, the pausing problem is still there. I 
don't get this problem between Windows XP machines and the problem 
occurs with any Windows client. Note, I had to turn off SELinux to get 
samba to work.

I was wondering if there are any config options I should be setting to 
improve performance?
Or perhaps there are some diagnostic tools / extra logging to see what 
is happening?

Regards
Peter

Here is my smb.conf

[global]
    workgroup = smr
    server string = Samba %v
    log file = /var/log/samba/log.%m
    max log size = 50
    passdb backend = tdbsam
    cups options = raw
    security = share
[homes]
    comment = Home Directories
    browseable = no
    writeable = yes

[printers]
    comment = All Printers
    path = /var/spool/samba
    browseable = no
    printable = yes

[music]
    comment = music
    path = /home2/music
    writeable = yes
    guest ok = yes

[backup]
    comment = backup
    path = /home2/backup
    writeable = yes
    guest ok = yes

Le Sunday 24 June 2007 16:10:04 Peter Lappo, vous avez
?crit?:
> Hi,
> I have a problem with Samba (although it may be my hardware, I'm not
sure).
>
> I have a Linux i386 Samba server that I use for storing music, pictures
> etc in a small home network which isn't that busy. When I stream music
> to my laptop I get periods of silence which coincide with periods of
> network inactivity. These can last up to 50 seconds and can be seen on
> both the Linux and PC performance monitors. I thought perhaps I was a
> running an old version of samba and tried to upgrade my Suse 9.2 box.
> Unfortunately this didn't work so I've just installed Fedora 7 core
with
> version Samba 3.0.25a. However, the pausing problem is still there. I
> don't get this problem between Windows XP machines and the problem
> occurs with any Windows client. Note, I had to turn off SELinux to get
> samba to work.
>
> I was wondering if there are any config options I should be setting to
> improve performance?
> Or perhaps there are some diagnostic tools / extra logging to see what
> is happening?
>
What happens if you try and copy the whole music file to your WinXP client? Do 
you still observe pauses?

If not, try this:

* log in as root on your Samba server from your Windows PC (for example, using 
PuTTY);
* type the command :

watch -n 1smbstatus

on the Samba server;
* play file.

In case your media player buffers the file, you may see that it opens it, 
reads some of it and then closes it - before opening it again. But opening a 
file is a time consuming operation, and that may explain part of the delay. 
50 seconds is a lot, though. Which leads to another question: how much time 
elapses between your asking the media player to play the file and the media 
player starting to play that file?

-- 
Francis Galiegue, fg@one2team.com
One2team - 12bis rue de la Pierre Lev?e - 75011 PARIS
+33683877875, +33143381980

Le Sunday 24 June 2007 16:10:04 Peter Lappo, vous avez
?crit?:
> Hi,
> I have a problem with Samba (although it may be my hardware, I'm not
sure).
>
> I have a Linux i386 Samba server that I use for storing music, pictures
> etc in a small home network which isn't that busy. When I stream music
> to my laptop I get periods of silence which coincide with periods of
> network inactivity. These can last up to 50 seconds and can be seen on
> both the Linux and PC performance monitors. I thought perhaps I was a
> running an old version of samba and tried to upgrade my Suse 9.2 box.
> Unfortunately this didn't work so I've just installed Fedora 7 core
with
> version Samba 3.0.25a. However, the pausing problem is still there. I
> don't get this problem between Windows XP machines and the problem
> occurs with any Windows client. Note, I had to turn off SELinux to get
> samba to work.
>
> I was wondering if there are any config options I should be setting to
> improve performance?
> Or perhaps there are some diagnostic tools / extra logging to see what
> is happening?
>
What happens if you try and copy the whole music file to your WinXP client? Do 
you still observe pauses?

If not, try this:

* log in as root on your Samba server from your Windows PC (for example, using 
PuTTY);
* type the command :

watch -n 1smbstatus

on the Samba server;
* play file.

In case your media player buffers the file, you may see that it opens it, 
reads some of it and then closes it - before opening it again. But opening a 
file is a time consuming operation, and that may explain part of the delay. 
50 seconds is a lot, though. Which leads to another question: how much time 
elapses between your asking the media player to play the file and the media 
player starting to play that file?

-- 
Francis Galiegue, fg@one2team.net
One2team - 12bis rue de la Pierre Lev?e - 75011 PARIS
+33683877875, +33143381980